In Thursday April 18, boys from middle and high school went to Cumbres to compete in a soccer tournament organized by the school.

They were invited by the Cumbres school to form a competitive soccer championship alongside three other teams; Cumbres itself, Mano Amiga and Itagui Soccer.

“We attend this competition for the kids, we know they enjoy attending this type of events. We hope they have fun and we do a good job in the tournament,” said Urbano Mesa, Columbus High School soccer coach and P.E teacher, before the tournament started.

The team qualified in first place for the final in a group of four teams, after playing three matches in the same day. Even though it was exhausting for the players, the team responded brilliantly to the adversities.

“We won the first three games and thankfully could earn a place in the final,” said Juan Osorio, 9th grade Columbus School student.

The first stage was played without any type of problem, our school did an excellent job and played as expected. The matches were played with Fair Play and sportsmanship by all the teams.

“It was a fair tournament even though there were some problems with the local team because they were really passionate about the game, but overall everyone did the best they could to provide fairness to each team, including referees and teachers. This helped us play better,” said Santiago Jimenez, 11th grade Columbus School student.

The final was played the next day against Mano Amiga, the team that classified second in the group stage. Even though the Columbus School had beat them the day before, they lost against Mano Amiga in a penalty shootout after tying 1-1 in the game, ending in second place of the tournament.

“We lose the final because we had bad luck in the penalty shootout, this is a lottery for both teams and they won it,” said Osorio.

Even though the result was not as the team expected, everyone was satisfied with what they had done and accepted the loss with humility.

“I think we deserved finishing in second place even though the goal was being champions, I think we deserved it because the other team was more prepared and focused than us. We were overconfident and thought that we were going to win easily since the beginning, this affected us and we couldn’t won, we could’ve played much better,” said Jimenez.

The outcome of the tournament was positive in general because the school had a great performance, and the players, as well as the teachers, had an awesome time in Cumbres.

“I like participating this type of tournaments because I enjoy a lot going to other schools to play soccer as well as the students, I hope we continue having these types of tournaments throughout the year,” said Mesa.