MPL Success in Week 1 of Fritz Marth Cup Qualifying

Mountain Premier League teams, GAM United FC, and FC Boulder both got off to great starts to qualifying on Saturday the 6th.  It was a partly clouded windy day at the Long Lake Soccer Park in Arvada Colorado where group play was scheduled to kickoff at 4pm. Teams arrived early and proceeded to warm up. Once players were checked in and officials were done inspecting the grounds and mending the goal nets it was up to the teams to perform. The only item noticeably out of place was the facility manager arriving with and installing the corner flags for the fields a short time after 4:20pm during match play having little to no affect on the outcome of the first halves of this competition.

The natural grass surfaces played fast and the southeastern blowing winds added to the challenge. It took FC Boulder 15 minutes to get off the mark with their first goal of the campaign coming through Malik Mennana. When FC Boulder's head coach Kyle Lineberger was asked how he felt his team performed he answered, "Overall, I thought the match Saturday against NCFL Seleccion was a good start to the season. We were able to see things come out inside the match that we'd been focusing on in training in the week's prior which is positive, but we also know that things are going to get harder as the tournament progresses so we need to focus and put in the work over the next several weeks to achieve our ultimate goal of becoming state champions."

We also asked coach Kyle if anything would change going into this weeks preparations?  "As always, I'll assess the performance in depth and look to focus this week on areas where I think we can improve in order to help us as we get into the tougher matches ahead.  Utilizing the flanks and getting our outside backs into the attack, defending in central areas, and creating and finishing chances will be particular areas of focus."

GAM United FC had no time to acclimate facing CO Super League table leader Guadalajara SC Premier in their first game.  We asked GAM head coach Bruce Mitchley about what he took away from GAM's first game experience in this years edition and he said, "We have an immense amount of talent and guys are feeling very strong. Guadalajara played with a lot of tenacity and didn't give up. It was a well deserved result for GAM and we are looking forward to our season."

Bruce explained that going into preparation for this week he felt, "GAM performed very well. It's the beginning of the season and we are doing very well from a preparation standpoint." 

This Saturday April 13th FC Boulder will face Indios Denver at 4pm, Field #4 at Long Lake Park. GAM United will face SL Apatzingan, Field #3.

GAM United FC (yellow) and FC Boulder (red) starting XI below.