Eleven Tiger claws way to championship

Northern Mariana Islands Football Association’s Eleven Tiger Football Club clawed their way to victory in the Inaugural Marianas Club Championship.

Eleven Tiger had home field advantage and the crowd on their side as they edged Guam’s Wings FC, 2-1, last Saturday at a lively and jam-packed NMI Soccer Training Center in Koblerville.

The championship was sponsored by the East Asian Football Confederation, of which the CNMI and Guam are members.

Marianas Soccer League 1 champions Eleven Tiger was crowned champion for a reason and they showed off their skills and teamwork again—this time against a Guam team—one they had not played against before.

Possession did not grace both teams easily as they were evenly matched throughout, but after a quiet first half, Eleven Tigers’ Tanapon Unsa struck gold with a goal that slipped past Guam goalie Jacob Anthony Toves in the 54th minute.

Wings’ offense was on scramble mode and were looking to even it up quickly as time wound down, but Eleven Tigers’ Sunjoon Tenorio grabbed a foothold and made a strong beeline to the goal for a 2-0 advantage.

Too many missed opportunities for Wings stacked up and the end of the match was nigh when they finally snagged the net in the 90th minute by way of Yvan Tcheugoue. By then, it was too little too late and the home team and crowd exploded into cheers as Eleven Tiger won the first Marianas Club Championships.

The most valuable player of the championship was Eleven Tiger’s impenetrable goalie Jamin Elliot.

Eleven Tiger also included team captain Dave Mafnas, John Masga, Unsa, Tenorio, Elliot, Ariel Narvaez Jr., Jonne Navarro, Anthony Austria, Jerald Aquino, Akira Kadokura, Anthony Bergancia, Dane Hodges, Saixian Bagsic, Brandon Tenorio, and Seho Baek.

Eleven Tiger coach Bada Lee said the matchup was “very tough” as they had no knowledge or information about their opponent. He said that Wings was “a very good team and they came with a lot of energy and high soccer IQ. The team played exactly the way we needed to play.”

With that, Lee said they understood they weren’t going to be able to control the ball or outplay them, so “we focused more on our defense with the leadership of our captain Dave Mafnas and his center back partner John Masga.”

Lee said the team played “smart” and knew they needed to take as many chances as they could and execute them perfectly—as shown by Tanapon Unsa and Sunjoon Tenorio’s two goals.

Lee added that the match “was a big team effort and we played perfectly with what we were given and understanding what was needed of us. It felt amazing bringing home the championship for our team, supporters, our sponsors Tribe and Drip Pacific, and the island itself.

“We felt a sense of pride representing the NMI in this match and we are extremely happy about winning and getting the result. We are a new club and for us to achieve something so great in a short period of time shows the effort of our boys on and off the field and we are so proud,” said Lee.