{"id":286064,"date":"2018-10-05T06:06:43","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T20:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=286064"},"modified":"2018-10-05T06:06:43","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T20:06:43","slug":"come-out-and-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/come-out-and-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Come out and watch"},"content":{"rendered":"
The CNMI\u2019s Sebastien Manabat, left, collides with a Guam player who leaps for a header during their game in the 2017 Marianas Cup at the Guam Football Association National Training Center. (Guam Football Association)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Northern Marianas Islands Football Association has this open invitation to the community, as it hosts the 2018 Marianas Cup that will feature two matches between the CNMI and Guam this Sunday at the NMI Soccer Training Center in Koblerville.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome and join us, as we watch our squads\u2014the CNMI men\u2019s U17 and women\u2019s U19 national teams\u2014play against Guam. We are excited to host this year\u2019s Marianas Cup and it will be great if we could have the members of our community support our teams as they play in our new pitch for the first time (official match) against Guam,\u201d NMIFA general secretary Ross Zapanta said.<\/p>\n

Game time is at 4pm for the women\u2019s U19 and 7pm for the men\u2019s. U17 Before each match, members from the opposing squads will be escorted by young players on their way out to the main pitch. These youth are selected from the various football clubs on Saipan and had a dry run of the opening ceremony early this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is doing its part to make sure that we have a successful Marianas Cup,\u201d said Zapanta, adding that they have also invited government officials and business leaders to this weekend\u2019s event, while an East Asian Football Confederation official will also come to the island to witness the historic games on Saipan\u2019s first soccer facility.<\/p>\n

Commemorative shirts were printed for the event and NMIFA is calling spectators to wear them when they go to the Koblerville pitch to show support to the two CNMI national teams.<\/p>\n

Fostering football development<\/strong>
\nGuam is bringing in 36 players (18 each in the men\u2019s U17 and women\u2019s U19) to Saipan for the Marianas Cup, which Guam Football Association said fosters the development of football in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth teams have been preparing for various upcoming competitions, which includes the Marianas Cup this weekend. The Marianas Cup is of historical significance to both the Guam FA and the NMI FA. The tournament was established to create a consistent competition between teams from Guam and the NMI, and although the format and the teams playing may have changed over the years, the tournament continues to foster the development of football in the Marianas region,\u201d GFA technical director Belinda Wilson.<\/p>\n

She added that the tournament will also help them practice the new playing style of Guam\u2019s youth teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this particular tournament, the main objectives for the teams from Guam are to continue to implement Guam\u2019s new playing style with the U17 and U19 squads training for upcoming AFC tournaments and Guam\u2019s culture, values, and expectations on the pitch and use the tournament as an additional platform to improve Guam\u2019s current operating processes. If all these objectives are achieved, Guam\u2019s teams will be successful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northern Marianas Islands Football Association has this open invitation to the community, as it hosts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":286065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,5534,742,198],"class_list":["post-286064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-guam-football-association","tag-marianas-cup","tag-nmifa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}