The much-anticipated football game between the champions of the Commonwealth Football League and the All-Stars of the Miller Football League has been cancelled for the second straight year.<\/p>\n
According to CFL chairman John Blanco, the head coach of the Guam team, Ray Souza, called him to cancel the contest last week, citing a lack of funds and an apparent lack of commitment from his players as the reason for pulling out of the game for the second year in a row. <\/p>\n
\u201cWell, at least they gave us three weeks notice this year. Last year they told us a couple of days before the game,\u201d said Blanco.<\/p>\n
While Blanco wouldn\u2019t express his opinions about the cancellation on the record, running back Stanley Tapua\u2019ialupe Iakopo of CFL champion Shell Chiefs said that this was supposed to be the year for the CNMI, and that he is disappointed that the game was nixed.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what I heard, they\u2019re either not ready or they don\u2019t have enough guys\u2014which is ridiculous. They have been playing the game for a lot longer than we have, and it costs only like a hundred bucks for a ticket, so what\u2019s the big deal?\u201d<\/p>\n
Iakopo said that he was getting ready for one of the practices when he heard the news about the cancelled game, and that he was looking forward to the game because of a quote he read attributed to Souza in the Saturday, Dec. 18 edition of the Pacific Daily News.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost players in the MFL do not see playing a Saipan team as much of a challenge since Guam has never lost to Saipan\u2026But we are attempting to put together a team to travel to Saipan to keep the MFL\u2019s no-loss streak alive,\u201d said Souza <\/p>\n
Iakopo said that he read the article and heard much of the same talk on the radio when he was in Guam, and took the time to offer a few of his own opinions. <\/p>\n
\u201cI heard them talking about us on the radio, and Guam is all mouth\u2014you can quote me on that. They can do the talk, but they can\u2019t do the walk. I think they\u2019re just scared\u2014that\u2019s it. They know that the only thing waiting for them over here was hell,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they know that we are ready for them, they always pull out. We were ready\u2014I was ready. Our offense wouldn\u2019t even have to work because our defense could carry the team and dominate those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the teams have had difficulty getting together for a friendly game of football in the last couple of years, Blanco believes he has a solution that will work for everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they can\u2019t make it over here, we\u2019ll look to take a team over to Guam prior to the start of their 2005 season in July.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iakopo said that he will make the journey south to play Guam, and that the MFL\u2019s defensive players will have something new to scheme for when he comes to town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey like to talk about the past, but I didn\u2019t play against them in the past. This is now, and I\u2019m ready to go. When the time comes to come together for an island thing, I know that the boys will be there\u2014that\u2019s what separates us from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 10-yard fight between Guam and the CNMI dates back to the first game played between the teams back on Mar. 11, 2000. The \u201cMarianas Bowl\u201d featured the first adult football team from the CNMI facing off against the Guam All-Stars from the Miller Football League.<\/p>\n
Though the outcome wasn\u2019t in favor of the CNMI Warriors, it generated a new level of interest for the sport among the islands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The much-anticipated football game between the champions of the Commonwealth Football League and the All-Stars of the Miller Football League has been cancelled for the second straight year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86733","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}