The annual PKUSZ Freshman Soccer Cup kicked off with a bang on Saturday 24th October. 8 teams from various schools at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School such as School of Advanced Materials, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, HSBC Business School and School of Urban Planning and Design registered for this year’s competition. Given the absence of last year’s champions, PHBS International, the PHBS MBA team is the early favorite.
The competition is a great platform for Chinese and International students from a variety of majors to compete and bond with each other. The PHBS team, for example, feature individuals from 10 different countries in their squad of 20 players. The 2014 competition was superbly organized by the student body and the expectation is for an even better competition this year.
The tournament features two groups of 4 teams, each team playing 3 three games in the group stage before the semifinals and final. The opening weekend saw 28 goals scored across 4 games. Students witnessed a particularly extraordinary performance from Real International, a team made up of international freshmen from PHBS, defeating their opponents Cheng Gui from School of Urban Planning and Design by 16 goals. Cheng Gui must be applauded for registering a team given the smaller size of their school.
The games featured a lively spirit with hard but fair tackling and students showing off some outstanding skills. The games really displayed the ‘work hard, play hard’ attitude fostered on the Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School campus. A great deal of respect was shown to match officials and all participants ended the weekend on a positive note after a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon’s football.
It will be interesting to see how the competition evolves as the students grow more confident playing alongside each other and cultural understanding is boosted.
Reported by Finlay Grogan
