Hong Kong Soccer Sevens may be overshadowed by the rugby sevens which put that sport’s sevens tournaments on the world map but in terms of a great show it deserves to just get bigger and bigger.
As China moves up in the world and football fan President Xin Xiping’s campaign to make the country a world power in football an international tournament like this drawing several English Premier League teams surely has only fair winds behind it.
The tournament organized by the Hong Kong football club is not only a reminder of the region’s distant colonial past – the club was founded in 1886 – but looks solidly to the future serving, as it does, as a training ground for tomorrow’s EPL stars; a whiff or the past and a whiff of the future.
At the three-day event the Cup was won once again by EPL team Aston Villa, beating West Ham in a crowd-pleasing 2-0 victory, with goals from the Sevens top scorer Harry McKirdy and striker Rushian Hepburn-Murphy.
Villa claimed their sixth championship here coming back from a five year drought to lift the trophy because they had stuck to a tried and tested formation skills and quite simply the boys have fire in their bellies, as Aston Villa legend, coach Gordon Cowans told the Times.
As the European Cup (Champions League pre-1992) and league cup winner explained: “I’m very pleased with the lads they’re very talented [and showed] their qualities. They’ve got [the right] attitude”. But where does that come from? “Motivation” “Lads need [the winning attitude] as well as skills. Moreover, “The two-three-two formation has worked well for us in the past few years and it worked for us today.” Robert Carroll, Hong Kong
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