Football at its best

At the end, no one could stop them - and after a long tournament day, the Azure unmistakably set the tone. Campioni, Campioni! In between a champagne shower, then Campioni, Campioni again! The title for the best women's team of the FIEGE Soccer Cup 2022 went to Italy. The “Italian Goddesses” not only played divine football and won the trophy in a thrilling final against the women's team from the FIEGE headquarters with a hard-fought 1:0, they also celebrated as if the football god himself had just let Italy win the World Cup for the fifth time.

It was a wonderful and dignified end to a football tournament that only knew winners. First and foremost the LSL Lengerich team, which was able to lift the coveted trophy in the men's competition after a thrilling final match against Essen and a victory in a nine-meter shootout. What followed was a big party - and that explicitly applied to all participants of the 16th FIEGE Soccer Cup, the biggest in FIEGE's history so far.

Around 2,500 people, almost 100 teams from seven countries, eleven pitches, 27 referees, almost 1,200 occupied hotel beds in the Münsterland and more than 30 busses providing transport for the teams: The sports ground of SC Reckenfeld, this year's venue, became a FIEGE football Mecca for one day - and it was literally tangible how great the longing for this event, which had to be cancelled in the past two years due to the Corona pandemic, had been among all those involved.

"First of all, I want to compliment and thank the organisation team from our location in Greven-Reckenfeld, who put all this together and made it possible - and of course congratulations to Italy and to Lengerich," said Jens Fiege, who runs the company together with his cousin Felix Fiege. "It is simply nice to meet and welcome so many colleagues here, because it really hurt us that we hat to cancel the tournament in the past two years. For that it is even nicer now to see how people celebrate together, how they play football together and how they come together through this event. That's exactly how it has to be and that's what makes us special."

And Felix Fiege added: "I even saw some colleagues swap their jerseys. These are great moments and memories that stick - and I think with 'Football Is Coming Home' as the first song of the day, the DJ probably hit the mark better than Jens and I did on the pitch. It really did feel a bit like football had returned to FIEGE today. A big thank you also from my side to all participants. That was pure FIEGE."