Poland Pips Croatia in Priests Cup

By: Bob | February 15th, 2007

Those other teams didn’t have a prayer. Poland had divine intervention and penalties on their side. A team of priests from Poland pulled off the upset of the tournament beating a team of priests from Croatia 5-4 in penalties to win the championship of an indoor football tournament in Sarajevo featuring teams of Roman Catholic priests from 10 European countries. You have to hate when a tournament is decided on penalties.

Undoubtedly the oddsmakers are laughing all the way to the bank with Croatia’s loss. The two-time defending tournament champions were the heavy favorites to walk away with the title, but faced stiffer competition this year after the slacker priests from the other countries decided to take things a bit more seriously.

Tomasevic, meanwhile, admitted that the competitors had taken the tournament extremely seriously, with most of the teams engaging professional trainers to help them improve their performance.

The resulting improved standards of the priests’ game led to increased interest in the tournament throughout Europe, according to Tomasevic.

“The idea for this tournament, which was first brought up by two Bosnian priests in Austria, seems to be more and more popular among other European countries, so we hope next time to priests’ teams from England, France, Germany or Slovakia,” said Tomasevic.

Oddly, there was not a team from Vatican City in the tournament. You’d think it would be good preparation for the day they decide to throw off their robes and face Italy’s big boys. You also have to admire Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who is on record as saying: “If we could draw from all the Brazilians studying in the Pontifical universities we could put together a magnificent team.”