Russia celebrates 25 years of CP Football with Legends Cup

Moscow hosted the ‘CP Football Legends Cup 2020’ to celebrate 25 years of CP Football in Russia, earlier this month.

The football tournament was attended by three teams, including the Russian National Team and the football club Lev Chernoy-Olimpiya (Moscow region), which involved both famous veterans and current players with an accolade of trophies and titles between them, and Youth players from Spartak Moscow, who are two-time winners of the Russian Championship U’22.
 

The idea of this tournament was to gather all the titled students of the famous Russian Coach Avtandil Baramidze together in honour of the twenty-fifth anniversary of CP Football in Russia. Baramidze formed CP Football in Russia when he attended the 17th boarding school in Moscow in 1994 and assembled a team of students with Cerebral Palsy at the boarding school.  Two years later in 1996 Avtandil and the team won Silver at the Paralympic games in Atlanta (USA).

Over these 25 years, the Russian National Team under the leadership of Avtandil Baramidze have been very successful on the National and International stage, collecting many trophies and titles on their journey. Highlights have included winning two Paralympic games, being crowned Four-time World Champions and attaining the European Champion title.

Avtandil Baramidze was delighted to see so many of his current and former players;

‘I welcome all the participants of this wonderful tournament. I am glad that despite all the difficulties, we remain committed to football and find the opportunity to meet. I fully support the idea of making the CP Football Legends Cup an annual competition that brings together all players, with their friends and family’

He also expressed that he hopes that in the future it will be possible to hold competitions for Veterans of CP Football among other National teams.

Honorary guest of the tournament Alexander Erastov, Coach of the Russian National Blind Football team was excited to see the combination of teams play each other:

‘It's very nice to see several generations of football players on the same field. Such tournaments bring together young people and sports veterans. I wish the guys to demonstrate all their football skills’

Despite the friendly atmosphere, the fight on the field was serious. The veterans did not want to concede anything to the youth players, and the first game of the tournament between the Russian National Team and the Spartak-Moscow team ended in a 0-0 draw.

In the Second game, the National team of Moscow and the football club Lev Chernoy - Olimpiya (Moscow region) met. Having warmed up after the first game, the Russian National team led 2-0, but the Olimpiya players did not want to give up the victory and increasing the pressure were able to pull back two goals resulting in a 2-2 draw.

In the Final match, Lev Chernoy - Olimpiya (Moscow region) played a great game, and despite worthy resistance from the young players of Spartak, they were victorious with a 3-0 win, thereby becoming the Champions of the first "CP Football Legends Cup 2020".

All of the participants received medals and souvenirs, and most importantly, they felt like members of a large family of CP Football again.

Well done to the organizers of the tournament: the Moscow CP Football Federation and the Russian CP Football Federation.