The duo Pedro Salvador/Tiago Melo was crowned national footvolley champion, in the final that was played over the weekend at Praia Grande, in Ferragudo, in the municipality of Lagoa.
There were 12 teams to be present, the 24 best national athletes, all with the same ambition to get as far as possible, to the so desired national title.
The first day of the competition, Saturday, August 10th, the competition started in the early afternoon, around 15:00, with the Group Stage, with the teams distributed in 4 different groups, in a total of 12 games to determine the first 8 finalists for the next stage, the Elimination Round.
Regarding the duos that secured the passport to the Elimination Round and consequently to the Quarter-finals, it was no surprise that the main favorites and the best scored in the national ranking made their status prevail. Pedro Salvador/Tiago Melo, Nelson Pereira/Miguel Pinheiro, Carlos Batista/Christophe Ebongue (Bonga), Bruno Xavier/Alexandre Oliveira (Xande), Ruben Santos/André Gomes, Filipe Santos/Tiago Sá, Luciano Espíndola (Tuy)/Pedro Sales and Miguel Pita/Carlos Baptista (Calita), with some naturalness and without major surprises, reached the 2nd stage of the competition, where the four final places for the Semi-Finals were at stake.
With the quarter-finals starting after 18:00, four very interesting and decisive games at this stage of the competition, in which every detail is extremely important, but the first classified in the Group Stage, no less that the heads of series of each group, were not to facilitate and in just two sets put to the ground the aspirations of their opponents.
Given the results obtained, Pedro Salvador/Tiago Melo, Nelson Pereira/Miguel Pinheiro, Carlos Batista/Christophe Ebongue (Bonga) and Bruno Xavier Alexandre Oliveira (Xande) immediately secured a place in the final discussion of the 2013 national title and the desirable prize -money at stake with a total value of 1.200 euros in prize money.
For the second and decisive day of the competition, Sunday, August 11, the Semi-Finals were reserved for the beginning of the afternoon, with teams and teams looking for a place in the final.
While in the first game of the afternoon, around 15:30 pm, the duo of Salvador/Tiago Melo, the 2012 runners-up, surpassed the Bruno Xavier/Alexandre Oliveira (Xande) team, with the partial 18×12 and 18×7, in the second game it was Carlos Batista/Christophe Ebongue's turn to beat the national champions in title, Nelson Pereira/Miguel Pinheiro, in an intense and exciting game, only solved in 'black', with partials of 16×18, 18×7 and 14 ×16.
With the grand final in the background, it was necessary to find who would climb to the last place on the podium. In a well-fought game, the duo Nelson Pereira/Miguel Pinheiro was more effective and beat their acquaintances Bruno Xavier/Alexandre Oliveira (Xande), with the score closing at 21×15.
When the big moment arrived, several questions remained, namely about the ability of Pedro Salvador/Tiago Melo to regain the national title lost in 2012, or the opportunity for Carlos Batista to add another title to his record, after the feats of 2006 and 2007 , or the possibility of Christophe Ebongue (Bonga) finally reaching the title he has been chasing for a long time.
In an exciting game, with spectacular moves and plays from both sides, it took only 2 sets to find the big winners of the 2013 edition of the main national competition in the sport.
Winning by 18×13 and 18×15, Pedro Salvador and Tiago Melo immediately became national champions, as a result of their performance during the two days of the event.
Organized by the National Football Federation, the event's main supporting entities were the Municipality of Lagoa, Ferragudo Parish Council, Gelados Kalise, Benecar, Tsunami, Smart | StarSul and A Bola newspaper.
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