NK Victory from Croatia is the winner of I FEEL SLOVENIA SOCCA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
On Sunday, the 4th edition of the Socca Champions League – the biggest club competition in small-sided football – ended with the victory of NK Victory from Croatia. Maribor, in Slovenia, hosted the 34 best teams from twenty countries for the third time in a row.
This year the competition took place at a completely new location, at the Ljudski vrt stadium, home of the best Slovenian professional football club, NK Maribor. On the field with artificial grass in the modern club training centre, more than 100 matches of small-sided football were played.
The first match was played on Thursday, October 12, 2023, starting at 4 p.m. with games taking place across the weekend, including night time fixtures under the state of the art floodlights.
After four days worth of tense matches, the teams NK Victory from Croatia and MC Sarmat from Ukraine qualified for Sunday’s final. The fight for victory and the championship title was fierce, the rainy weather also contributed, but in the end the team from Croatia won the match. The 3rd place belonged to the FluDublin team from Dublin, who defeated the ACS Redex team from Romania in the match for 3rd place.
All matches were broadcasted live worldwide via the International Socca Federation’s social media and YouTube channel. The final day of the competition was broadcasted via television broadcast on SportKlub and Šport TV channels. All live matches had free entry.
Maribor became the centre of small-sided football for a few days, as more than 500 competitors came to the city, and together with accompanying teams, more than 700 participants from abroad. The teams mostly stayed in accommodation facilities in the centre of the city, which also allowed them easy access to the venue of the competition, while at the same time giving the city an international touch.
The organizers of the event were the International Socca Federation and Factumevent. The event was organized in partnership with I Feel Slovenia (Slovenian tourist organization), Visit Maribor (Zavod za turizem Maribor), Šport Maribor (JHMB Group) and Leisure Leagues.
The organizers and partners prepared a sports event, which certainly served up excellent football matches at the new location and left a good impression on the participants and visitors of the tournament.