“The tournament of tournaments” has started in Viareggio: the “Matteo Valenti” Memorial. The 19th edition saw the opening ceremony (always very well attended and then followed by the first matches) yesterday evening at Bagno Flora on the promenade in the beach stadium that bears the name, like the tournament, of “the one from whom everything was born”: the late and always remembered Matteo Valenti, who died from burns in an accident at work in 2004. Matteo was a great player on the sand where they called him ‘The Cobra’ with his acrobatics. The Viareggio beach soccer movement was born from a tragedy and year after year it grows more and more, keeping alive the memory of a boy who was loved by everyone. From yesterday until next Tuesday 9 July (the day of the finals and awards) the game will be played, with always free entry to the stands: 28 teams, 4 categories, over 500 players and staff. And on Sunday (July 7) in addition to beach soccer there will be the Flora Sunset Party with DJ Nitro at 7pm and the Blues Valenti Night with Dan Mudd at 10pm.
Meanwhile, from Thursday to Sunday, the Farmaè Viareggio Beach Soccer Under 20 team will be in Paestum (in Salerno) for the recovery of the championship match with Cagliari and above all for the category’s Coppa Italia. The VBS first team, however, after the 3rd place in the Coppa Italia, now has only the championship as its only seasonal objective: next stops in Cirò Marina (11-14 July) and Lignano Sabbiadoro (19-21 July) before the Final Eight that assigns the 2024 championship to San Benedetto del Tronto (2-4 August).
Finally, on the national front, from tomorrow until Sunday the qualifying tournament for the final phase of the European Championships will take place at the Olympic Training Center in Tirrenia (Pisa). The tournament will see 5 players from Viareggio wearing the blue jersey (goalkeeper Andrea Carpita, Luca Bertacca, Tommaso Fazzini, Gianmarco Genovali and Alessandro Remedi) plus the Torrelaghese goalkeeper Leandro Casapieri from Pisa. The 6 players from Viareggio were called up by the technical commissioner of the national beach soccer team Emiliano Del Duca for the qualifying phase for the top continental competition: a tournament called “International Beach Soccer“. ItalBeach, European champion and current world vice-champion, is included in group 1 of Division A of the competition (which sees a total of 12 national teams at the start). The training camp began yesterday in Calambrone. The debut for the Azzurri is tomorrow at 7 pm against Estonia, before facing the Czech Republic on Thursday at 3 pm and Denmark on Friday at 6 pm. The semi-finals are scheduled for Saturday, the finals on Sunday. The top 7 teams will qualify for the final phase of the 2024 European Championship, scheduled in Alghero from 11 to 15 September.
