Tournament starts in 2025 with new group phase concept

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East Frisia – The East Frisia Cup “Only The Best” will start in 2025 with a completely new concept. One of the main changes is the introduction of a group phase in the preliminary round. “We are not interested in holding more games or generating more money,” says co-organizer Manfred Bloem. “The main reason for the change is to tighten up the schedule, as we can only hold the tournament from the end of June to the end of July,” Bloem continues. As is well known, there were scheduling conflicts this year due to the early start of the season in the East Frisian leagues.

Two games for each team

Each team taking part in the tournament will now play two tournament games within its group, one of which will be played on its own pitch and the second away. “We will divide the respective groups into four groups based on regional criteria: North, South, West and East. This will ensure that there will be several derbies and that each team will also have a home game. This means that each club will also receive the additional income from catering,” says Bloem, explaining the advantages of the concept. In addition, shorter travel distances will be created for spectators. “It is too inconvenient for our numerous visitors to drive from Esens to Bunde in the middle of the week, for example, to see a game,” Bloem has recognized. “With the new concept, we will be much more visitor-friendly.” This also means that other tournaments that take place in the summer, such as the Saris Cup in Holland, will be avoided. “When games are played in Holtland, the North or East group will play in the Ostfriesland Cup, for example, so that we don’t take spectators away from each other.”

Penalty shootout after every match

Another important point concerns the regional league team Grün-Weiß Firrel, which, as the founding club of the tournament, has enjoyed home advantage in all tournament games so far. “After several discussions with all sorts of people, we have put this privilege aside; it was simply no longer up to date,” said Bloem. “Although these changes to the concept mean that we will now be playing 19 tournament games instead of the previous 15, we can still stick to our specified period of four weeks.” The effort for the teams – but also for their fans – will be significantly reduced. “We believe that this has created more fairness, more excitement and more attractiveness,” is Bloem’s conclusion. In order to avoid a possible tie in points and goals, a penalty shootout will generally take place after each game, which will be decisive in the event of a tie in the table. The respective winners of the groups advance to the semi-finals, with the semi-finals also being drawn as part of the group draw on June 3, 2025.