Barcelona is your FIFA 08 Offside Cup Champion

By: Dave Martinez | May 22nd, 2008

Congratulations to our Offside Cup Winner, Mr. Anders Slov Klausen!

Click here to view his exclusive Q&A, being featured world wide on theoffside.com main page.

Through many trials and tribulations, Barcelona stood tall and kept their focus on the gold. Nearly three months later, that focus resulted in Gold.

Here is how they did it:

Barcelona drew a tough group to start off this elimination tournament. Rival Real Madrid lead the pack, with a fierce Roma squad, and the every stingy German side, Hamburg. After a scare against Roma, which resulted in one of the biggest upset victories of the tournament, Barcelona fell 1-0 in the 94th minute of a tight game. Real Madrid and Hamburg smelled blood in the water. But Barcelona just got a splash of cold water in the face - Roma awakened the beast.

Real Madrid was next to fall, in stunning fashion, 4-0 at the Bernabeu. Hamburg faired none better - 3-1 and they were eliminated. Only Barcelona and Roma stood tall in the group.

The Round of 16 presented its unique challenge as well - Barcelona would be forced to play a top seeded side. They drew Aston Villa, which impressively dispatched its group to a first place finish. But Barcelona took it to the Maroon Marauders, outscoring Villa 11-4 in 3 games.

Another tough cookie awaited in the Quarterfinal round - Celtic. Celtic had been able to dispatch quality opposition all tournament, and would now face a Barcelona Juggernaut. The series went two, and Barcelona took home and away 2-1 victories.

And as fate would have it, the virtual world and the real world collided, as Barcelona and Manchester United met in what can only be described as “The Clash of FIFA 08’s BEST Club Teams.” Avenging their clubs real life embarassment, Barcelona took it to Manchester, disposing them in 2 games as well, and outscoring the Reds 5-2.

So finally, they reached the pinnacle of the tournament - and in their path was a hungry Fiorentina squad, which notably discarded of Boca, the Totties and Sao Paolo, to name a few.

Fiorentina began strong, but only managed a tie in the first game against Barca. Barcelona read their play, made the proper adjustments, and began to shut the door on Fiorentinas aspirations with a devastating 5-1 win in Fiores home.

The final and deciding game saw lots of play and fireworks, but Barcelona managed to eek out a victory, 3-2, to clinch the first ever FIFA 08 Offside Cup Championship!

Ronaldinho took home the teams MVP award, and coach Roven was carried off the field on the players shoulders!

Seriously though, excellent work. And a hell of a path to victory.

Congratulations to Anders Skov “Roven” Klausen for his well played victory.