The athletes from Special Olympics Gibraltar football team arrived home victorious after collecting silver medals in the Special Olympics five-a-side small nations football tournament in Liechtenstein in October. In an exciting competition the team kicked off in style with a 5 – 1 win in divisioning over Monaco with Giovanni Yeo landing 4 goals, followed by a 5 – 0 victory over the Isle of Man.
That led to SOG being placed in the top division (A) where they faced stiff opposition in the first competition match against Montenegro which they lost 4 – 1. However they bounced back in the next game against Monaco which they won 5 – 1 followed swiftly by a 3 – 2 victory over the Isle of Man. This resulted in a place in the final against Montenegro on the Sunday afternoon. It was a closely fought, exciting game but in the end Montenegro proved too strong for SOG and beat them 7 – 3, to leave SOG in silver medal position. Yeo was the overall top SOG goal scorer in the tournament with 8 goals followed by Gianni Ochello with 4 goals.
The SOG team had time to have a look around Vaduz while they were there and met Princess Nora of Liechtenstein who hosted a reception for the teams. They also had a training session on the first day run by Ramon Gartmann and Nicolas Hasler, two international players from Vaduz FC. Representing Gibraltar were Nolan Baglietto, Giovanni Yeo, Gianni Ochello, Francis Avellano, Nathan Borge, Liam Chipolina Gomez, Tyrone Davis and Lee Guerriero.
The trip was sponsored by the Gibraltar Football Association as part of their Football Social Responsibility Initiatives.
