THE TARMAC  at  the Homestretch Avenue-based Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH) will be buzzing with activity from 20:00hrs tonight, when the third annual Mackeson ‘Keep Your Five Alive’ Futsal football tournament culminates with the playing of the finals from 20:00hrs.

Forty-eight teams started the tournament in the hunt for the top prize of $300 000,keeping their five alive during

the preliminary round stages of the tournament but only three

– West Front Road, Festival City and pre-tournament favourites Sparta Boss – have managed to stay alive to contest tonight’s epic battle.
West Front Road will be looking to brothers, Wendell and Hubert Pedro, and Nathaniel Nagaloo, to see them to the top prize, as they face the Devon Millington-led Sparta Boss lineup that also includes Jerome Weekes and Millington’s sidekick Dennis Edwards and Festival City, led by Mark and Odell Williams, and Paul Bobb, in a round-robin competition to decide the winner.
According to the organiser of the tournament Kevin Adonis, the team that come out victorious in both of their round-robin matches which will be separated by exhibition games, will be crowned the 2013 Mackeson ‘Keep Your Five Alive’ champions, with the runner-up receiving $150 000.
In the event that all three teams come away with a win each, goals for as against goals conceded during tonight’s action will be used to determine the overall winner of the tournament, with penalty kicks not included.
As an added attraction, the sponsors of the tournament, Ansa McAl, will be fielding two teams in an Inter-department clash, while the three exhibition matches will see Albouystown go up against Tiger Bay, the best of East take on their counterparts from West and Broad Street meet Wolves from Sophia.
Fans and enthusiasts of the sport would only have to reflect on last Thursday’s action that was hosted in Albouystown, where the home team were sent packing by Festival City, who won by a scoreline that read 4-3 on penalty kicks.
Added to that was Nagaloo’s goal which enabled West Front Road to edge Alexander Village 1-0, while Weekes’ penalty kick which was awarded after Edwards won a penalty, handed Sparta Boss a 1-0 victory over a game Riverview lineup.
What further underlined Sparta’s win was their ability to defend the lead which came in the third minute of the contest, even though they had five fouls accredited to their name, a true testament for them being tagged the sole favourites, following Albouystown’s shocking exit.
With all this in mind, tonight’s three matches will be entertaining and enthralling as all three teams will be looking to assert themselves as the lone team to ‘Keep their Five Alive’ in a sport that is vastly gaining the attention of the football-loving public in Guyana.