Excellent game against Afghan United today. They're a highly skilled team and alhamdulillah, we beat them in confident fashion 2-1. Jazakullahkhairan to Afghan United for giving us the opportunity to hone our skills in an exhibition game and insha'allah we'll see much more of them in the future.

We have a game this Wednesday as you know and the details are posted right below. Also, if you haven't paid your fees, this Wednesday would be the time to do it because we're past our fee payment deadline to EDSA.

Wednesday, May 31, 2005 @ 7PM (arrive 6:30PM)
Chile B vs. FC AI
Victoria High School (102St. - 108Ave.)

Should be an extremely challenging game from what we can tell. As always, please arrive 30 minutes before the game and make sure to let us know if you're unable to make it for some reason. We'll need all the bodies we can get to play a full solid game insha'allah.

No practice this Sunday. Instead, exhibition game on Sunday against Afghan United.
Due to exhibition game, we won't be having our usual Monday practice.
League game this Wednesday.
There's a going away BBQ for Muhammed Sabri after the Sunday game.

Please see the following two posts to see details regarding each of the two upcoming games.

Sunday, May 28, 2006 @ 3PM (arrive 2:45PM)
Exhibition Game: FC AI vs. Afghan United
Confederation Park (the fields by Harry Ainlay, Louie, and Confed Leisure Centre) 43 Ave. - 112 St.

Since this is an exhibition game, if you usually don't play in the league games, please get in touch with me (Muntaka - see contact info on the side) and let me know if you'd like to play in this game and insha'allah we'll try to slot you in. Make sure to notify me though so I know how many we'll be bringing to the game.

Also, our beloved Muhammed Sabri is moving to Syria and some of the brothers are organizing a going-away BBQ for him by Umar Shuaib's house. We'll be going there after the game at about 4:30PM.
Please talk to Fahad Afzal (637-0786, fafzal@ualberta.ca) and let him know if you're going to Muhammed Sabri's going away BBQ because they need to plan for how many people are coming and buy enough BBQ meat. We strongly encourage everyone to go. Muhammed Sabri has been an instrumental brother in our community for as long as I can remember and it's a sad event to see him go. Insha'allah, the people of Syria will come to love him as we have come to love him.

Please sign the following petition:
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Subject: Palestinian National Football Team Sabotaged By Israel
PALESTINIAN NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM SABOTAGED BY ISRAEL
On March 30th, 2006 Israel bombed the Palestine National Football Stadium in Gaza Strip. FIFA has demanded a explanation of the bombing, and this week is considering disciplinary measures against Israel. It is essential that at this critical moment that the people of the world make our voices heard that Palestine has a right to representation in International Sports.
Please follow the link below and sign the petition to FIFA asking them to suspend Israeli membership until Israel stops obstructing Palestine's right to national identity and participation. Please write your first and last names, and in the comment section include city and country. Then forward to all your friends around the world. FIFA will be considering the matter in the near future, signatures are very important.
Thank you.
http://www.petitiononline.com/FIFAPal/petition.html

Assalamualaikum Everyone.

Upcoming Practices:
We've switched around the practice dates for the upcoming two weeks because of the fact that we have a Bye this week (ie. no game) and to accomodate the Oilers games against the Ducks (let's go Duck hunting!).
- Monday, May 22 (7PM-9PM; Leefield) - We'll be praying Asr together at 6:45PM SHARP inside the Markaz masjid and then heading out to the field to start practice at 7PM. Maghrib is pushing back later and later into the night so we'll just finish practice at 9PM.
- Wednesday, May 24 (7PM-9PM; Leefield) - Same deal as above. The HC Dynamos hockey brothers (Omar T, Ahmed Hussain, Bilal Abdu) have a game at 9:30PM so they'll be coming to practice for the first hour until 8PM giving them plenty of time to rest up, rehydrate, and get to their hockey game.
- Sunday, May 28 (4PM - 6PM; Leefield)

Upcoming Game:
Wednesday, May 31, 7PM @ Victoria High School #1 (102St. - 108Ave.) - Chile B vs. FC AI
- as always, be on the field 30 minutes before. We'll have to be on our toes against Chile B because they're a former Div 3 team so they have plenty of experience and skill.

Contents
Previous Game Recap: 3-0 vs. Pirates SC
Upcoming Practice: Monday, May 15, 7:30PM - pray Asr at 7:15 in Markaz then head across to the fields by Leefield as usual. Contact me (Muntaka) if you can't make it.
Next Game: Wednesday, May 17, 7PM vs. MW Warriors @ Millwood Park #1 - be there 30 minutes early
Champions League Final: Arsenal vs. Barcelona - don't miss it!
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Alhamdulillah, we won 3-0 in our first played game (the 1st game of the season was won 3-0 due to the other team - Meyn FC - forfeiting). We played against a young team, much like ourselves, by the name of Pirates SC and held our composure and showed our class for most of the game. As brought up and discussed at half-time, we weren't always first to the ball however. We were lucky that even though we usually weren't first to the ball for parts of the game, we managed to make up for it using skill and experience. However, against skilled teams we have to be first to the ball.
Ayman Elbouhssini of Morocco dropped in the first two goals of the game. Ayman attempted a third goal which bounced off the crossbar but Ahmed Hussain showed a flash of speed and positioning and put himself in the right place at the right time in true striker fashion to put in the third goal. It should be noted that Akram, Ayman's brother, failed to appear on the scoresheet all game.
Excellent control of ball and play at center midfield by Nahhid Alami and Bilal Abdu led to much of the defensive and offensive success of the game. Also, thanks to the midfield flanks for beautiful passing and setting up the offense.
Although there were a few rare frights on the defensive end of things (the kind of small mistakes we can't afford and against fast, experienced teams), on the whole, the FC AI defence proved to be solid overall. With a combination of experienced players and young (Muntaka Shah, Wais Abdulghani, Hadi Quazi, & Obada Mustafa), the defence kept scoring chances to a minimum.
As always, Omar Taliani showed calm composure in net as he recorded a well-deserved shut-out.
Well done brothers. Let's keep up the momentum going into the rest of the season.
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Our next practice is this Monday. Note that practices will be every Monday from now on for the rest of the summer. If there are any cancellations or change of plans, we'll make sure to notify everyone. The standard field will be the fields opposite the Markaz mosque by the Leefield Community Centre and we'll let you know if we switch to another field. We may schedule additional practices should we feel the need. It's expected from everyone though that they keep Monday afternoons free at the minimum for practices.
Since we just came off a game and we'll be having a game again within 2 days of the Monday practice, we'll keep the Monday practice light. Instead of starting at 7PM as usual, we'll go in to pray Asr at 7:15PM and then head out for practice at 7:30PM.

Any practices that you can't make, you HAVE to contact me and let me know. Often, some of the players have legitimate reasons for missing practice but if I'm not notified beforehand I'm considering it an unexcused absence and I'm marking it down. My contact info is muntaka@gmail.com and 710-7449.

One of the floor hockey brothers notified me that they have a game at 7PM on Monday so Bilal Abdu, Omar Taliani, and Ahmed Hussain won't be able to make it. That's cool, game commitments supercede practice commitments so we wish them the best of luck with their game and to make us proud insha'allah! Although the hockey team has a few Monday games, they don't have a set game day so we just decided to have consistent Monday practices so people could take them off for work etc. On weeks that the brothers have a hockey game, we may try to slot in another practice so those brothers get a practice get in.
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Our next game is this Wedneday, May 17 at 7PM at Millwood Park #1 vs. MW Warriors (23 Ave. - 71 St. - the fields beside Page High & Holy Trinity High). We need everyone to be there by 6:30PM.
It should be a challenging game because from the intel that we've gathered, MW Warriors and Chile B will give us trouble in this division this Outdoor 2006. First to the ball and quick, no-nonsense passing will be key.
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UEFA Champions League Final - Arsenal vs. Barcelona - TSN (Ch. 20) 12:30PM - Wednesday, May 17
UEFA
TSN - UEFA Champions League Final
On our important game day against MW Warriors, there's another exciting game happening so make sure that you don't miss out. UEFA Champions League Final - Arsenal of the English Premiership and Barcelona of Spain's La Liga Primera Division will be battling it out for European club soccer honours. Watch some beautiful soccer between the two soccer titans and then emulate that gameplay against MW Warriors later on in the day ;).

Next Practice - this Wednesday, May 10 from 7 - 9PM at the fields by Leefield Community Centre. We'll be praying together in jamaat at 6:45PM in the Markaz masjid and then starting practice at 7PM. Please pray at home or join us for the 6:45PM jamaat so we can start the practice on time.

Next Game - see schedule link at the side

(please keep posted because we have to update you on many other things such as practice days, games, registration etc. FC AI management is going to get together tonight and finalize things and then we'll update you insha'allah)

Links have been posted up so check them out. The schedule is the link you should go check out right away.

Practices:
Wednesday, May 3 (7-9PM) - Julia Kiniski School (4304-41Ave. - in the Jackson Heights, Millwoods area)
Thursday, May 4 (7-9PM) - Leefield Community Centre (7910-36Ave. - opposite the Markaz masjid, same place as last practice - this is our regular practice field)

- 7PM means you're on the field dressed and ready to go. Get your shin guards, socks, UnderArmour, and any other kind of gear on. Late comers will be running laps to repay their debt to the team regardless of the reason/excuse for coming late.
-We were initially going to have practices this Tuesday (tomorrow) and Thursday but instead we're going to have our practices this week on Wednesday and Thursday. We switched the practice days because some of the bros play on a ball hockey team that has a game on Tuesday at 9:30PM and we didn't want them to be rushing away from practice and being exhausted for their ball hockey game. In the future, we'll keep trying to accomodate players' commitments to other things to a reasonable extent as long as it's not compromising our own FC AI team.
- If you know any other soccer players that want to come to the practices, they must talk to us (Uncle Alami or myself) first and get our permission. It's fine to have guests come to practices but they will be treated the same as everyone else and must take the practices as seriously as the registered league players do.
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Game:
Saturday, May 6 (Noon ie. 12PM) - FCAI vs. Meyn FC - Matt Berry #4 (59A St. - 159 Ave.)

- this Saturday is our first game. It's important that we hit the ground running and start the season firing on all cylinders. Much of soccer is psychological and so we have to decimate our opponents right from the start and leave no doubt which team is going to capture the #1 spot this season. Ideally, players from other teams should be finding excuses ("Oh, I'm sick", "I'm working") to avoid playing against our team :).
- Be at the game 30 minutes in advance. In the indoor season many of us (including myself and the other captains) would be showing up 5 minutes before the game and this leaves us disorganized and not in game mode, not to mention leaving us vulnerable to injuries since we're not warmed up and stretched out properly. We haven't discussed an exact policy regarding this but consider it likely that you may lose playing time and starting position rights if you start showing up late.
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Online Blog:
www.fcaiunited.blogspot.com

- We've set up an online blog since the Al-Ikhwan Brother's BBall team did the same and it seemed to work out good. You should try to check the blog every day at least once since we'll expect you to be up to date with everything that we post on there.
- After a bit, after we've solidified our communications, we won't be relying too much on personally calling people because we'll be expecting that you're checking the blog regularly and your email.
- The Blog will be our major source of communication with everyone. Although we'll be emailing and calling people, it may end up that on some occasions we can't find the time and in those few situations you're still expected to be up to date on everything.