2003 Welcome Marco Manara

The appointment of Marco Manara as coach of Exiles heralded a reshuffle of the team including also the arrival of a few new faces. Having won the second division double in the previous year, the Committee felt that the pressure to win again the championship was not that crucial. Exiles would still fight for the honours as the teams always proved to be competitive. This line of thought of building a young team was also shared by Marco in whose DNA the word defeat simply does not exist. This was the Club’s objective which Marco fully understood when he took up this new challenge away from his former club at Ghar id-dud where he won every honour that local waterpolo can offer.

New faces on the scene

Of the previous year’s squad, Michael Grima, David Pace Lupi, Timmy Sullivan, Keith Camilleri, Stephen Balzan and Jason Vella were reconfirmed. Silvio Borg’s season was to be his last one for the Club when in 2004, he decided to join San Giljan. New and young faces appeared - goalkeeper James Cuschieri an Exiles product from the Club’s nursery, another goalie Alan Grech on loan from Sirens, Malcolm Zarb, Alan Arrigo, John John Tabone, Martin Calleja, Michael Psaila with Matthew DeCesare, Michael Schembri and Seb Anfuso making appearances.

Exiles Participate in the Winter League

The Winter League attracted seven teams which included the usual big four with Exiles, San Giljan and the ASA Youth Team in their preparation for the European Youth Championships scheduled to be held in Malta in 2004.

The results obtained by the Exiles team were satisfactory even though we ended at the bottom of the final classification. The close matches were those against San Giljan (8-9) and the ASA selection (7-8) whilst the final score in the encounter with Sirens (8-12) was considered as the best performance of the league, with the result of (4-9) against Neptunes proving another encouraging outing. Sliema and Marsascala beat Exiles 12-4 and 10-4 in comfortable style.

Exiles’ chances dented

In the debut of the summer league, Exiles met Neptunes (coached by Dirk Dowling) in a quiet match characterized by several exclusions against our team. The Reds won with ease 13-4 after building an unassailable five-goal lead in the first session.

The second encounter was against Ta’Xbiex. Marco Manara had to forfeit David Pace Lupi and Michael Grima who were abroad for a short stay. It was a pity that Exiles gave their opponents such an advantage. Marco also opted to give a chance to James Cuschieri in goal. The match ended with a defeat for our boys (5-6) in a dramatic finale for our opponents to bag the points in the last 25 seconds. Exiles were always in the lead however never managed to increase the difference to more than one goal to be reached by our opponents on five occasions. In the dying seconds of the last quarter, Exiles had possession of the ball and instead of playing the clock to salvage what would have been a point gained, opted to attack six against five leaving Duncan Schembri who opted not to swim back. A resultant missed shot cost us the game as Duncan made no mistake in planting the ball behind James Cuschieri to win the match and the points.

The string of defeats continued with two losses against Sliema (3-9) and Sirens (3-13) where the disparity was evident in the third and fourth quarters when the stamina of the Exiles players failed them. The first points were won at the expense of Marsaxlokk (10-5) with David Pace Lupi scoring no less than seven goals. In our last match involving the ‘Big Four’, Exiles were never in the game as they were subdued (2-8) by Marsascala.

The prelude to our first clash with the Second Division favourites San Giljan were two wins involving the ASA Youth team (7-5) and Otters (9-0).

The way Marco Manara prepared the clash with San Giljan proved successful up to the moment when the Exiles team managed to find itself in numerical advantage – on ten occasions throughout the match. All the four goals netted by Exiles were obtained in man-up situations. On the other hand San Giljan scored three goals when Exiles were man down (out of the six exclusions obtained) and three goals when playing with equal players. Exiles were practically out of the race by the end of the Preliminary Round.

The Second Round started with a difficult match against the ASA youth team with Exiles winning 6-4 thanks to a brace by Jason Vella in the last three minutes of the game after the Youths kept our team at Bay for most of the match.

The Showdown

Then the second clash with San Giljan followed. It was a deja-vu of the first round except that this time Exiles had ten exclusions against and fourteen in their favour. The game was won and lost in third session when an irresistible Matthew Zammit proved to be a headache for the Exiles rearguard and San Giljan profited by scoring three goals without any reply from our boys to take a 6-2 lead before the start of the last dramatic session. With five minutes to go, Exiles obtained two consecutive man-up situations and reduced the gap to two goals. Three San Giljan players were penalized with their third foul as Exiles lost David Pace Lupi (also fouled out) at the half way mark of this session, when the pressure was on the Saints’ side. Our lads threw all they had to save the game; Silvio Borg scored - only one goal separated the teams. Exiles had three exclusions but survived the onslaught as San Giljan failed to increase their lead. Our players pressed hard for the equalizer; they managed two numerical advantage situations in their favour. Marco Manara called a time-out with 25 seconds to the final whistle. The result remained unchanged with San Giljan edging Exiles 6-5 to claim another championship under their belts. What a match it was!

This defeat was in a sense a turning point for a relatively young and experimental side. Exiles went on to win the remaining matches in the league programme: 16-5 versus Otters; 7-6 against Ta Xbiex and 7-6 when taking on Marsaxlokk in a cliff hanger which gave our team the runners-up position. This match was played on the 14th September in ‘wintery’ climatic conditions. Exiles took a three-goal comfortable lead before allowing this advantage to slip from their hands for the Seasiders to equalize twice, with the second equalizer coming at 9 seconds to the end. It was a brilliant move by David Pace Lupi who hammered the ball in the net for Exiles to nose ahead with just 3 seconds play.

The Knock-Out Competition

Exiles had indeed a tough road to the eventual final as they were pitted against Ta’Xbiex in the Preliminary Round with the eventual winners facing no other than San Giljan before a meeting with either Marsaxlokk or Otters on the other side of the draw.

The match against Ta Xbiex started on a good note when we forged ahead 3-1 before our opponents recovered by the end of the second session to level the score. In the third Exiles could have wrapped the encounter when Ta’ Xbiex suffered no less than four exclusions which Exiles failed to convert into goals. This session produced no scores but the match took a twist when David Pace Lupi was excluded with substitution for passing remarks to the referee. The Exiles team was still shaken; it was now Ta’ Xbiex that took the lead (4-3) as precious seconds ticked by. A man-up situation was exploited by Silvio Borg to level the score before Michael Psaila became hero of the team with a well-taken shot inside the last minute. Solid goalkeeping by custodian Alan Grech ensured the passage to the next round match against newly-crowned champions San Giljan less than 48 hours later.

On the other side of the draw Otters sprung an unexpected surprise when they eliminated the more-quoted Marsaxlokk 6-5 with a dramatic winner in the last minute. This meant that the eventual winners of the outcome between Exiles and San Giljan would no doubt start the final as favourites to lift the trophy in their duel versus the Gozitans.

It was indeed a sweet revenge for Marco Manara and his boys. The match itself had no story and strangely enough the result was never in doubt; it was Exiles all the way when we built a good lead of 8-3 by the end of the third session before the Saints made a partial comeback to reduce the gap by three goals.

As expected, the final against Otters was a ‘no contest’ as Exiles piled goals at leisure to win comfortably 10-4 and the Knock-Out trophy.

Exiles pride itself of having one of their promising players David Pace Lupi being awarded by the ASA, the Second Division Waterpolo Player of the Year for season 2003.

In the next article, Marco Manara carries on his work and helps Exiles to win another honour.