Clube de Futebol de Sassoeiros: “Our first experience in an international context”
Clube de Futebol de Sassoeiros from Portugal has registered three teams for Partille Cup 2024.
It will be the first appearance ever by the club in the history of Partille Cup.
– The desire to take part in Partille Cup has been a long-standing project of CFS, says the president Deolinda Sousa.
Clube de Futebol de Sassoeiros (CFS) was founded on 13 June 1946 having celebrated its 77th anniversary in 2023. The CFS is a non-profit sports association with public utility, which bases its intervention on the pillars of sports training and psychosocial development of each athlete. It currently has approximately 2,000 members and around 100 staff. It's a club with around 450 athletes, of whom around 50 are handball players.
CFS is a club in the Lisbon district and the only one in the municipality of Cascais where handball can be played and, although it is currently only focused on youth training, until recently it played in the second national division. It is one of Lisbon's reference clubs, not only for its sporting results, but above all for the training of young people.
Why are you choosing to play in Partille Cup in 2024?
– The desire to take part in Partille Cup has been a long-standing project of CFS. In fact, in 2020 we had everything organized with Armando Lopes to be able to take part in this event, but because of the pandemic, we were unable to do so, says the president Deolinda Sousa.
This year, with the support of Cascais Municipal Council and the Carcavelos and Parede Parish Council, and with the excellent organization of Armando Lopes, they will finally be able to take part with their U14, U16 and U18 teams.
– CFS's main reason for taking part in Partille Cup is to promote and foster our mission and values principles. For CFS, it's essential that our young athletes have values and psychosocial principles that enable them to play a constructive and active role in our society. In this sense, events like this, where they can interact with different cultures and different perspectives and where they are placed in a multi-challenging context, are of the highest importance in terms of our objectives with our athletes.
What do you like about Partille Cup?
– This will be our first experience in an international context. Although we participate in tournaments on a regular basis, we've never had the chance to experience a tournament as large as Partille Cup, she says.
– This event has always drawn our attention because of its size, but also because of the extra-sporting experiences it can offer to our athletes. As a tournament that will represent the end of the season for us, it is very important not only for planning the next season, but also for all the social experiences it will provide.
What are your hopes for the 2024 edition of Partille Cup?
– Since this is our first time in the competition, we're looking forward to being able to fulfil these objectives, rather than thinking about the sporting achievements. However, at this point, our main objective is to be able to face as many teams as possible with different cultures and handball principles, thus creating a different challenge for our athletes to experience.
What are you looking forward to the most?
– First and foremost, we always want our athletes to be able to have fun playing. Being able to fraternize sportingly, but also socially with different countries and cultures, is something we are very much looking forward to. We're also looking forward to joining the other Portuguese teams who will be representing our country at this event, which will have a global scale, representation, and representativeness.
Do you think more teams from Portugal should take the chance to play in Partille Cup?
– Taking part in Partille Cup will certainly be an invaluable experience for most of our youngsters. If we consider the impact that these events and sport in general can have on the development of each young athlete, it seems clear to us that any club that can participate will be very interested in taking part in an event of excellence and reference such as Partille Cup, both from the perspective of a sporting experience and as a social experience.
How is the interest for handball and Partille Cup in Portugal?
– The success of this event and the organization of Partille Cup Ambassador in Portugal, Armando Lopes, have had a significant impact and, increasingly, we have several teams with greater interest in participating, says Deolinda Sousa.
