Samuel Bartolo, Mark Gauci, Massimo Cremona and Hansel Mallia were the four Maltese players who took part in the Major of France.

The Maltese players were the most involved during last weekend’s event when they played in the individual competition, during the team event and also played the first International friendly against World’s top team of Italy.

On Saturday, the Maltese were all involved with their respective clubs. Mark Gauci and Samuel Bartolo where involved together with their Greek team of Atlas Glyfada and managed quarter finals after loosing to the winners of Charleroi SC.

Both Maltese had their top moments when they won their matches leading their team to the last eight.

Hansel Mallia captained for the first time this season his Belgian side of AS Hennuyer. Unfortunately his team had his worst performance of all time and did not qualify from the group after loosing to Black Rose Roma and to the Greek team of Atlas.

Massimo Cremona with the Italian side of Perugia AS managed to reach the final but lost with a narrow score of 1-0 to Charleroi SC.

After the team event, the Maltese players took part in the first Maltese International friendly against World champions of Italy.

The final score does not resemble the truth as the Maltese were leading 1-0 just four minutes from time. In the last moments the Maltese conceded the dreadful goals to finish the match defeated by 3-0. The Maltese played this formation:

Francesco Mattiangeli / Massimo Bolognino - Mark Gauci 4-1

Enrico Guidi - Samuel Bartolo 5-1

Saverio Bari - Massimo Cremona 1-1

Efrem Intra - Hansel Mallia 2-0

On Sunday the individual competition took place. The Maltese players had yet another though challenge against World’s most prolific players.

Being a Major competition only the top players are allowed to participate and the games tend to be of high level from the early stages.

However, all Maltese managed to qualify from the group. Unfortunately, Hansel Mallia and Mark Gauci met soon after this stage which meant that a Maltese player had to leave the scenario. Both players could not get rid of each other.

With the match ending tight 1-1, the extra time was not enough and the match was decided on shoot outs, where Mallia lost his shots leaving Gauci to qualify for the next round.

Cremona and Bartolo managed next round too after beating Gorgette and Dupret of Belgium respectively. However, Bartolo had to abandon hopes after loosing to Defrancesco the next round after a tight match which finished 3-2 for the Italian.

Cremona and Gauci managed last 16 but had to put hands down after loosing their matches. Alex Iorio beat Cremona 4-2 while Massimo Bolognino beat Gauci 6-1.

The surprise of the tournament was Alex Iorio who managed semi-final after loosing to Portuguese star Vasco Guimaraez who won the event. In the final, Guimaraez bet Carlos Flores 1-0 to win yet another Major.

After this event, Cremona lost his first place to Eric Verhagen in the World ranking list.