The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University won the championship, defeating Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in the finals. Regulation play ended in a scoreless draw, and Tepper beat Kellogg 5-3 in penalty kicks.
The tournament attracted more than 300 MBA students from schools around the world. The Cranfield Business School in the United Kingdom, Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, and Mexico's PanAmerican Institute for High Business Direction were among the schools represented.
This year, the tournament was so popular there was a waiting list.
"We select teams on a first-come, first-served basis," Mike Errecart Tu'08, one of the tournament organizers, said. "We keep track of a list of 30 to 35 schools around the world. We tell them when the tournament is, and it's usually over spring break or a little afterwards, and then whoever pays first gets in. We usually have a pretty good mix of schools from all over the place."
The 16 teams were first divided into four divisions for a preliminary round robin stage. The top two teams from each division then advanced to a single-elimination tournament.
Tuck fielded three teams " Tuck White, Tuck Green and a Tuck Alumni team.
The White team dropped its first two games 5-0 and 2-0 to Sloan and IPADE, respectively.The team rebounded with a 2-1 win over Yale, but the victory was not enough for the team to advance past the round robin stage.
The Tuck Alumni team dropped a 3-0 decision against Tepper before tying Harvard's Kennedy School of Government 0-0. The Alumni had to forfeit the final game against Cranfield, however, because of player injuries.
The Tuck Green team posted a 2-0-1 record in the round robin tournament. The team had a 1-0 victory over the University of Rochester's Simon School of Business and a 2-0 victory against Babson, in addition to a scoreless draw against Columbia Business School.
In the knockout stage, the Green team defeated New York University's Stern School of Business 5-4 in penalty kicks, before falling to Tepper, 2-1.
It was a frustrating loss for Tuck, since the squad held a 1-0 lead for most of the game, only to see Tepper turn things around in the final five minutes of the contest.
"We didn't determine our teams until a week and a half before the tournament, and with the rain leading up to it, we didn't get a lot of time to practice as a team because we didn't want to ruin the fields," Errecart said. "Considering that, I think we played very well, though we were disappointed that we didn't make the finals, but the team that beat us won the championship, so nothing to complain about."
The Tepper team took home the Peter Grieve Invitational Cup, named for Peter Grieve Tu'84, who established the tournament in 1984 and sponsored the tournament this year.
Although the Tuck teams did not come away victorious, Barrera emphasized that the tournament is not just about the final results.
"This is our biggest tournament, and I was honestly very happy. As the hosts, our objectives were upholding the Tuck name and having fun," Berny Barrera Tu'08, a tournament organizer, said. "I think that all of the Tuck guys set an example inside and outside the pitch."
Though Barrera was injured in November and could not play in the tournament, he enjoyed it nonetheless.
"This is one of the events I looked forward to in both my years here," he said. "To me, soccer is about having fun, and as the captain of the soccer team I've learned more than I have in many classrooms."
