San Francisco was the site of the 2004 International Gay and Lesbian Football Association’s annual world championship. Teams from across the country, and as far away as Australia and Japan, took part in the international tournament to crown the soccer champions in three divisions of play.

This year, 17 men’s teams and six women’s teams participated in the weeklong tournament. Teams playing in the men’s division took part in a three-day round robin competition to determine seedings and to divide the teams into two levels of competitive tournament play. The Sparks soccer team of San Diego took part in the tournament this year, merging with players from Seattle to field a full team, and the combination proved to be a winning one.

“At the last minute, we had several injuries that people were dealing with — we were only able, the week before we left, to have 11 people to go to a tournament,” said Leslie Randolph, who coached the combined team to a first-place finish in Division 2. “History has shown us, you can’t really go to a tournament with less than 16 people and expect to survive and do very well.”

In the week leading up to the tournament, the Sparks put out the word that they were looking for players who would be interested in supplementing the Sparks team. Seven players from the Seattle Stonewall team joined the Sparks, bringing their number up to 18 merged players.

In round robin tournament play, “Sandeattle” – as they were referred to for the tournament – went 3-3 and ended up as one of the top seeds in Division 2.

“We played very well in the first three days, which determined which division we were going to be in,” Randolph said, noting that the team won all three of their morning games and lost all three of the afternoon games. “But at the end of it, we ended up in a three-way tie with Los Angeles and another team. Because of the goal differential and a game that we had lost head-to-head with Los Angeles, that we lost by one goal… we ended up being in Division 2 and we won all of our games from there on out.”

Thanks to the expanded team roster, Randolph was able to sub in and play every player in every game over the course of the week, avoiding the injuries and fatigue that eventually began to plague their competition. In single elimination play, the Sparks beat team Samurai of Japan and Hotlanta to qualify for the finals on Saturday, where they defeated Vancouver’s Just for Kicks 4-1.

“We had a brilliant level of play by a lot of people,” Randolph said, “Mark Alford, who was in the back and played sweeper for a lot of the time… was very good in terms of directing and instructing the defense.”

San Diego’s Curt Janka played an outstanding game in the mid-field in collaboration with Will Dixon of Seattle. At the half-field position, Ron Addeo, who served as the team captain for the tournament, played with Seattle’s Christian Patrick.

“Certainly the person who orchestrated the merger between San Diego and Seattle was Kyle Zietk, and he was quite strong in the left fullback position,” Randolph said. “The entire offensive initiative was left up to San Diego, and leading that charge was Eric Eiben who ended up winning the Gold Boot award for having scored the most goals.”

Last year, San Diego captured a second place finish in the world championship. Building upon their success this year, Randolph said that the team is already recruiting and looking forward to traveling to the world championship next year that will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“What we want to have is a really tight, integrated team to go back next year to Copenhagen to defend our trophy so we are trying particularly to recruit and solicit participation among the new ethnic populations,” Randolph said about their recruiting efforts. “We have lots of people from Europe, Mexico and Latin American who are coming in here now and we are trying to have an ethnic cross-section of San Diego; that’s something we have seen in a lot of different cities that help to bolster their skill level, and we are trying to do the same here.”

South Florida captured first place in the Division 1 championship and San Francisco Spikes Gold took first in the Women’s tournament. The San Diego Sparks soccer team will be starting up their practices to prepare for the fall season in the San Diego County Soccer League this weekend. To learn more about the Sparks, stop by their weekly practice that is held in Balboa Park at the corner of Sixth and Laurel streets every Sunday morning. Practice begins at 9:30 a.m. and typically runs until 12:00 noon.