Elite Cup 2022 – “Sports & Fun Are Back”

Elite Cup is an annu­al soc­cer tour­nament among dif­ferent pro­grams of the Elite Net­work of Ba­varia host­ed each year by the win­ning pro­gram from the pre­vious year. In 2022, the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram Hon­ours De­gree in Tech­nolo­gy Man­age­ment at the Cen­ter for Digi­tal Tech­nolo­gy and Man­age­ment (CDTM) has brought to­gether 10 teams to enjoy a sunny after­noon in the Mu­nich sub­urbs. After group stage games, a deli­cious Ba­varian lunch, and in­tense se­mi-finals and finals the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram Theo­reti­cal and Mathemat­ical Phys­ics (TMP)has claimed a victo­ry.

On June 11th, 10 teams and their dedi­cated fans ar­rived at Be­zirkssportanlage Freimann in Mu­nich to figure out who would take the Cup home this year. After the Cup had to be can­celled in the last two years due to the COVID pan­dem­ic, the ex­cite­ment was huge. The morn­ing start­ed with a group stage with Group A and Group B decid­ing which 2 teams would con­tinue to the se­mi-finals.

Group A con­sisted of the teams of the Elite Grad­uate Pro­grams Ad­vanced Op­tical Tech­nolo­gy from Er­langen, Ba­varian Grad­uate School of Com­puta­tional Engi­neer­ing, Glob­al Change Ecol­ogy from Bay­reuth, Hon­ors – Busi­ness, Eco­nom­ics and In­for­mation Sys­tems from Re­gens­burg Uni­versi­ty as well as FC Low­pass Er­langen. Group B fea­tured the local hero Hon­ours De­gree in Tech­nolo­gy Man­age­ment (CDTM) as well as the Elite Grad­uate Pro­grams Theo­reti­cal and Mathemat­ical Phys­ics (TMP), Mas­ter in Quan­tita­tive Eco­nom­ics, Hu­man Biol­ogy and the team „MAP Unit­ed“ from Ad­vanced Ma­terials and Pro­cesses from Er­langen, Bay­reuth and Würzburg.

After CDTM, Ba­varian Grad­uate School of Com­puta­tional Engi­neer­ing, Uni­versi­ty of Re­gens­burg, and TMP claimed their places in the next stage, all teams got to enjoy tradi­tional Ba­varian lunch and drinks in the cozy beer gar­den next door. Alt­hough some teams could not pro­ceed fur­ther, they stayed to cheer on the re­main­ing teams and chat with their col­leagues from vari­ous fields.

The at­mosphere in the after­noon was even more buzz­ing. Both se­mi-final games re­sulted in penal­ty shoot-outs with the entire field hold­ing breath to see the final re­sults. And final­ly, it came – the last battle to see who would take home the Cup and host the event the fol­low­ing year.

CDTM or TMP? TMP was stronger this time, but CDTM still had a lot of fun being the host and or­ganiz­ing an event for more than 150 peo­ple. After the event, par­tici­pants got to enjoy an­other cold drink in the beer gar­den, div­ing into more fruit­ful dis­cussions.

With the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram Theo­reti­cal and Mathemat­ical Phys­ics as win­ner of the tour­nament, the Elite Cup will be com­ing back to Mu­nich in 2023.

Text: Yulia Lomanina, student in the Elite Graduate Program Honours Degree in Technology Management (CDTM)