Longtime Teammates Prepare For Final Tourney

Just before junior high, they all did the bowl-cut thing - their own version with their own razor.

They went through the boxing stage, bringing gloves on road trips for hotel-room brawls.

For a while, four of them believed they were the rap group Kris Kross, wearing their clothes backwards.

Through the years, there have been plenty of crazy moments for the longtime friends, but Eric Blatt, Garth Cummings, Abbas Faridnia, T. Ghezzi, Tommy Servine and Billy Sleeth are best known for their stunts on the soccer field.

Five were first-team all-Greater Spokane League selections for Ferris High in 1998. The sixth was injured.

The recent Saxon graduates have played together in more than 50 tournaments, estimates club coach and father Manny Faridnia.

Servine is quick to correct his coach on the number.

“I have 63 trophies and medals, and only one is for basketball,” says Servine, the team’s witty 6-foot-4 goalkeeper.

That run, however, will soon end. The group, which has competed for the Spokane Soccer Club’s Under-19 Falcons premier team when it wasn’t playing high school ball, will play what is likely its final tournament at the Surf Cup in San Diego from July 31 to Aug. 2.

The Falcons, playing in the Super 19 bracket, are the only team from Washington, having qualified by winning the national Snickers Championship Cup in Seattle earlier this year.

The six players have compiled a 34-5-1 record since last fall, when they played in Washington’s statewide premier league.

They won the Greater Spokane League this spring and went on to take the 4A state soccer title.

“They feel pretty good,” Manny Faridnia said. “They now know how to work together on the field, but it’s kind of sad because they will be apart. They’re enjoying it while it lasts.”

Blatt will be playing for Western Washington University in Bellingham, Cummings for Edmonds Community College, Faridnia for Gonzaga University, and Sleeth for the University of Washington. Servine will play basketball for Walla Walla Community College.

Ghezzi will attend Spokane Falls Community College but won’t play soccer yet. He said he’s saving his eligibility for when he transfers to a bigger school.

Just three weeks ago he had surgery for an anterior cruciate ligament tear in his right knee. The defender wore a brace for his senior season.

These players pick on each other like brothers. They are brothers of sorts, having played together so long.

Cummings, Faridnia, Ghezzi and Sleeth have been teammates since they were 8 years old.

Ghezzi remembers when Cummings wore jeans under his soccer shorts. He swears he has video of it.

Sleeth laughs about the time the team shaved the older Faridnia’s chest. They refer to the coach as “Bubba.”

“It grew back a day later,” Servine said.

They recall how Servine fell for it when “Bubba,” during a motivational speech, said he had once instructed Pele and that the soccer great might just show up at a practice sometime.

Pele never came.

“Bubba” didn’t mess around often, though, Servine said.

“We couldn’t socialize with girls,” he said. “He caught me and Billy one time in a girl’s room, and our curfew was changed to like 7 p.m.”

They’ve played soccer in the snow. They’ve shot at each other with BB guns, and Cummings once hit the younger Faridnia in the knee.

“He’s like, ‘Don’t pop me,’ and I said, ‘I won’t,’ and I did,” Cummings said.

They’ve seen each other’s good and bad sides.

“Abbas is the meanest guy on the field,” Servine said. “You can’t argue back with him or he won’t give you the ball. Garth doesn’t take lip from anybody.”

It’s intriguing to watch them play MUFF, their form of basketball’s PIG. They played it everywhere over the years, especially in hotel parking lots.

It’s a juggling drill, and the one who messes up earns a letter. Whoever spells MUFF first has to bend over and stick out a rear end as a kicking target.

Each time someone hits the target, the next person kicks from closer.

“They’re fun,” Manny Faridnia said. “They act like they’re 30 to 40 years old, but they’re kids. I’m going to miss them.”

Abbas Faridnia refuses to think of this as an end. He’s already making plans for the group to reunite for the State Cup this winter in Seattle.

“I hope to get all the guys back,” he said.