NEW YORK – OL Reign midfielder and Long Island native Allie Long and Real Sociedad’s Alexander Isak won the Kick COVID FIFA20 tournament, it was announced on Monday.

Long scored 12 goals to capture the tournament’s Golden Boot and was named tournament MVP. The LaLiga North America, Uninterrupted and Women’s International Champions Cup e-sports event raised eleven thousand dollars for Feeding America during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I got a tweet earlier that said I’ve never seen a woman play before and I was like, women can do everything,” Long said. “I love to represent women and show that we can do everything that guys can. All you guys have respected me and that’s kind of why I wanted to play too is to get some respect here.”

OL Reign competes in the National Women’s Soccer League.

“She played great,” remarked Isak. “This match took a bit longer for [Allie] to score, [John] gave it a good match, but she managed to get the job done. As you guys say, she was the best player of the tournament.”

Isak and Long, a Northport, N.Y. native and U.S. women’s international, defeated Villarreal CF’s Pau Torres and teammate John Collins (Atlanta Hawks) 5 -1 on aggregate to win the tournament.

 

The day started with a semifinal clash between Villarreal CF’s Torres and Collins and Atlético de Madrid’s Álvaro Morata and partner Chad Johnson (Cincinnati Bengals). The first leg had thrilling goals with Villarreal ultimately coming out on top with a 5-3 aggregate score that advanced them to the final.

Long and Isak reached the final after decisively defeating Valencia’s CF Jose Luis Gayà and the NFL’s Damarious Randall (Las Vegas Raiders) in the semifinals.

The tournament had more than four million livestreams during the two days across Twitch, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. An additional 50+ content pieces were created and distributed, generating a total of 26.7 million impressions.

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Video courtesy of the Kick COVID FIFA20 Tournament

Kick COVID marked the first time US-based professional athletes across different leagues and LaLiga superstars played together. 16 professional athletes from LaLiga, the NFL, the NBA and NWSL competed against each other in teams, with Kevin Egan (CNN commentator and e-sports host), Jimmy Conrad (Former USMNT, MLS Star, LaLiga Anchor and EA gamer) and Melissa Ortiz (Colombia WNT and Olympic Athlete) moderating the gameplay and featuring special participation by Phil Schoen (sportscaster featured on ABC, ESPN, Fox Sports, beIN Sports, and SiriusXM) and Mark Brown (commentator and pundit for LaLiga).

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.