The Pink Ladies are the closest thing Totalcampo have to female royalty. Except we’re talking more Princess Di or Meghan Markle than Queen Elizabeth, with a firm middle finger in the eye of any stuffy status quo.

And while she wasn’t around for the team’s founding, Melanie Moukas has been the squad’s outspoken matriarch and silent strategist for just about a decade now, orchestrating the majority of its ten-plus championships right up to this summer’s COVID-condensed beauty in which the ladies dominated Laval’s FB Division except for one measly opening-season loss to FC Boisbriand.

“The fact that I have one loss this season still bothers me. I gave the girls shit that game,” she writes me, joking but not joking, before reeling over a picture founding member Marina Longo sent her from the Pink Ladies’ first championship back in 2006. But times change, and Moukas isn’t opposed to recruiting fresh blood when needed. She insists this summer’s addition of youngsters Julia Cerone, Sarah Feola and Issy Sanzone really hit the spot, humbling as tallying years might be. “I know how to choose the good ones. It’s 20 years I play for Totalcampo and the three youngsters on my team are 20.”

But chemistry trumps all, and the desire to win never fades, especially not with age. ”We can’t wait for the playoffs. We’re taking the cup again this year! Losing is not an option.”

LOOKING AHEAD TO WEEK 13 …

With a desperate eye toward the playoffs, Avengers find themselves in a must-win situation against the mighty FC Styfes on Sunday.

Aftermath and les Braves kick off the FC Division playoffs on Tuesday with an eye toward the semis. And on Wednesday, Bruno Sports Bar takes on Crystal M Palace as the C1 Division playoffs gets underway.

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