Report by our friend and collaborator from Cyprus: Yiannis Vakis - Cyprus Futsal Portal


Cyprus and Finland double headers

Cyprus was the host country of the double friendly game against the Suomi boys on January 12th and 13th. Both teams will be competing in the Preliminary Round of the next UEFA Futsal Championship, in February. Cypriot side is travelling to Dublin (Ireland) to face the local squad as well as England and Kazakhstan: mr. George Mechanikos, Cyprus Futsal Committee President, is very confident about the national chances to advance to the next stage. Cyprus boys seem to be able of doing so under the instructions of head coach Petros Constantinou.

On the other hand Finland is moving to Israel to face the host country as well as Montenegro and Turkey. Matti Villgren, head of the Finnish delegation seems to be very concerned about the trip to Israel because of the recent events in the Gaza side. As he mentioned to us UEFA was supposed to decide whether the venue would be changed or not.

The first game that took place in the city of Larnaca on the 12th of January did not have a winner since the game ended with a 0-0 unusual score, even though both teams had good chances for scoring with Cyprus missing two 10m. double penalties and Finland being frustrated in their attempts by the good performance of the Cyprus goalkeeper Tasos Skampilis.

The impressive venue of Cyprus University in Nicosia was the home of the second challenge. In this game even though the Cypriots took the lead with Pampos Demetriades on the first half, Finland did not give up and managed to win through two goals by Panu Autio and Joni Pakola.






































Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com