Courtesy: UEFA.com


Last lap in race to Hungary futsal finals

Monday 16 March 2009

by Paul Saffer

The lineup for the 2010 UEFA European Futsal Championship finals will be decided in the coming week as the qualifying round is played out.

Hungary aim
For this edition the showpiece has been expanded from eight to 12 teams, meaning that eleven places are on offer in the seven mini-tournaments being played on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. The group winners and four best runners-up will earn berths alongside hosts Hungary in the finals in Budapest and Debrecen from 18-30 January 2010.

Spain defence
Spain are aiming to win the tournament for the third time in a row and with a familiar squad will stage Group 2 in Badajoz against Slovakia, Moldova and Kazakhstan, one of six teams to progress from the preliminary round last month. The 2007 runners-up in Porto, Italy, are in Kaunas to take on Lithuania, Belarus and Georgia in Group 4.

Tough group
Two sides that played in the last final tournament, Romania and Ukraine, are in Group 1 with 2005 qualifiers the Netherlands also involved alongside Andorra in the only pool not to contain a team from the preliminary round. The host nation in 2007, Portugal, welcome Poland, Azerbaijan and Finland to Viana Castelo while the team that beat them to bronze in those finals, Russia, face Group 7 opponents Slovenia, Montenegro and hosts France.

Ostrava competition
Group 3 is held in the city that hosted the 2005 finals, Ostrava, with Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Latvia challenging the Czech Republic. Serbia qualified in 2007 and hope to do so again in Antwerp against Belgium, F.Y.R. Macedonia and Greece.







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