Seasonal report: Moldovan league, Tornado joy!

by our moldovan collaborator George Cotelea

After the "collapse" of the recognized leaders of Moldovan Futsal, namely Camelot, Dinamo and Rapid in recent years, the beginning of the 08/09 season saw almost all six teams ready to take part in the national league and claiming title chances as well.

Notably four teams, including Tornado declared their aim to get the elite title glory. The white and green club goal was to revalidate the cup title and conquer the league as well completing an ambitious double. But the season beginning was not as good as Tornado expected: 5:5 draw against debutants JLC and 1:3 defeat to Metalist. After this disappointing start Tornado experienced a great series of four victories: in Tiraspol over Sokol (5:4), a difficult win over Aset-UNITA (2:1) and great scores over Lexmax (8:3) and JLC (6:0). Tornado took the top of the tournament table at the end of this series, and managed to keep it against all opponents odds. Despite of some hard (3:4 defeat to Lexmax, 2:2 draw with Metalist), and intense games (like the one vs Aset-UNITA which features players who compose the national team structure) Tornado didn't lose the chance to get their first league honour, and got the dreamed result just one round before the league ending, through a thriller win over runners up Aset-UNITA

A deserved title, since 2004 Tornado was thinking about beeing crowned as Moldovan Champions. During this time the team proved to be a tough opponent, able to solve most complicated tasks. That wsa showed also during the crucial match against Aset-UNITA, in which Tornadohad twice to recover the score in favour of their rivals.

Main characters
Valery Baesu lived a brilliant season: catalyst of Tornado’s
wins and top scorer of the league, main candidate for the title of best player of the year. A significant contribution to the Tornado victory was given by Ruslan Istrati, who became this year's first goalkeeper of Moldova national team and managed to raise high standard in the national league as well as in international tournaments in Spain and Azerbaijan.

More players make up the backbone of the team: Dumitru Turku, Vitaly Rotaru, Ivan Karaman, Maxim Andronic, Yuri Gazhev, Eugene Savichev. Not to be forgotten some experienced players like Vasile Arlet and omnipresent Vitaly Plamadeala. A mention is more than deserved also from those players coming from the youth selections of Tornado, like Viorel Vikol and Cornelia Gafton, or debutants Alexander Adaskalitsey, Vitaly Negru, and Alexandru Rau. Substitutes goalkeepers George Bantysh and Oleg Istrati gave their support when needed, the only regret of the entire season is to have missed one of the main players of the team, Drutsa Aurel, due to several injuries.

Finally, a mention goes to the Tornado supporters, most of whom are students ULIM, as they gave a significant contribution in difficult moments, not only sharing the joy of victory.

The only failure of the season was registered in the Cup semifinal stage defeat, in a season in which getting the double frankly seemed to be very hard to achieve.

UEFA Futsal Cup adventure
Since August 18th to 23rd ,in the Bulgarian city of Varna, Tornado will participate in the preliminary round of the UEFA Futsal Cup, where they will face local side Varna, irish Cork City and turkish first ever champions Ghazi Universitesi. Good standard rivals, but Tornado will move towards Bulgaria with one definite goal: winning the group and obtaining the chance to reach the tournament main round. Since late June the team has begun preparations for the european challenge and would like to express their gratitude to the administration of universities ULIM and USEFS, as well as company "Rusnac-MoldAqua" for their support. Looking for a successful performance in the UEFA Futsal Cup Tornado got help from strong players with extensive experience in international futsal competitions, like goalkeeper Alexei Capsamun and field players Jan Yakovenko, Dorin Coceban, Jaroslav Subotin and Vladimir Japalau.


Futsalplanet Related Items

-> Moldovan Futsal League: Tornado got the dreamed title!

-> Moldovan Cup went to Aset-Unita Straseni

-> Moldovan Futsal Story




















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