Courtesy: The FA.com


English champions pipped at the post

By Simon Walker

Tuesday, 24 August, 2010

Helvecia narrowly miss out in UEFA Futsal Cup.

Last week saw Helvecia Futsal Club, the English Futsal champions, narrowly miss out on becoming the first English club team to progress through the Preliminary Stages of the UEFA Futsal Cup.

Helvecia were understandably downbeat after losing in their final game, but should not be too downcast after losing to an exceptional Hungarian team that deserved to finish top of the qualifying group.

The UEFA Futsal Cup is Futsal’s version of the Champions League, with the top clubs from across Europe competing to be the European Champion. The competition goes through three stages: Preliminary Round, Main Round and the Final Round. In Helvecia’s Preliminary Round group they were drawn in a group of three other teams, the national champions from Hungary, Andorra and Switzerland. The matches were all played in the small, pleasant town of Gyor in Hungary that had outstanding Futsal facilities and a large supportive crowd throughout all of the matches.

Helvecia opened the tournament with a convincing win against FC Encamp from Andorra. Although a fiercely fought game, with the Andorran champions continually disrupting the flow of Helvecia’s play, the latter always seemed in control. Without extending themselves, Helvecia eased to a 4 – 2 victory, and overcame a small wobble towards the end of the game where FC Encamp unexpectedly and briefly threatened to come back into the game.

The following day, Helvecia had a far tougher challenge against the Swiss Champions, Croatia Appenzell. Appenzell started brightly, looking to atone for their heavy defeat the night before against the Hungarian team, and they caught Helvecia napping. Helvecia played dreadfully during the opening half, struggling to retain possession and get any momentum or flow into their play. Although playing solidly, Appenzell did not appear to be world beaters, but managed to dictate and dominate the opening period. Incredibly and somewhat fortunately, Helvecia managed to steal a 2-1 lead going into the half-time break with goals from Lisboa and Macarrao.

The start of the second half saw Helvecia regain a little more composure and control over their play, and they began to resemble the team that had recently won The FA National Futsal Leagues. Ediel gave the team a 3-1 cushion and a couple of further chances were squandered by Helvecia. These misses almost returned to haunt the English club, when Appenzell snatched a second with seven minutes left to play. Helvecia’s goalkeeper and captain, Guimaraes, had a storming finish to the game, pulling off a number of first class saves and leading the team to a 3-2 victory. Helvecia in the end deserved their victory, and were the better team – but appeared someway short of their best; regardless of this the team were still level on points with the Hungarian team at the top of the table.

Helvecia’s final match against the host team, Eto Gyor, would determine whether they progressed through to the next stages of this prestigious competition. Gyor had crushed their opponents in their previous two games, beating FC Encamp 10-0 and hitting six past Appenzell. The quality of their play had been incredible in the previous two matches, and the worry was that Gyor had clearly cruised through these two games – visibly taking their foot of the accelerator once they’d established a strong lead. Gyor were the only professional team in this qualifying group, and had three players who had recently just come from the top Spanish Futsal league where they had been playing the game at the highest level. Helvecia were certainly going into the game as massive underdogs, with it resembling a David versus Goliath contest.

And this certainly seemed the case, when after only 12 seconds the marvellous Madarasz scored a breathtaking goal for Gyor. As Helvecia were overcoming the shock of this early baptism of fire, Madarasz again had the large crowd on their feet with a second well taken goal with less than two minutes gone. And if this wasn’t enough, Helvecia conceded another two more exquisitely-worked goals before ten minutes had elapsed. Gyor were in supreme control and had landed knockout blow after knockout blow on Helvecia, and understandably the English team were shell-shocked and barely able to keep up with their Hungarian rivals. Guimaraes, the Helvecia goalkeeper, made numerous outstanding saves to limit the damage, but he could do little about the fifth goal on the edge of half-time from the penalty spot.

Helvecia looked buried at half-time, and there were fears for the final scoreline if Gyor continued to play at this intensity and quality. But Helvecia emerged in the second half with a defiant glint in their eye. They began to control the rhythm and flow of the game, pushing Gyor back with clever passing movements and energetic runs. A goal by Maccarao restored some Helvecian pride, and the home team no longer were on a procession to victory. Helvecia wasted a number of chances to claw themselves back into the match. Their inspirational captain and goalscorer Raoni Medina, recently leaving the club for new shores, now seemed missed more than ever. A quality finisher was sorely absent from the Helvecia squad. The game eventually finished 7-2, and there was no doubt that Gyor were the best team and deservedly progressed through to the next stages of the competition.

Helvecia came second in their group and could consider themselves rather unfortunate to have been drawn against one of the few professional clubs in this round of the tournament. But this is the second year that Helvecia have played in Europe, and on both occasions they have fallen short on qualifying in the last game. There has to be a real belief that next season the English champions, whether it is Helvecia or another club, take the important step of making it through to the Main Round of the UEFA Futsal Cup; this would be a watershed moment for Futsal in England.


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