Courtesy: Today


A date with Real Madrid

Indonesia's Enrico FC lands plump trip to Spanish champions after winning adidas Extreme Power 5s regional futsal competition

by Tan Yo-Hinn

Jun 23, 2012

SINGAPORE -- For overcoming the region's best futsal teams, Indonesia's Enrico FC have earned themselves a once-in-a-lifetime training stint at Spanish giants Real Madrid.

Earlier this evening, they beat Bertam Ulu FC of Malaysia 8-6 in the regional final of the adidas Extreme Power 5s futsal competition at Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza to win S$7,000 cash, a paid trip for the team to Madrid, and tickets to a match involving reigning La Liga champions Real Madrid.

The four-day stint for Enrico FC, comprising of players Satria Wahyu Perdana, Harry Akhbar Dimas Santoso, Aldhi Ramaretha, Ihsan Trista Pratama, Ketut Surya Dharma, Indra Rukmana and Try Septiadi Muharam, will also include a training session supervised by one of the club's coaches.

The dates of the trip have not been finalised, but it is likely to be sometime during the 2012-13 Spanish league season.

The qualifying round for the adidas Extreme Power 5s in Singapore was held on June 9 and 10 at SAFRA Tampines, where 80 teams battled it out to qualify for today's regional finals -- consisting of 20-minute matches on a 22m x 11m caged astroturf pitch -- which also featured the top two sides from Indonesia and Malaysia.

There was also an exhibition match between the Urban Street Team and local media.

The organisers aim to expand the tournament into Europe, and eventually sending winning teams to the "Z5" training facility in France run by French legend Zinedine Zidane.

"For this trip to Real Madrid, who knows, one of the players might impress the coaches there and they could take an interest in him," said Fons Houtkamp, general manager of Coty Beauty Far East Export, the licensee for adidas body care products in Asia.

Futsal Association (Singapore) president Ronnie Lee hopes competitions like the adidas Extreme Power 5s can help build a bigger base of futsal players in Singapore.

"Futsal is all about the basic techniques of football, and there are players in our domestic league who lack these basic skills," he said.

"We are working towards engaging more primary schools to have futsal, because kids want to play, and we want to reach out especially to those who don't get selected for their school teams tend to be forgotten."




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