Courtesy: UEFA.com


English Futsal on the up

Friday, 23 September 2005

by Paul Saffer

from London

Competitive European Futsal came to the capital of England for the first time last week - and the finish could not have been more exciting.

Heartbreaking exit
Hosts London White Bear FC, having lost to Dinamo Tirana but defeated France's Roubaix Futsal, went into their last UEFA Futsal Cup preliminary round game needing what seemed an unlikely two-goal win against experienced Tal Grig Yerevan, and the odds increased when the Armenian champions scored after only ten seconds. But London equalised early in the second half and took the lead late on, and when the whistle went there was some number crunching before they realised that Yerevan and Dinamo Tirana had pipped them on head-to-head record, on goals scored.

Praise for city
The chance to come to London was relished by the visiting teams. Roubaix president Messaoud Ferkioui said: "We have learned so much just being in London, it has confounded our expectations. It is as beautiful as Paris!" Yerevan coach Ruben Nazaretyan added: "We enjoyed it - thank you London!"

English improvement
London's performance shows the development that is taking place in English Futsal, as promoted by the Football Association (FA) and the burgeoning leagues. One prominent example is the Futsal Premier League (FPL), whose CEO Gary Macbeth was the event director of the mini-tournament at the Crystal Palace National Sports Arena.

'Fantastic experience'
Eastern European-influenced London are the current FPL champions, and Macbeth told uefa.com: "This truly was a fantastic experience for our team in hosting this event and bringing European competition to our shores. The opportunity to offer a higher level of Futsal was a real treat and we hope the Futsal fans that came out to support the event thought so too. For me personally, I think it was also a huge success in demonstrating the positive results that can come from UEFA and the FA working with league organisations like the FPL to advance Futsal."

'Desperately unlucky'
Macbeth was certainly pleased with London's performance in representing his league and English Futsal. "Having not seen the other teams, I had no idea really what to expect from them or how well the White Bear team would do," he said. "They were desperately unlucky not to qualify. Winning two games, including coming from behind and beat the group winners Yerevan, is a testimony to the improvement in Futsal in this country over the last few years."

Brazilian influence
He added: "The standards have raised here in the UK.. The competitive league structure is going from strength to strength. The Futsal Premier League is fortunate in that we benefit from a strong presence of Brazilian and Eastern European teams. This is a definite help in raising the level of the game overall."

Future years
Next year's English representatives will be Doncaster College for the Deaf from the Sheffield and Hallamshire County FA's Elite Futsal league, who beat London in this year's national finals. But there is no doubt that London's performance on their European debut has raised the expectations for English teams, and Macbeth hopes that improvement will continue.

Benefit gained
"I think the teams know now they can compete in Europe," he said. "There's still a long way to go, but only by competing at that level can teams learn what it will take. The cost of international fixtures is high of course, but the benefit from the experience is significant and obvious. It's our hope of course to continue now in working closely with UEFA and the FA, but any sponsors out there who love football, should seriously take a look at Futsal."



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