Courtesy: UEFA.com

Futsal's finest await Nyon draw

Thursday, 2 November 2006

Sixteen of Europe's finest clubs will learn their 2006/07 UEFA Futsal Cup fate on Friday afternoon with the draw for the Elite round of the prestigious competition.

Seeded teams
Holders Boomerang Interviú and El Pozo Murcia FS, both of Spain, 2004/05 champions Action 21 Charleroi of Belgium and Russia's top team MFK Dinamo Moskva, runners-up in the last two seasons, are the four seeded teams headlining the 14.00CET ceremony. In the draw, the seeds will each be allocated to one of four groups of four teams - to be known as Groups A, B, C and D. Clubs who met in previous rounds will also be kept apart.

Four hosts
Dinamo will be one of four hosts for the group mini-tournaments, when each club will play the other three teams once in the space of four days. The other hosts are Clearex Chorzów, Futsal Club Gödöllö and Arzignano Grifo C/5, of Poland, Hungary and Italy respectively. These tournaments are scheduled to be played between 4-10 December. The last game will always be the host club against the seeded team, except in Dinamo's case whereby they will meet the second-ranked team in their section.

Final Four
The winners of each group will progress to the last stage, to be played in the Final Four format seen in many American sports, between 26-28 April. The format has been revamped for this season to build on the increased success of a competition that has had more champion clubs involved - 40 from 39 countries - than ever before. The Final Four host will come from one of the clubs winning through, with the match schedule featuring two semi-finals, a third-place play-off and the showpiece final. Friday's draw will be conducted by UEFA Futsal Committee vice-chairman István Huszar.



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