Courtesy: Malta Football

Malta ready for international debut

Another national team who will be making its debut in the coming weeks is the Malta Futsal national team.
Under the guidance of coach Michal Striz, the national team will be making its debut in international football in the UEFA Futsal Championship Mini-Tournament between January 15th and 21st at Corradino. Malta will be facing Georgia, Cyprus and Kazakhstan.

Striz said that the national team has been training three times a week and played four friendly matches against four First Division sides, winning them all. The team is now expected to play a friendly match against an Italian club after that a friendly against the Polish futsal national team was called off due to the latter's financial difficulties.

As regards the opponents, Striz believes Georgia are the strongest side in the group while Cyprus are more or less in the same level as Malta. On the other hand, he said he hardly knows anything about Kazakhstan as they used to play in the Asian confederation. The Czech coach did not rule out the possibility of Malta reaching the next stage as two teams qualify from the group.

Striz concluded that he is hoping that the fact that the tournament will be played in Malta will help to boost the game in Malta.

MFA president Dr Joe Mifsud added that the association is aiming at having more younger players playing Futsal since right now, most players are older once. He said that it is now a well-known fact that small-sided games are very important for youth development.





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