Courtesy: UEFA.com

France comebacks deny England

Thursday, 21 December 2006

England's hopes of gaining a first-ever international victory ahead of their second UEFA European Futsal Championship campaign were dashed after two narrow defeats by France in Sheffield this week.

Experienced France
While France do not begin their EURO campaign until February's qualifying round, England will be in action from 15-21 January in preliminary round group B against Latvia, Bulgaria and hosts Romania. Before this week England had played 31 internationals, drawing one and losing 30 including their debut matches in the 2004/05 European event against Albania and Cyprus. France, meanwhile, are about to begin their fifth campaign having broken their competitive duck in the last tournament with a 3-2 win against Israel.

England denied
Les Bleus needed a late winner that day and on Tuesday had to come back from two down to defeat England 4-2. Glen Harris gave the home side a lead which was doubled by Richard Follett from an opportunist free-kick, but before the break France were level through Zoran Markoviæ and Jean-Paul Marna of English football club Kettering Town FC. After the interval France were dominant and first Follett deflected a cross into his own goal and late on Mustapha Otmani confirmed the victory on the counterattack.

Otmani winner
The following evening at the English Institute of Sport the home nation again struck first, Daniel Budd's shot turned in on the line by Glen Harris. Just before half-time, though, France again ensured that they would go in all square as Otmani tapped a free-kick to Markoviæ, who made no mistake. And it was France who claimed a 2-1 win thanks to Otmani's acrobatic effort in front of goal after Driss Bourroum lifted a pass above the English backline. England nearly levelled in the final seconds, but advanced England goalkeeper Graham Smith and Alex Haddow were both denied by Ivan Bouget.

EURO bids
France will hope to built on those victories in the qualifying round in Italy when they meet the 2003 European champions, Belarus, and a team from the preliminary round from 23-26 February for a place in Portugal next November. England will aim to break their duck in Deva next month to join them, and their manager Graham Dell told TheFA.com: "On Tuesday we made a number of individual errors which cost us three goals, but tonight we were unlucky to go away with a 2-1 defeat. Nine months ago we would have lost that game by five or six goals and gone away and said 'well they've been playing the game for a lot longer than us and we're still learning'. But tonight we're going away from a game against a side considerably higher than us in the rankings thinking that that's a game we should have won. But for me, we'll take a lot from that game. There are some players who have played their way into the squad for Romania next month."




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