FA UMBRO Futsal Cup 2007Middlesbrough Futsal Club ended their season last weekend with a 12th place finish in the national finals of the FA Futsal Cup. Boro failed to make the quarterfinals, but some good performances in the tournament drew praise from England manager Graeme Dell.
Boro came up against Vaughan’s FC in the opening game who were led by former England captain Alex Sykes and had 6 current and former England internationals in their line-up. Vaughan’s have plenty of FA Futsal Cup experience having been present in the last two final tournaments. Boro put up a good fight against one of the tournament favourites and even had a 6-4 lead before succumbing to 3 goals in the last 5 minutes. Boro blew their chance of a win that would have put them through to the quarterfinals.
Boro’s second group game, and now a must win game, was against Chippenham Futsal Club, also needing a win after losing to Baltic United. Chippenham started the strongest and Boro didn’t look the same team that had just put in a solid performance against the England internationals. It took a while for Boro to get into it and in the second half they had control of the game, but kept allowing Chippenham to get back into it. At 5-5, with a draw not doing any favours to either team, Boro got the edge when goalkeeper Curtis Holmes caught a loose ball and drop kicked it over the Chippenham ‘keeper to score the winner. Mortlock sealed the win and the three points to give Boro every chance of reaching the quarterfinals.
With Baltic United losing to Vaughan’s FC 5-1, Boro and Baltic went head to head for a place in the next round. A predictably slow first few minutes with both teams not wanting to give anything away ensued. It was, however, Baltic United who took the lead when a mix up between Wootton and Herbert left Baltic through on goal. A second goal, a trickling pass come shot that wrong footed Holmes, put Baltic in the driving seat. Boro got one back through Everson before an error by Wootton let Baltic have another one on one with Holmes, which was duly finished. 3-2 down at half time after Everson had doubled his tally kept Boro in the game. A draw would be the better result for Boro and would see them go through on goal difference, but they could never find it despite heavy second half pressure. Baltic restored their 2-goal cushion before Wootton scored the 3rd for Boro keeping the draw within touching distance. The equaliser never came and Baltic, last year’s FA Cup runners up, secured their passage with a fifth goal while Boro were pressing on.
It was a somewhat disappointing end to the FA Futsal Cup campaign for Boro, who were now in the Plate competition. Boro went on to the semi finals losing to Preston 5-4.
Manager and Chairman Damon Shaw recognised the team’s own undoing. “We know we could have got the results we needed to go further in the competition, but a series of lapses in concentration and individual errors cost us at vital times. The club is young and that lack of experience throughout showed, especially in the first game when we were two goals up with five minutes to go.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do before we can compete with the likes of Ipswich Wolves and Tranmere Victoria, both having a heavy Portuguese influence, but we have time on our side and hopefully in a year’s time we’ll be back in the FA Futsal Cup Finals, stronger and more experienced.”
Boro now head into the close season after a long campaign in which they played 54 matches and picked up 4 trophies including the British University Futsal Cup and the Tees Valley Futsal League. They will be hoping to build on a successful season and over summer will be holding trials to find the best talent in Teesside. The club then head to Portugal to play in two preseason tournaments before returning to domestic futsal. For more information about Boro’s plans for preseason log onto www.BoroFutsal.co.uk.
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Luca Ranocchiari -->
luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com 
