Boro to take on FC Barcelona

Middlesbrough Futsal Club’s preseason tour to Portugal will see the Teessiders take on sporting giants FC Barcelona and Sporting Lisbon. The tour has been planned as preparation for the new season, which gets underway in October and will surely be beneficial to the club’s season in which they will compete in several competitions. The draw for the preseason tournament in Lisbon was made last weekend and Boro came up against FC Barcelona in the first semi final. Boro will face either SG Loures, or Sporting in the 3rd place play off or final.

FC Barcelona and Sporting Clube Portugal are among the biggest sports clubs in the world and have teams competing in sports such as basketball, hockey and futsal, as well as the football teams that make these clubs so famous. Middlesbrough Futsal Club, with around 50 members compared to Barcelona’s 150,000, will be playing at the top of world futsal months after it’s official foundation! Barca only recently rejoined the top flight of Spanish Futsal, but are slowly building a team to take them back to the top while Sporting recently finished 3rd in the intercontinental club cup, and regularly compete in the UEFA Futsal Cup.

“In order to get better we need to play at a high a level as possible and we are starting this season as we mean to go on. We have travelled into Europe a lot in our short history and always come back to England with new ways of playing,” says Damon Shaw

“We know it’s going to be incredibly difficult in Portugal, but we will go over there with nothing to lose and hopefully come back well prepared for the new season. Playing a club like FC Barcelona is an achievement in itself and I know all the players are looking forward to it, so I am delighted with the draw.”

Middlesbrough will be firing on all fronts this season with no less than 6 competitions on the calendar. Top priority will be the FA Futsal Cup, and with defence of the York Open and Tees Valley League on the agenda it’s going to be a long season.

Campus Lifestyle this week also signed an extension to carry on as main club sponsors, which will aid the club in its quest for the FA Cup.

Damon Shaw is happy to have secured the deal, which he says will relieve some of the strain on the players’ purse strings. “Campus Lifestyle have given us the opportunity to play in more tournaments and take the demand away from the players’ pockets, which over the course of a season can amount to a fair bit, especially with all the travelling we do.”

Middlesbrough’s match against Barcelona on 1st September will be covered on www.BoroFutsal.co.uk, where you can also sign up for e-membership and follow Boro from your inbox with regular newsletters planned for the coming season!



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