Courtesy: The FA.com


England draw second game

By Dermot Collins

Wednesday, 19 December 2007

England 2-2 Greece
International Friendly
7pm Tuesday 18 December 2007
Nechells Community Sports Centre, Birmingham.

England completed their second fixture against Greece with a hard fought draw at the Nechells Sports Centre in Birmingham.

Following the 8-7 goal fest of the previous evening, a large crowd were expecting another high scoring game but Tuesday's match turned out to be much tighter affair.

England started well with an early goal from leading scorer Alex Sykes - drawing an ecstatic response from the pupils of Rednock School who had made the trip from Gloucestershire to watch their PE teacher.

However, Greece quickly equalised when Mourdoukoutas Sokratis chested a ball down in his own half and then accelerated forward to drive a toe poke beyond keeper Dean Thornton.

England were finding it hard to play the high pressure game that had won them so much possession and scoring opportunities in the Greek half the previous evening and as a consequence, they found it difficult to break down the withdrawn Greek defence.

The visitors regularly created scoring opportunities, only for Thornton to deny them repeatedly but England hit the mark when Sam Tucknott was rewarded for his willingness to take on opponents late in the first half, after dribbling through a gap in the Greek defence to stroke in a goal on the second attempt.

The second half saw Thornton replaced by Pudaloff in goal following a rib injury and the replacement soon found himself to be the busiest keeper, with Greece pressing hard for an equaliser and England visibly tiring following their high pressure exertions the previous evening.

Once again, Pudaloff - a psychotherapist working in a Hackney hospital - excelled in repeated one-on-one situations. However the pressure finally told with ten minutes to go, with an equaliser bringing the scores back to 2-2.

Greece pressed for the win, but as they did so the foul count against them continued to rise. A sixth and seventh foul resulted in opportunities for Luke Ballinger and Sykes to win the game for England with 10 metre penalties, but as in the first game, found it hard to beat the Greek keeper, which was Pappas Konstantinos on this occasion.

Following the first night success, England's Head Coach Graeme Dell was disappointed that his team could not complete their second win, but felt that the Greek team certainly deserved a draw.

However the team have certainly improved in the nine games that they have played since September and will hope to continue this improvement in the demanding KL Fives Tournament in Malaysia in January 2008.





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