Courtesy: UEFA.com


Spain set sights on futsal U21 crown

Friday 8 August 2008

by Álvaro Macho from Madrid

Three months from now the first UEFA European Under-21 Futsal Tournament kicks off in St Petersburg, and the pressure will be on Spain to add the junior title to the senior continental crowd they successfully defended last year in Portugal.

Success
Jordi García is the coach charged with leading Spain from 8-14 December and, since his 2005 appointment, has twice won the annual Autumn tournament in St Petersburg. That includes with his current squad last year, as well as qualifying with three victories and 25 unanswered goals. The 44-year-old came to futsal through rally driving, as he took up goalkeeping to improve his reactions, but ended up taking to the indoor sport and in 1991 took up coaching with FC Barcelona.

'Anything can happen'
Part of Spain's youth set-up since 2001, García will discover their opposition at the Yubileiny Palace of Sport when the draw is made on 17 September and with the usual futsal forces of Russia, Italy, Ukraine and Portugal represented, is well aware that the tournament will be tough. "In the forthcoming championship the teams that are always present [in U21 tournaments] will be there again; the difference this time around is that it will be organised by UEFA," García told uefa.com. "It won't be an easy tournament. Any team can give you a surprise if you have an off day and nowadays that's certainly more true than before as futsal has levelled out a lot thanks to the work done by UEFA. In any given game anything can happen. Italy will be one of our big rivals but we played marvellously well in the qualification group."






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