Courtesy: FAI


St Pat's prepare for futsal debut

Friday, 08 August 2008

While most of the focus in St. Patrick’s Athletic FC at the moment is on the next crucial Eircom League games and of course the upcoming UEFA Cup match against Elfsborg of Sweden, another Pat’s team have also been preparing for a European adventure. The Pat’s Futsal team travels out to Helsinki next Wednesday as Ireland’s representatives in the qualifying round of Europe’s premier club Futsal competition, the UEFA Futsal Cup.

The current UEFA ranking system shows Pat’s as ranked 40th out of the 45 teams taking part in this years competition. However, with some decent results, St Patrick’s can help to improve the UEFA ranking for future Irish participants in the UEFA Futsal Cup. So, there’s all to play for but Pat’s won’t be happy with just decent displays. Although they face a very tough task in Finland, they have a serious desire to become the first Irish team to make it past the preliminary round. Should they do so, among the teams awaiting in the next round will be the Portuguese champions, Benfica whose side boast the outstanding talent of arguably Europe’s most exciting Futsal player, Ricardinho. However, a formidable first hurdle must first be cleared before entertaining any thoughts of a tussle with the player voted the best in the last European Futsal Championships.
The matches take place between August 9th and August 17th with only the group winners qualifying for the main qualifying round of the UEFA FUTSAL CUP in September. Pat’s opponents in Helsinki will be KMN Gorica (SLOVENIA), Golden Futsal Team Espoo (FINLAND) and Scandals Futsal FC (MALTA).

To give an insight into the task awaiting St. Pat’s, it’s worth mentioning that the Slovenian team KMN Gorica were set up 14 years ago and won their league this year on a play-off after finishing third in the domestic league. The host club, Golden Futsal Espoo was founded in 2002, won the Finnish league in 2003 & 2008 and the cup in 2005 & 2007. Most of their players are part of the national team in a country where there are over 25,000 registered futsal players.

The St. Pat’s team is coached by a Brazilian, Gleudson Da Silva (better known as “Junior”) who is also involved with the Ireland U21 team and Junior has been putting the team through their paces for the last few weeks. He said: “It’s a tough task preparing the team in the off season for this tournament where we have no competitive matches to sharpen our play but the lads have shown great enthusiasm in training. We will be trying our best to represent the club and country and hopefully we can give them something to be proud of.” The Pat’s team is made up of a variety of nationalities and their signings were facilitated through former Director of Football, Brian Kerr’s involvement with SARI. They include an interesting mix of Brazilans, Polish, a Hungarian international and a Moldovan alongside two Irish U21 International Futsal players. The Irish players, Lloyd Massey and John Perkins have competed in European competition before when they represented the Republic of Ireland in the recent UEFA U21 Qualifiers in Andorra. Indeed, Perkins has already experienced UEFA Futsal Cup competition as he was the goalkeeper of the Shamrock Rovers team who were Ireland’s representatives in the competition preliminary round last year in Vienna. Therefore, he knows what to expect and will be offering sound advice to his inexperienced but talented team mates. So, it’s with our best wishes that Pat’s enter into Europe and hopefully, they can give those interested in Irish Futsal something to applaud next week.





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