Courtesy: UEFA.com


Ireland braced for tough futsal debut

Thursday 13 November 2008

The Republic of Ireland will enter UEFA European Futsal Championship qualifying next year and at the end of the month will play their debut senior internationals in Hungary.

Hungary challenge
Having made their bow in 2008 UEFA European Under-21 Futsal Tournament qualifying earlier this year, losing to the Netherlands and Andorra and beating Azerbaijan 4-3, Ireland will come into the adult competition in February as preliminary round Group A hosts against Kazakhstan, Cyprus and England. On 26 and 27 November they face the country that will stage the 2010 finals, Hungary, who have proved their strength in the past by qualifying in 2005.

'Learning curve'
Ireland manager Derek O'Neill said: "Hungary has had a national futsal league in place for many years now with their entire national team playing professionally. Ireland has only recently embraced the game and has a short national league season mainly featuring U21 League of Ireland players. However, I'm happy to start mainly with the youngsters and bring them through this learning curve with the expectation that the team being built will become more competitive in the near future. It's a great opportunity for these players."

Football experience
O'Neill has drawn largely on his squad that played in U21 qualifying but has included two that did not, Shelbourne FC's Gary McCabe and Kildare County FC's experienced Thomas Morgan, a former football youth international. "Gary played in some friendly matches for the U21 development squad in Portugal against [SL] Benfica and Sporting [Clube de Portugal] and did very well, while Thomas is an experienced underage football international who captained the Ireland U20s to third place in the [1997 FIFA] U-20 World Cup in Malaysia during Brian Kerr's reign," O'Neill said. "Thomas has played futsal before and knows what the game is about so his experience will be a good influence on some of the young players in the squad."






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