Courtesy: UEFA.com


Spain not taking Kazakhstan threat lightly

Sunday 7 December 2008

by Paul Saffer from St Petersburg

Just under 13 years ago, UEFA organised its first European futsal competition, which proved enough of a success to prefigure an official continental championship. Spain were the victors in 1996 and it now falls upon them to kick off the first UEFA European Under-21 Futsal Tournament in St Petersburg on Monday.

No pressure
They will face Kazakhstan at the Yubileyny Sports Palace at 13.00 local time (11.00CET), with the other Group B contenders Ukraine and the Netherlands meeting later in the day. However, although Spain successfully defended the UEFA European Futsal Championship last year in Porto, their coach for that success, José Venancio López, is not putting any pressure on Jordi García's juniors to match their achievements. "Ukraine and the Netherlands are strong teams while Kazakhstan have a very fast team," López told uefa.com. "Spain have always been noted for their collective efforts; we are a team that plays together."

Kazakh 'success'
Kazakhstan are playing in their first UEFA final tournament at any level but coach Amirzhan Mukhanov is feeling at home, having spent part of his youth football career in St Petersburg. "It is a great success for my team to be playing among the élite," he said. "We are playing against Spain in the first match, and that says it all. They are the leaders of world futsal. Of course we know that it will be hard, yet we can cause them problems. Our goal in the first game is to show character."

'Hard game'
Ukraine are two-time European runners-up at senior level, and the coach who masterminded those feats, Gennadiy Lysenchuk, is also leading the U21 team in Russia. "We are witnessing history here," he said. "We hope this tournament will become a tradition. The Netherlands have given attention to developing players, in football and futsal. It will be a hard game for us but our players will be up for it and it should be interesting."

Captain suspended
Despite the suspension of his captain Najib El Allouchi for the opening game, meanwhile, Netherlands coach Marcel Looseveld is upbeat. "Ukraine are always tough," he said. "But before qualifying in Andorra, we had a new team and I told them they had to improve a lot. They have had some good matches and proved they could reach a high level. Although this tournament is a very different prospect for the players, the first match is very important and we hope to get some points on the board."




Courtesy: UEFA.com


Russia banking on home support

Sunday 7 December 2008

by Wayne Harrison from St Petersburg

Russia coach Oleg Ivanov is urging the St Petersburg public to get behind his team when they kick-off their UEFA European Under-21 Futsal Tournament Group A campaign on Monday against Croatia.

'Experienced opponents'
The hosts are in a tough group, with Italy and Slovenia also involved, but Ivanov is hoping that Russia will be boosted by the support from the stands at the Yubileyny Sports Palace, which lies just a stone's throw away from FC Zenit St. Petersburg's Petrovsky Stadium. "Futsal is progressing in Croatia; we'll meet a very experienced team that is tactically astute as well," said Ivanov. "Therefore it will be an interesting match and I hope that the fans will come to the stadium to support us."

Motivating factor
Far from fearing that his players may be overawed in front of a partisan crowd, Croatia coach Mladen Perica is hoping his charges can rise to the occasion. "Obviously we have respect for Russia, and we know all about their quality and I hope it will be a good match," he told uefa.com. "But for our players it could be a motivation playing their first game in front of such a big crowd."

'Many dangers'
While Perica harbours ambitions of "reaching the semi-finals", Italy − who play Slovenia in the opening fixture of the section − go into the finals as genuine contenders given their impressive qualification record. The Azzurrini scored 25 times without conceding in three matches, a record matched only by Spain. Italy coach Paolo Minicucci, however, is not looking beyond Slovenia, where they twice won 3-1 in January friendlies. "There are many dangers, first of all because it is our opening match of the first UEFA European Under-21 Futsal Tournament," Minicucci said. "We played against Slovenia little while ago; they are a high-level team and the possibilities of winning are 50 per cent for each."

Past encounters
Like his opposite number, Slovenia coach Zoran Tesko stressed the importance of getting off to a good start and is not overly concerned with the two previous losses to Italy. "This game is the most important as it's the first game and we will see again if Italy are a good team," he said. "We played them in January but we are much better than we were then and we'll see – the first game is very important for us."







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