The line-up for The FA UMBRO Futsal Cup Finals took further shape at the weekend, with four more teams confirming their qualification for the event in Sheffield next month.
Corinthians and I Security from the South progressed, whilst there will be two teams from Sheffield representing the North in their home city at the English Institute Of Sport between 4 and 6 July.
Last weekend saw Team United Birmingham, the University of Worcester and Newham Genesis seal their qualification and they now know who they could be facing in just over two weeks.
Corinthians FC, who compete in The FA National League South, secured their spot in the finals with an impressive victory over Vaughan’s FC. After finding themselves 3-1 down at half time against the experienced Vaughan’s team, they managed to turn it around and win by 4-3 with the winner arriving late in the game.
Having been to The Finals on two occasions before, they are now looking to progress further having only played in the group stages previously.
“The win against Vaughan’s was a big scalp for us,” said Corinthians’ Ben Tadmor.
“They have a lot of ex and current England players and we also have the England goalkeeper Eric Pudaloff playing for us and he managed to score against them too!
“We have a heavy Brazilian influence to our game so hopefully we can combine the Brazilian flair with the English spirit and take confidence into the Finals as we have a young, passionate and Futsal minded team.”
Joining them from the Southern section are newcomers I Security, who hail from Epping in Essex. Originally a five-a-side team, who also play football together at the weekend, they have been playing Futsal for the last two years.
They also picked up some impressive results in qualifying as they beat Kickers Futsal by 6-3 before progressing to face Team Bath for a place in The Finals.
A thrilling game ensued, with I Security edging it by 6-5 courtesy of a winning goal in the dying seconds.
“We have done well to get to The Finals and it’s our first time there so we’re just looking forward to going to Sheffield now and we’ll see what happens,” said Bradley Devonshire of I Security.
“We’re a bunch of local lads and have enjoyed the competition so far and are confident going into the Finals now.”
It won’t be quite as long a trip to The Finals for two of the other teams, as both Sheffield FC and Sheffield CFA emerged from the Northern qualification round on Saturday.
Whilst Sheffield FC are in their first year of Futsal competition, they are affiliated to the oldest club in the world after the teams of Sheffield Stormers and Pot Belly FC amalgamated last year.
Both teams had enjoyed success in their previous guises, but with their combined experience now, they have shown good form in qualifying with a fine win against Tranmere Victoria in the qualifiers.
“It was a great win for us,” revealed Richard Moore, of Sheffield FC.
“Tranmere Victoria are one of the best teams around and we could’ve even played better.
“We have six or seven players who have played in The FA Futsal Cup before and the squad is about 13 or 14 strong, so we’re confident that we can go into The Finals and do well.”
Also from the host city are Sheffield & Hallamshire County FA’s representative team. Following their promotion and various programmes of Futsal over the last few years, it was decided that a team could be set up after trials and after an encouraging first season together, they will be looking for further success in the Finals.
“We have done a lot of work with Futsal in the area and we started this team from scratch with trials,” revealed the Sheffield & Hallamshire FA’s Head Of Football Development Brian Peck.
“This season has been a bit of a learning curve for us, but we have done well in the National League so far and we wanted to get to the Finals this year, which we’ve now done.
“We have a mixture of experience, such as England’s Steve Harrison and we also have some of the younger players that have been involved with our junior programme.”
There will be further details of The FA UMBRO Futsal Cup ahead of the competition in early July.
