France 5-2 England
Invitational International Tournament
Villeneuve D’Ascq
08 March 2005

England lost the first match of this invitational Futsal tournament last night in the Palacium Arena in Villeneuve D’Ascq.

The Lille area of France is one of the hot beds of Futsal in France and this interest was reflected in a passionate capacity crowd with many spectators locked out of the impressive indoor arena.

England opened brightly against the hosts with a sustained period of possession. However this seldom led to clear cut scoring opportunities - a problem that was to trouble England throughout the match.

The French tactics were to seek out and then support the impressive Yahia Bey in the central pivot position. This tactic was to cause England problems all night with the French scoring their first two goals via his well timed lay off and then a turn and shot pass the despairing Jackson.

England were however demonstrating an improved defensive shape and an ability to retain the ball. This led to a debut goal from Moor Green’s David Bridgewater when he seized onto a parried shot from Team Bath’s Marc Canham.

England started off the second half with a sustained period of possession but lacking a natural goalscorer in the team they struggled to convert hard earned opportunities into an equaliser.

Futsal seldom rewards teams that fail to take their opportunities and this proved to be the case when despite a breathtaking double save from Jackson, French forward Christophe Piorun joyfully rammed home his second parry.

Over zealous refereeing led to England accumulating their sixth foul and from the resulting 10m penalty Jackson was again unlucky to see his excellent save fall to the feet of the onrushing Marna. This was followed by a fifth goal for France when England once again were exposed by a turn and shot from French forward Ben La La in the pivot position.

Jackson finally got a deserved reward for his performance when he saved a further 10m penalty and England scored a warranted second goal when debutant and former England U18 international Marek Szmid rammed home a 10 metre penalty after Bath City’s Alex Sykes had drawn a six foul from Basson.

Despite a further international defeat, The FA’s Small Sided National Manager, Dermot Collins was pleased with the team’s performance ‘ In general we defended as a team far better than in recent matches but got punished by some individual errors.

Whilst we are developing the required ability to retain the ball for long periods we need to pose more of an attacking threat and this is something that we will be working on. We would love to add a forward to the squad that can enhance the creativity of the team’.

Following this defeat, England will play Finland in the playoff for 3rd and 4th position at the Pallacium on Thursday. France will play Romania who defeated Finland 2 -1 in the other group match.