England 8-7 Greece
International Friendly
Monday 17 December 2007
Nechells Community Sports Centre, Birmingham

England Futsal Head Coach Graeme Dell couldn’t hide his delight on Monday night after seeing his team pick up their first ever international win over Greece.

The Three Lions edged a thrilling match over Greece by 8-7, although the difference could have been more with England missing three penalties in the game.

It didn’t matter in the end though, as a great team performance illustrated the spirit within Dell’s squad which has been building over the last few months as England have shown gradual improvement in nearing their historic victory.

“We showed tremendous spirit to get the win tonight and it definitely gets the monkey off our back,” said Dell, after the game.

“We have been getting closer to the win and we have shown more and more mental strength in the last few games and that will only grow even more with experience.

“There are still one or two things that I wasn’t happy about tonight and some of the goals we conceded were down to a lack of concentration at times.

“It happens in football, but in Futsal you can be punished for the slightest lapse and that’s what happened here.

“We’ll keep working on that though and the aim now is to get a second  victory on Tuesday night.

“There were a lot of positives to take from this game though and the belief that the lads will get now that they’ve got their first victory will certainly help us in the future.”

It was also pleasing for Dell, as Greece are a country who have been playing Futsal for numerous years now.

“They are a Futsal nation,” he revealed.

“They have just had a change of coaches, but they have been playing the game a lot longer than we have and we can take a lot of positives out of that.

“We have a great Small Sided Committee in place though and it was good to see so many of them here tonight to see the win and to get the victory in front of a home crowd was just what we wanted.

“There was a good crowd here and I’m sure they will have enjoyed the game and hopefully we can keep spreading the message and improving the game in England.”