Cerebral Palsy World Championships Day Four Round-Up

The Cerebral Palsy World Championships continued with a bumper day of four games at St. George's Park on Friday. 

Holland put four past Northern Ireland in their Group D clash. The defensive resolve of the Irish was finally breached early in the second half by substitute Minne De Vos. 

De Vos had an immediate impact on the game, picking out teammate Jeroen Saedt in the box, who gladly slotted home to open the scoring in the 40th minute. 

Then De Vos got himself in the goals four minutes later before Peter Kooij added to Northern Ireland’s woes with a strike on the hour mark. 

Another Northern Ireland mistake near their own goal resulted in De Vos rounding off the scoring with another simple finish in the second minute of stoppage time to wrap up a 4-0 win. 

The other two sides in Group D, Argentina and Canada, contested a close-fought tie with the spoils going to the South Americans, who ran out 2-0 victors. 

The deadlock was broken in the 10th minute when Cortes crossed to Matias Fernandez, and he put the ball into an empty net from six yards out. 

Matias Bassi atoned for an earlier miss by making it 2-0 in the 41st minute. Lugrin laid the ball off to Bassi who thumped home from the edge of the area. 

Brazil comfortably swept aside Venezuela in the all-South American tie in Group C. 

Felipe Rafael scored the best goal of the first half, cannoning in from long-range leaving 'keeper Pineda Teran with very little chance to get a hand to the strike. 

Igor and Jonatas completed the scoring to make it 4-0 before the break and there were two more goals in the second period to keep Brazil top of the table. 

In the final game of the day, USA came back from a goal down to defeat Scotland 2-1. Stuart Sharp’s men scored twice in the space of four minutes to break Scottish hearts in an entertaining encounter. 

Scotland captain Jonathan Paterson calmly rounded Vasquez to give his side a deserved lead. Both teams continued to press with Paterson forcing a good save from Vasquez, while Razon volleyed agonisingly over on the stroke of half time. 

Shortly after the turnaround the Americans equalised, when Razon produced a teasing cross which Halloran diverted past Hannin. 

Four minutes later they took the lead when a mix up between Ian Paton and Connell left Seth Jahn with a simple tap-in. 

Agony for the Scots but joyous scenes for USA.

England are back in action on Saturday as they face Ukraine to decide who finishes top of Group A. 

That games kicks off at 5pm, but before that Republic of Ireland take on Portugal and Australia face Russia, both at 1pm.