The Cerebral Palsy World Championships entered into its 10th day on Thursday, with three more fixtures at St. George's Park.
After Wednesday's quarter-finals, the schedule switched back to positional fixtures – with Canada, Venezuela and Scotland running out victorious.
The day started with a bang and had a goal just two minutes into the opening match.
CP World Championships
Day ten
Venezuela 2-1 Japan
Scotland 6-0 Australia
Canada 1-0 Portugal
It was scored by Venezuela, who went on to claim their first win of the tournament at the expense of Japan, who were also seeking a first breakthrough.
But victory was not made easy for the South Americans against a Japan side which has steadily growing in confidence as the tournament progressed.
After sound beatings at the hands of England and Ukraine in group matches, their form had started to pick up in the positional ties.
However it was Venezuela who ran out 2-1 winners and booked their place in the 13th-place play-off match against Northern Ireland on Saturday.
Japan’s tournament ends with them in 15th, and last, position.
The ball cannons off the Portugal crossbar and away to safety
Next up was Scotland who comfortably secured back-to-back victories and a place in the 9th/10th place playoff with victory over Australia.
They also scored early, but unlike the Venezuelans, the Scots capitalised – opening the Australian floodgates to inflict a 6-0 thrashing over the ParaRoos.
Scotland will now face Canada, who beat Portugal by a single goal in the final match of Day
They did, however, endure a frustrating first-half and struggled to break through a resilient Portugal defence.
But it took just two minutes into the second 30-minute period for Drew Ferguson’s side to break the deadlock.
A sensational second-half strike by Trevor Stiles proved to be the difference and they will go into their final match full of confidence, although are likely to be clear underdogs against Scotland.
England are back in action on Friday. They face against the USA at 1pm.
It is one of four matches scheduled including both the intriguing semi-finals – Brazil v Ukraine and Netherlands v Russia.
