British Isles Nations Futsal Cup 2002
Chester (England)
20/10/2002

Results

Republic of Ireland - Scotland 2-1
Tranmere Victoria - Northern Ireland 4-1
Republic of Ireland - Northern Ireland 2-2
Tranmere Victoria - Scotland 6-3
Scotland - Northern Ireland 6-5
Republic of Ireland - Tranmere Victoria 1-3

Final Standing

1. Tranmere Victoria -----3-3-0-0-13--5-9
2. Republic of Ireland ---3-1-1-1--5--6-4
3. Scotland --------------3-1-0-2-10-13-3
4. Northern Ireland ------3-0-1-2--8-12-1


British Isles Nations Futsal Cup 2002 Winner:
Tranmere Victoria (England)

-------------------------------------------------------

Stephen Finn's Letter

Hey guys,

Stephen here, just back from a weekend in Chester, England, where Ireland participated in the first invitational British Isles Futsal Championship tournament.

The hosts were the Tranmere Victoria club that recently hosted the Iran national team and it was an excellent day's futsal. The other competing teams were the Scottish Futsal League, the Northern Ireland Futsal Association and the Gibraltar Futsal League.

The Gibraltar team were new to the event after all the other four teams were represented at the Masita Cup event we hosted in Dublin in February. There certainly has been some progress made in the intervening period.

The opening game was Gibraltar Futsal League v Tranmere and the latin side looked amazing from the off, winning 5-0 approx. Next up was the Irish v the Scots, fantastic rivals, great friends but really eager to beat each other. It was a far more tactical game than the first one, Scotland took the lead, we equalised then grabbed a winner to win 2-1. Next up Northern Ireland lost to Tranmere 4-1 then the Scots lost 5-2 to Gibraltar Futsal League.

Ireland came into the event with a depleted team for a number of reasons. Firstly our own futsal league hasn't begun yet and we last played any futsal last March, secondly a couple of players withdrew injured at short notice and as almost all our players are with outdoor 11-a-side clubs at a reasonable level, we couldn't get permission from clubs to realise players. This left us with a travelling party of nine, including one coach who didn't participate and myself (I am basically a coach but haven't played any futsal or soccer since March either) and Derek O'Neill, the Football Association of Ireland's futsal co-ordinator who is 39 but hasn't done much in a year either. It doesn't sound great preparation for the event but the six 'players' in our squad were all fantastic.

Northern Ireland have improved a lot since the Masita Cup when they were hammered 12-1 by the Scots and they got their greatest ever result in holding their neighbours - us - to a 2-2 draw. We went 2-0 up then releaxed and they hassled us out of it to level. It wasn't a pretty game to watch.

After Tranmere beat the Scots we were up against the so far rampant Gibraltar Futsal League, who had all the best players from their two division league. Their country is a British colony but these players all looked 'Spanish' and have all played futsal since their earliest days. We had to produce our greatest ever display and in the two years we've been playing futsal, I can honestly say that is exactly what we did.

I had felt we had lost the essence of futsal against Northern Ireland so in consultation with the other coaches in the group I devised a really regimented game plan to make it as hard for the Gibraltar Futsal League to score. It worked fantastically well, although they went 1-0 up when our goalkeeper kicked it against one of their players and the ball went into our net! Not what we wanted.

However, we didn't change our shape or discipline and scored two phenomenal strikes from wide angles to go 2-1 up. Before we got excited they produced an incredible finish into the top corner to make it 2-2. Again we kept our heads and Chris Costello scored his second goal of the night with a futsal goal of the truest form. It was played into his feet, with his back to goal, he dummied left and spun right, losing his marker and when the keeper came out he lifted it over his diving body into the net 3-2. Tragically we conceded another equaliser quite sloppily in the end but a 3-3 draw against such an experienced outfit was clearly the greatest result of Irish futsal's short history.

Scotland went on to beat Northern Ireland then we faced Tranmere knowing only a victory would send us through for a rematch with the Gibraltar Futsal League. Sadly we had burnt ourselves out and Tranmere defended extremely well, in fact I'd say it was the first time I've seen them really look like a futsal team as they have several spectacular players who produced volleys Marco Van Basten would be proud of but they never seemed defensively disciplined until our meeting this week. They won 3-1 and deserved the victory but we were proud with how we had peformed overall.

Gibraltar Futsal League won an exciting final against Tranmere 3-2, the hosts once again scoring two stunning goals but we caught on the break by the lightening visitors.

Afterwards the Gibraltar lads told us it was the first time they'd ever won a tournament on foreign soil but it clearly won't be the last, not at amateur level anyway.