Courtesy: Arab Times By Iddris Seidu

Pinocho (ARG) 2 - 1 Muharraq (BAH) (2-1)
City’us Tîrgu-Mures (ROM) 6 - 4 FC Erdre (FRA)(4-1)

Pinocho’s duo Maina Lucas and Corazza Ariel scored a goal apiece in a group B opener on day two Thursday of the ongoing Kuwait Mini World Futsal Club Tournament at Adailiya to hand their Argentine side their first win 2-1 over Bahrain’s Muharraq. Luca’s goal came in the fifth minute as both sides engaged in nip and tuck in the early going sizing up each other and testing the waters. And after a string of passes, the Argentine dribbled his way past the Muharraq defence to slot in the opener for his side. But in the sixteenth minute, as Pinocho struggled to stay ahead with their scintillating play and accurate passes, Muharraq’s Figueiredo managed to wrestle the ball from Pinocho’s Calo Alan in mid court and immediately lobbed it to Ali Saleh who was well positioned a few inches from 29 year old Argentine goal keeper Elias Santiago.

Saleh fired the ball past Santiago in a non-drop fashion into the Pinocho net for a 1-1 tie in the sixteenth minute. And just seconds after the Argentines passed the ball from the centre line Corazza Ariel, without allowing the Bahrainis to settle back into the game after their goal celebration, sent a long drive past the Bahraini keeper Syed Hameed to make the scores 2-1 for Pinocho. The Bahrainis rallied in the final five minutes forcing the Argentines into defending their goal mouth, and indeed in many instances it was Santiago, described in some circles as the best ever goalkeeper in Futsal history, who stood between them and the much needed equalizer.

Santiago either caught or parried away everything they threw at him, even as they adapted power play in the final two minutes, throwing all players swarming in the Pinocho area to no avail. He had a brilliant evening with strings of brilliant saves, blocking almost all of Muharraq’s effort at goal. Pinocho coach Hermida Juan had expressed some doubt as to whether his side could pull off a win against the Bahrainis given that he knew very little about the team going into the encounter. The Pinocho players included Elias Santiago, Corazza Ariel, Zamboni Ignacio, Calo Alan, Quetgla Mauro and Maina Lucas. Also starring for Muharraq were Ahmed AbdulRasool, Ali AbdulRasool, Jassam Hassan, Syed Hameed, Ali Saleh and Nathaniel Figueiredo.

Meanwhile, in the second match of the group pitting Romania’s City’ Us Tirgu against French side FC Erdre, Gherman Cosmin-Marius scored four times with Lupu Robert adding two goals to power the Romanians 6-4 past Erdre in the game. Marius’s scored twice in each half while Robert’s goals both came in the first half. The four goals Erdre scored came from two of the three Brazilians in the squad, Javier Moreno and Selso Sandon. Moreno scored three, one in the first half and another two in the second. The third goal came from Sendon in the first half.





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