Source: Arab Times

The third place match between Spain’s Santiago-Futsal and MNK Alumnus of Croatia ended with a 2-1 win for the Spaniards as the 17-day FIFA sanctioned Mini World Futsal Club Tournament comes to an end Friday after the championship finals in Adailiya, Kuwait. Both Santiago and Alumnus fought hard to avoid the double whammy and at the end of proceedings, both emerging from semi final losses earlier in the tournament. Alumnus finished at the receiving end, one goal down, 1-2.

The Croats went down, though fighting to the very last second of the time. The tactically superior Santiago side shot ahead in the seventeenth minute through David Mulas, a powerful defender who took the ball thrusting through a forest of legs to finally dribble past Luketin the Alumnus keeper for his third and final goal of the tournament.

Two minutes later in the nineteenth minute Alan Cuasnicu banged in his fifth and final goal of the tournament to increase the tally for Santiago, 2-0. Santiago were on top of their game, winning virtually all challenges on the hard court, in some instances attracting the referee’s wrath who found it appropriate to flash out two yellow cards at Fuentes and Redondo, both Santiago stars.

Alan’s five goals however do not put him in the running for the golden boot as there are two players from Cardinal and Alumnus with five and seven goals up their sleeves. Alumnus’ Penava with seven goals could be the front runner for the golden boot if Cardinal’s Andrii with five goals could come up with more than two goals in the final match against Makasa of Egypt on Friday.

The second half of the game saw Alumnus emerge with a game plan that was a mix of mass attack and defense that culminated in 22 year old Josip Juric’s goal in the thirty second minute to reduce Alumnus’ two- goal deficit to one. And with eight minutes left on the clock, Alumnus resorted to power play and aggressive offense, piling tons of pressure on the opposition.

But the power play strategy almost gave them an early burial when a Santiago player managed to win the ball in the Alumnus half on his way to score, then got whacked down by Juric which earned the Alumnus goal scorer the final yellow card of the Croat side.

The resultant Santiago free kick however went wide with the Spanish side managing to barely survive the Alumnus onslaught to the end, 2-1 to clinch the third place of the tournament. Santiago finished the tournament with 6 goals net, having scored 14 in total and conceded 8 as well as 14 yellow cards. Similarly, Alumnus scored a total of 12 goals, conceded 10 and raked up a massive 15 yellows and a red to conclude their tournament.

In Friday’s final fixture, Cardinal-Rivne of Ukraine who currently stand at 14 goals net scored, 3 yellow cards and no red card, go head to head with Egypt’s Makasa with 4 goals net scored, 8 yellow and 2 red cards. But before kickoff at 1600, Kuwait’s Qadsiya club who exited the tournament after a quarter final loss against Cardinal-Rivne, will engage in a derby against AlAraby club as an appetizer to the main event with kickoff at 1500.





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