Courtesy: UEFA.com


Futsal EURO quarter-finals set

The quarter-finals start on Monday with Ukraine facing Portugal and Romania playing Russia, before on Tuesday Italy meet Croatia and Slovenia take on holders Spain.

Sunday 2 February 2014

by Paul Saffer from Antwerp

The full lineup for the UEFA Futsal EURO 2014 quarter-finals has been decided following the end of the group stage, as the action in Antwerp switches from the Lotto Arena to the larger Sportpaleis next door.

Monday's two matches were defined when Groups A and B were completed on Saturday. Group A winners Ukraine, who knocked out hosts Belgium, take on Portugal at 18.00CET while after topping Group B, Russia face Romania at 20.30CET.

Tuesday's fixtures were set on Sunday evening. Italy beat Azerbaijan 7-0 to top Group C, with Slovenia second, all three teams split on goal difference. The Azzurri face Croatia at 18.00CET, the 2012 hosts confirmed as second in Group D after Spain defeated the Czech Republic 8-1. Spain, chasing a fifth straight title, now take on Slovenia, in the knockout phase for the first time at their fourth attempt, to end the quarter-finals.

The semi-finals will be played on Thursday, with a possible rematch of the 2012 decider between Spain and Russia on the cards, two days before the third-place play-off and final. If any knockout game finishes level on 40 minutes, two five-minute periods of extra time will be played before a penalty shoot-out, other than the third-place play-off, which goes straight to spot kicks.






Courtesy: UEFA.com


Eder Lima leads Vrhovec in Golden Boot race

Eder Lima's acrobatic equaliser for Russia against Portugal not only won them their group but leaves him ahead of Gašper Vrhovec on assists in the adidas Golden Boot race.


Monday 3 February 2014

by Paul Saffer from Antwerp

Eder Lima's spectacular acrobatic equaliser for Russia against Portugal on Saturday not only secured a 4-4 draw that gave his side UEFA Futsal EURO 2014 Group B first place, it also took him top of the standings in the race for the adidas Golden Boot as the knockout phase begins.

In the opening 7-1 defeat of the Netherlands, Eder Lima scored two and got two assists. By striking twice again versus Portugal, he moved to the lead on assists ahead of Slovenia's Gašper Vrhovec, who scored in their 3-2 win against Italy then added the only hat-trick of the finals so far as they lost 7-6 to Azerbaijan.

Vrhovec's team-mate Kristjan Čujec is in third place on two goals and two assists. Italy's Fortino and Croatia's Franko Jelovčić, who will face off in the quarter-finals on Tuesday, have the same tally but are sharing fourth as both have received a yellow card.

Sergio Lozano of Spain has two goals and one assist, while his team-mate Lin scored twice in their opening 3-3 draw with Croatia but missed the 8-1 defeat of the Czech Republic injured, and remains a doubt on Tuesday against Slovenia.

Also on two goals from teams in the quarter-finals are Matija Capar of Croatia, who scored late equalisers against Spain and the Czech Republic as a flying goalkeeper, Portugal pair Gonçalo and Bruno Coelho, Spain pivot Fernandão and Russia's 2007 joint-top scorer Cirilo – ruled out of the weekend game through illness but hoping to return on Monday against Romania.

Leaders
1: Eder Lima (Russia) 4 goals, 2 assists (2 games)
2: Gašper Vrhovec (Slovenia) 4 goals, 0 assists (2 games)
3: Kristjan Čujec (Slovenia) 2 goals, 2 assists (2 games)
4=: Fortino (Italy) 2 goals, 2 assists (2 games)
4=: Franko Jelovčić (Croatia) 2 goals, 2 assists, 1 yellow card (2 games)
6: Sergio Lozano (Spain) 2 goals, 1 assist (2 games)

Full statistics

Criteria
1) Higher number of assists:
• Player delivering the intentional pass, cross, header or shot leading to a goal
• Player shooting and ball rebounding from woodwork, goalkeeper or defender and entering the goal
• Player passing, shooting or crossing and leading to an own goal
• Only one assist per goal can be awarded
• No assist for player winning a penalty or free-kick
2) Higher ratio of converted double (ten-metre) penalties
3) Higher ratio of converted (six-metre) penalties
4) Higher number of goals scored in fewer matches
5) Fair play record (red, yellow cards)

Past final tournament top scorers
2012: Torras (Spain)*, Dario Marinović (Croatia)
2010: Saad Assis (Italy), Biro Jade (Azerbaijan), Javi Rodríguez (Spain), Joel Queirós (Portugal) 5
2007: Cirilo (Russia), Daniel (Spain), Predrag Rajić (Serbia) 5
2005: Nando Grana (Italy) 6
2003: Serhiy Koridze (Ukraine) 7
2001: Serhiy Koridze (Ukraine) 7
1999: Konstantin Eremenko (Russia) 11
1996: Konstantin Eremenko (Russia) 8

*Torras won Golden Boot on assists




Courtesy: UEFA.com


Belgium, Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Czechs depart

Hosts Belgium, the Netherlands, Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic reflected on their early exit after failing to make it through the UEFA Futsal EURO 2014 group stage.

Monday 3 February 2014

by Wayne Harrison, Paul Saffer & Mikhail Malkin from Antwerp

While eight teams switch their UEFA Futsal EURO 2014 campaigns to Antwerp's Sportpaleis for the knockout phase this week, four others have departed after finishing third in their groups. Hosts Belgium, the Netherlands, Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic. reflect on their finals campaigns.

Alain Dopchie, Belgium coach
In the first game we couildn't score, and in the end we were a bit lucky to score the first. But if you look at the rankings, in the world we are 28th, Romania [who beat Belgium 6-1] are 11th and Ukraine [with who they drew 0-0] are ninth. If we can do it against Ukraine… The side we have to aspire to being like in Europe is Slovenia. They are a country with a population of about three million people.

Marcel Loosveld, Netherlands coach
We have a lot of young players and I think we have a lot of expertise on the bench – we have a lot of people that understand this game. I hope they can see that for the moment the Netherlands are trying to improve and play futsal the way it is played in top nations. We are not on that level yet, but we have some time to work on that – that is what we will do on the road now. It's a great experience for the players. They understand the strengths and weaknesses of the other teams and we still lack a great national league, and that will eventually determine whether we are to be successful.

Alecio, Azerbaijan coach
We made some mistakes in our first match [beating Slovenia 7-6]. Afterwards, we analysed our game, saw what we did wrong, but didn't improve our game. In the second match [a 7-0 loss to Italy], we did not make any fewer mistakes at all. I just don't know how it happened. You get punished for every mistake in these tournaments, even for the smallest ones. Italy made a lot of mistakes in their first match and they lost. They forced us to lose. You should be 100%, one million per cent, focused in the EURO finals. If you are just 50% focused, you will lose badly as we did against Italy. There is very high standard of competition in every UEFA European Futsal Championship – not just this tournament. But still, some teams have come on a long way – Slovenia, for example.

David Frič, Czech Republic defender
On Friday against Croatia we lost the lead in the last two minutes – for us, it was like a defeat. In the Czech Republic there will be two groups of people. One group will criticise us for losing 8-1 to Spain and the other will know why we played the way we did. I hope there are more people in the second group! We want to stay in tournaments for longer, but this time we had a really hard group. We knew our only chance was to beat Croatia, and we didn't do that.






Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com