Courtesy: Otago Daily Times


Futsal team finds itself in foreign land

by Adrian Seconi

Monday, 14 November 2016

The Southern United futsal team is still coming to terms with being one of the teams to beat this year.
The Southerners cemented themselves at the top of the national futsal standings with three wins and a draw against their North Island rivals in Wellington at the weekend.

They beat WaiBOP 3-1 and blitzed Auckland 9-3 in their opening games on Saturday and then recorded a comfortable 8-2 win against Central Futsal Hawkes Bay yesterday before having to settle for a 6-6 draw with Northern Futsal in the afternoon.

"We maybe didn’t live up to our own standard in the final game but other than that, we’re pretty happy," coach Darren Hart said.

"I think, in a way, we are trying to meet other people’s expectations of what the team is capable of rather than our own. We were 4-2 up in that Northern game and because there is now this expectation to beat teams by 10 goals, we all sort of charged off to try and score more goals, whereas really we should have just consolidated.

"From that perspective, it is a learning process for us. We’re not used to being in the scenario where we are not underdogs.

"Now, all of a sudden we are having to win when everyone is expecting us to win."

The next tournament is in Auckland in four weeks and Southern United will play the North Island sides again. The semifinals and final are tacked on at the end.

Southern United is "virtually guaranteed a semifinal", Hart said.

"But we have to be really careful because there are no prizes for finishing first or second in the [round-robin]. You have to make sure you are peaking at the right time."


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