The New Zealand teams competing at the FISU World University Futsal Championship may not have managed to follow up a first ever win on the global stage but still have plenty to play for and some more valuable experience to gain as the tournament moves into the play-offs.

Neither of the New Zealand sides were able to make it out of their high-quality groups but both have matches remaining as they look to determine their final placings. The men will take on France in their first placing match this afternoon while the women are in action again tomorrow evening against a yet-to-be-determined opponent.

Both teams will look to improve on their results of the last couple of days, during which the men were outclassed 10-0 by an outstanding Czech Republic while the women fell to a pair of defeats, 6-1 to France and 4-0 to Portugal.

But, regardless of those showings, history has already been made at the tournament after the women’s ground-breaking win over Kazakhstan in their opening match and both groups of players are aiming to write themselves further into the record-books over the coming days.

The ‘Uni Futsal Ferns’ were looking to make it back-to-back wins as they faced France but could not match the razor-sharp Europeans, who took the lead within the first 30 seconds. New Zealand did find an equaliser through a fantastic finish from Francesca Grange in an even first half and went on to begin the second half strongly.

But France took the lead once more against the run of play and added a third soon after, leaving New Zealand having to play fifth man with Britney-Lee Nicholson acting as the flying goalkeeper. France took advantage of the exposed goal to score on two more occasions and notched another from a direct free kick to make it six.

“It was a tough one to take because we had a really good first half and were drawing 1-1 at half-time,” captain Maxine Cooper said. “We decided to go fifth man in the second half and unfortunately that didn’t quite go in our favour this time and we ended up getting a scoreline that we didn’t deserve.”

Cooper and co then looked to use that disappointment as motivation for their next encounter but knew the going would be tough against Portugal, regarded as one of the best teams in the competition. With the Portuguese enjoying the majority of the possession, New Zealand were forced to defend for long periods but were well organised and restricted their highly-rated opponents to half chances.

The class of Portugal began to tell though and they took a 3-0 lead into the break before making it four in the second half.

“It was a tough game but we tried really hard and put everything into our defence,” Nicholson said. “We never gave up so I’m really proud of the girls.”

The men were also up against it in their final group match against Czech Republic but needed a win to keep their hopes of progressing to the knockout stages alive. Going a goal behind in the opening five minutes was therefore a massive blow and, while New Zealand managed to string some good spells of possession together, the clinical Czech Republic raced into a four-goal lead at the break, despite Vaughan Somerville again being superb in goal.

Hamish Mitchell took his place at half-time and also performed strongly while captain Jordi Ditfort was another stand-out. But they couldn’t contain the rampant Czechs, who scored six more goals in a ruthless second-half showing.

The ‘Uni Futsal Whites’ will be aiming for an improved showing this afternoon when they take on France from 4pm (NZT).

For tournament information please visit wucfutsal2018.com and for coverage of the New Zealand teams please follow www.facebook.com/NZFFutsal

FISU World University Futsal Championship Results

Women:

New Zealand 5 (Dayna Manak 2, Tessa Leong, Sarah Alder, Britney-Lee Nicholson)
Kazakhstan 3
HT: 3-1

New Zealand 1 (Francesca Grange)
France 6
HT: 1-1

New Zealand 0
Portugal 4
HT: 0-3

Men:

New Zealand 1 (Jordi Ditfort)
Belarus 8
HT: 0-7

New Zealand 0
Kazakhstan 2
HT: 0-1

New Zealand 0
Czech Republic 10
HT: 0-4

Article added: Thursday 23 August 2018