Russia's final victory frays Ivanov's nerves
Sunday 14 December 2008
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Russia captain Dmitri Prudnikov does the honours (©sportsfile)
Oleg Ivanov admitted his team's 5-4 defeat of Italy in the inaugural UEFA European Under-21 Futsal Tournament final in St Petersburg nearly caused him a "heart attack" such was the "spectacular" nature of the match. The hosts led 2-0 only for Italy to level and then go 4-3 in front during the first period of extra time before strikes from Ildar Nugumanov and a double penalty by captain Dmitri Prudnikov won the title for Russia, leading Italy coach Paolo Minicucci to point out that "anything could have happened" at 4-4.
Oleg Ivanov, Russia coach
It was a really spectacular match with many goals and great movement from both teams, who showed all the great components of futsal. Our opponents played well yet I was close to having a heart attack. We were a little bit luckier in the end. We let in two goals in the first extra time period but we have had problems in defence during the whole tournament. Italy were always dangerous on the counterattack and we were simply not fast enough in tracking back.
We will analyse all our mistakes but many of this U21 side will be in the senior national team soon. It was a dramatic game between two equal teams. Italy have great players and many of them too will play at senior level. We missed a lot of chances once again as we were too nervous, yet all ended well and that's good.
Paolo Minicucci, Italy coach
Today the game was played at the highest level. In the previous games we conceded once and needed to come back but today we conceded two and it was harder to catch up with Russia; we paid a big price for this and had to spend a lot time during the match recovering. When it was 4-4 anything could have happened. The game was being played really fast which meant that it was played at the highest level. The game was really beautiful and exciting and I'm happy we showed such a game to all the fans. When we were analysing Russia's play we decided the most important thing was to control the ball. Once we were losing we changed tactics and put on the other goalkeeper on [Leandro Garcia], who is quite a good outfield player, and played in their half. We were successful in doing that as we got to 4-4 but the Russian team were perhaps a bit luckier and that's why we lost.
The great sorrow today is that I said to the lads before kicking off that this game would be decided on dead-ball situations. Essentially, we conceded five goals from these. We played really well in the final and the most important thing is that there is a future for this sport and even during the qualifying stages [of future tournaments], the quality will be as high as in the final. Today it was destiny that Russia won the first European tournament.
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