Thumbs up for players and St Petersburg
Sunday 14 December 2008
e-mail
Print
Digg
Save
Russia had boisterous support in all their matches (©sportsfile)
The first UEFA European Under-21 Futsal Tournament came to a conclusion on Sunday after an exciting week of action in St Petersburg and UEFA futsal manager Laurent Morel has been impressed with the job done by the players, coaches and Russian organisers.
Interest
A total of nearly 10,000 fans watched the group stage at the Yubileyny Sports Palace and it was close to full on Friday night when Russia beat Ukraine for a place in the final against Italy, which they won 5-4 in front of another bumper crowd at the conclusion of a tournament that attracted an impressive initial entry of 28 nations. Morel, whose department is also responsible for the long-established senior UEFA European Futsal Championship and UEFA Futsal Cup for clubs, is happy with what he has seen in the event, which also involved Spain, Slovenia, Croatia, the Netherlands and, for the first time in any UEFA national-team final tournament, Kazakhstan.
High standard
"I was not expecting such a standard from the teams," he told uefa.com. They are very well prepared physically, tactically and technically. They are much closer to senior standard than I expected. Another positive point is that the teams are quite close, there is not a big gap. The weaker teams have shown potential so there is promise for the future from those associations."
Future bright
With a view to the expansion of the next senior European finals to 12 teams in Hungary in 2010, Morel added: "When you see the potential of the likes of Croatia and Slovenia it means those associations are working from top to bottom and preparing for the future. That gives us hope for the senior national-team events where the risk of increasing to 12 teams is that the standard will fall but that is not the evidence here."
Organisation
St Petersburg is used to staging international U21 events at the Yubileyny Sports Palace with the long-established annual Autumn tournament, but staging a UEFA competition is a different matter and Morel is delighted with how the venue was improved for the finals and the work of the Russian Football Union (RFU) and Russian Futsal Union. "The organisation was good, because a year ago we were prepared to accept a lower standard," he said. "Looking at the hall now, what we have provided to the teams is good. The company hired by the RFU [to be the local organising committee] has achieved that and have set standards as high as we could expect."
©uefa.com 1998-2008. All rights reserved.
