The 2014/15 Football League Trust Futsal season kicked off around the country last week as 48 clubs (including four Premier League sides) started the ten-month season to be crowned national champions in June.
Brentford FC are represented by the Community Sports Trust Futsal BTEC Scholars (aged 16/17) who are into the fourth week of their two-year education and performance programme and were keen to make a good start.
Two weeks previously The Bees travelled up to Birmingham’s International Futsal Arena in an introductory Festival and managed to win eight and draw one of their ten matches so optimism was high as the boys left Griffin Park at 8.30am for the 30 mile trip around the North Circular Road to the highly impressive SportHouse Arena in Barking.
The SportHouse Arena has previously hosted England Futsal internationals plus the FA Futsal Grand National Finals and would be a big test with full size courts to play as opposed to the smaller ones they train on.
For those not that familiar with Futsal there is an excellent link
which gives a brief overview of the game.
Brentford are running two teams with the A team in South East Division One and the B team in Division Two.
Both teams were drawn to play Peterborough United on Match Day one.
The A’s were up first and understandably in such a prestigious venue the boys were a little nervous despite some impressive performances in training leading up to the opener.
The Bees and Posh players were struggling to conquer their nerves in the opening exchanges with unforced errors turning over possession and clear cut chances were rare. However, both team eventually settled and started to get some good movement on the court going.
In Futsal positions aren’t fixed and players are expected to work in rotations around the court to create space and open up passing lines to get into goal scoring positions.
It’s a very physically demanding game and often it’s said that to play it helps if you have three lungs.
At the interval the score was dead-locked at 0-0 and it seemed that it was going to take something special to break the stalemate.
In fact it was an own goal by Peterborough that enabled the Bees to take the lead in the 25th minute when Brad Scott, who had an impressive game, shot wide but it took a huge deflection which wrong-footed the keeper and left him helpless.
The game then opened up with both sides having good chances but skipper Louis Dailey got in some tremendous blocks backed up by Bees stopper Charlie Rose who made some crucial saves.
Brentford looked more dangerous and they managed to double the lead when Man of The Match Dailey finished from seven metres.
Despite Peterborough pressure Brentford were creating good chances and should have increased their lead just after the half hour mark.
A Brentford time out with five minutes remaining was an opportunity to remind the team of their defensive responsibilities to ensure that the ‘A’ team from TW8 secured the 3 points and also a clean sheet.
The ‘B’ team game followed a similar pattern to the ‘A’ team one with chances being few and far between in the early minutes and a time out called by Brentford after only six minutes gave the boys a chance to settle down and reinforce what was said prior to kick off.
The Posh tried to pin back the Bees defence by getting players into the corners to open up the space but Brentford managed to deal with this and started to get some good possession although it was not leading to any meaningful shots on goal.
Half time and with the score 0-0 the team’s coach Luis Melville asked his team to be a bit more braver and really commit themselves to the rotations they had been working on in training.
Within 38 seconds of the restart Brentford took the lead with a quick passing move which saw Humzah Karim finish smartly to give the keeper no chance.
The Bees were now working very hard but it took 10 minutes to increase the lead when another quick counter-attack saw Kyle O’Neill unmarked eight metres out finish with impressive composure.
A minute later skipper Azhan Iqbal finished off another sweeping move when with a two v one, O’Neill drew the keeper out and passed unselfishly to his team mate and effectively killed off the game.
Peterborough gambled with their keeper playing very high but Brentford defended well and with four minutes to go Tommy Driscoll made it 4-0 and in the last minute Mason Roseboom completed the scoring with the Bees winning 5-0 and being the only club with both teams recording clean sheets in the South East Division.
The score was a little harsh on The Posh but it shows that the game is about finishing.
Next up for the ‘A’ team on October 8 is Brighton and Hove Albion while the ‘B’ team play Norwich City.