Futsal Premier League Semi Finals Review

Football NSW Futsal Premier League finals saw Dural edge Inner West 2-1 in an electric major semifinal while Campbelltown Quake downed Mascot Vipers 4-2 in the elimination bout.

Major semifinal: Dural Warriors 2 (Wade Giovenali 2) Inner West Magic 1(Michael Cimino)

Minor semifinal: Mascot Vipers 2 (Byron Gulpers, Alex Euripidou) Campbelltown Quake 4 (Nathan Clissold, Harley Da Silva, Shannon Fielding, Mark Symington)

Warriors edge Magic

Premiers Dural Warriors had to sweat it out in a tough come-from-behind 2-1 win against Inner West Magic following a tense major semifinal at Dural Sports & Leisure Centre.

Having already suffered two one-goal defeat to Dural this summer Inner West came out with guns blazing and kept the Warriors at bay as a Michael Cimino strike put Magic one ahead at intermission.

But as Dural perennially do they were right back in it after the break, a Wade Giovenali goal drawing them level and the rising star added another to elevate Warriors to a 2-1 victory – their 11th victory over Magic in 16 meetings (three draws) and a ninth straight finals win.

Inner West stalwart Matteo Maiorana enjoyed the contest and believed his side would bounce back to be right back at Dural’s doorstep again on Saturday.

“It was a very good game between two pretty evenly matched teams,” he said. “Obviously we were disappointed not to get a chance to play before Saturday [Thursday night’s cancelled rescheduled clash with Campbelltown declared a no result], and we’re still a young side that’s still improving, but little mistakes against good sides usually get penalised and that’s what happened to us in the second half on Saturday.”

“We restricted our turnovers to give ourselves a good chance, and we had a number of chances particularly in the first half where we defended really well; also having Chris Zeballos out for the entire finals [injured during Inner West’s busy schedule of catch-up games] was a big blow for us.”

Quake rattle Vipers

Campbelltown Quake lifted for a4-2 win that knocked out third-place getters Mascot Vipers in a good minor semifinal contest at Dural Sports & Leisure Centre.

Campbelltown worked hard for a bruising 3-1 buffer at the break and went further ahead in the second term before Mascot pulled one back during a fifth-man power play, but Quake held on to register a tight two-goal win – Nathan Clissold, Harley Da Silva, Shannon Fielding and Mark Symington all penning their name on the scoresheet for the victors.

Club chief Carlos Martinez applauded the tenacity of his players to put a poor club championship season behind them and focus on getting as much out of the summer as they could.

“The attitude is we’re fighting for everything and it was really good to see that spirit on Saturday,” he said, “We used several of our youth players and put in one of our better performances of the year.”

“Vipers play this quick brand of enthusiastic Futsal; they’re very skillful and in the draw and loss we had to them this season we made the mistake of trying to play their style. This time we maintained our structure and restricted them as much as we could and it paid off.

“I never felt we wouldn’t win, which is strange for me, but we did all the little things right.”

Mascot maestro Zvi Ben David was still in party mode after his club broke through for a maiden club championship following a 1-1 open women’s draw with Dural in a rescheduled clash last week.

“As it was our 10th anniversary year as a club I had a giant cake made with two chocolate pieces to go on top that had different bits of writing on them in case of the result – one just saying ‘happy anniversary’ and the other one had ‘club champions’ on it,” the storyteller began.

“We almost lost the game in the final few seconds, our keeper Chloe Avgoustou had the game of her life and made a save at the end to get us the point we needed, but as soon as the whistle sounded I went and put both pieces of chocolate on the cake and also handed out ‘club champions’ shirts that I had printed in advance… and then we partied hard until 6 o’clock in the morning!”

Ben David handed it to Quake after putting in a clinical performance to knock the men’s team out on Saturday.

“Campbelltown came to play! They used a lot of young guys and full credit to them, they are definitely going down fighting. We had plenty of chances but they deserved to win.”

Preliminary final

The Football NSW Futsal Premier League preliminary final features Inner West Magic against Campbelltown Quake at Valentine Sports Park from 8pm on Wednesday (March 2), to be followed by Saturday’s premier league grand final day. Visit the Football NSW website (Futsal tab) for full details.