Round 1 Review – SELECT Futsal Premier League
The 2016/17 Select Futsal NSW Premier League season started with a bang with defending champions Dural held to a 3-3 draw by Boomerangs, UTS Northside stunned Mascot 2-0, Inner West held out Mountain Majik 3-1 and Enfield accumulated a 9-4 win over South Coast.
Mountain Majik 1 (Manuel Duarte) Inner West Magic 3 (Brian Griffin-Colls, Jonathan Barzel, Adam Khalaf)
Enfield Rovers 9 (Shervin Adeli 2, Anthony Tomelic 4, Laureano Gomez Castro, Michael Kouta, Lachlan Wright) South Coast Taipans 4 (Jinya An, Shohei Okuno, Ben Rolfe 2)
Dural Warriors 3 (Vic Koutsoufis 2, Wade Giovenali) Boomerangs FS 3 (Jake Wilsener, Brad Sawyer, own goal)
Mascot Vipers 0 UTS Northside 2 (Grant Lynch, Joey Gibbs)
Rovers bite Taipans
Enfield Rovers sparked their summer campaign with a rolling 9-4 defeat of a gallant South Coast Taipans at Morris Iemma Indoor Sports Centre, Anthony Tomelic racking up an impressive four-goal haul.
A tight opening saw both sides dig in defensively until premier league’s most prolific scorer Shervin Adeli (94 goals) found a way through the South Coast wall midway through the term and Tomelic added another to send Enfield 2-0 up, but the visitors stuck with their fancied rivals and a late Jinya An strike cut the deficit in half at the interval.
Rovers were without coach Ernie Bivona (sick) but could sense the danger of a lurking Taipans outfit and responded viciously after the break with Tomelic (twice), Laureano Gomez Castro, Michael Kouta and Adeli all scoring to make it 7-2 10 minutes into a frenzied second term, Tomelic rounding out a superb four-goal episode before veteran Lachlan Wright penned his name on the scoresheet – a late Ben Rolfe double for the Coasters making the final scoreline more respectable.
Enfield’s now won all five meetings between the sides and Bivona was thrilled to learn of his team’s performance, but the charismatic Futsal figure laughed off suggestions from other clubs to Enfield’s title favouritism. “All these guys saying these things, they watch too much TV,” he said, tongue firmly planted in cheek.
“We have to be realistic; Inner West and Dural are coming off strong F-League seasons, so they’ll be the frontrunners. We’ve had a good start to the season, our preparation’s been pretty good and we’ve been training with a lot of intensity. Getting a few boys up from the club’s successful youth teams also brings a lot of energy to the team, so I’m confident of being in the top-four.”
“Yeah, we score a lot of goals, but we need to get the defence right to be any good. The business end of the season is always a lot tighter, and in finals the most important thing is defence.”
“The competition is also a lot more open than it used to be; teams aren’t there to make up the numbers. Mascot last year were very strong and haven’t changed their team much, UTS with Grant [Lynch] there and the experience of being in premier league a few years… you just can’t take any game lightly.”
South Coast coach Bobby Mazevski was proud of his team’s efforts but knows there’s work to do to bridge the gap between the top sides – Taipans face last year’s top-four in the first four rounds.
“Enfield have a lot of quality players with F-League experienced and it certainly showed last night,” he said. “We were in the game for a good period and gave as good as we got in the first half, but we made some defensive mistakes and they blew us out of the water early in the second.”
“We may not have the same experience as other clubs, but we’ve got a lot of heart and energy about ourselves. As a club we learnt a lot of lessons from last year; this is the first time we’ve had consecutive seasons in premier league and can look forward to being a stronger club [Taipans leveled the day overall with Enfield].
“I’m very confident we’ll be more than competitive; we’ve got a great youth program and these kids all love Futsal, so it’s exciting times ahead. Our youth grade is particularly strong and obviously we’re looking to them to be our men’s team over the next few years and expect to challenge for a top-four spot as we get more experienced players,” Mazevski said.
“We just have to work harder and prepare better and not switch off for periods of the game where teams like Enfield and Dural can really hurt you.”
Warriors, Boomerangs draw
Promoted Boomerangs FS took full advantage of a depleted Dural Warriors to register a 3-3 draw at The Centre, Dural – the home side coming from behind three times to snatch a point.
Jake Wilsener opened the scoring for the visitors with Vic Koutsoufis leveling it up 10 minutes from halftime to make it 1-1 at oranges, a Brad Sawyer goal returning Boomerangs in front a minute into the second term before Wade Giovenali equalised on the half-hour.
When Nathan Niski turned a Nicholas Rathjen question into his own goal 10 minutes from the end it looked like Boomerangs would get home, but Koutsoufis scored with five minutes left on the clock to salvage a point for the defending champions.
Warriors club secretary Brian Codrington called it one of those days: “Greg Giovenali was on his honeymoon, Chris Polkinghorne and Daine Merrin have both retired from Futsal, Blake Rosier is suspended and Brendon Hoyer had a prior commitment,” he said. “Add to that the fact Boomerangs are always hard to play against – any team that travels 300km to play an away game is bound to be very committed.”
Coach Rob Varela was just as succinct about a new Dural lineup. “It is going to be rather difficult for us to reproduce the success we’ve had in previous seasons given that from last season’s premiership and championship winning squad we will be missing up to six senior players,” he said.
“This has given us the opportunity to use 5-6 youth players every week [and] the challenge will be to mould a new squad into a cohesive unit; it will take time but we believe we can be competitive notwithstanding the chance of having some hiccups along the way.
“[Against Boomerangs] We had the better share of possession but they defended very strongly and took their chances well – 3-3 was a fair result and it gives us a good indication of the areas where we need to improve.”
FS stalwart Kristian Collins looked skyward at the lost opportunity but was thrilled to claim a point from premier league’s most successful men’s team. “We were never behind so it’s frustrating not to win,” he said. “As expected they dominated the ball but we defended well, our coverage was excellent, our recovery was excellent, and we made ourselves difficult to break down.”
“It’s too early to say where we’re at, and I think Dural will surprise those who had written them off a bit that they still have plenty of strength across the board. Inner West and Mascot are probably the benchmarks, but we’re just aiming to stay up and consolidate our position in premier league. We’ve got lots of new players – we’re thereabouts and definitely have something to build on.”
Northside upset Mascot
A revved-up UTS Northside stunned Mascot Vipers with a 2-0 victory at All Sorts Indoor Sports Centre, Grant Lynch and Joey Gibbs goals either side of the changeover proving the scoreboard difference.
Mascot started brightly and if it not for some incredible saves from UTS keeper Alex Pepper would’ve been 3-4 goals up inside the opening five minutes; but gradually UTS started claiming more of the ball and just a few minutes before halftime Lynch made a dash through the centre, chested down a neat pass and powered home a outside left-foot finish to put Northside up at the break.
The game was still finely poised until new UTS signing Gibbs (ex A-League player from Blacktown City) dribbled through the Vipers defence and toe-poked into goal from 15-yards out to double Northside’s lead on the half-hour.
With the game inching away from them the home side threw everything at the UTS goal, Pepper outstanding in denying Mascot on several occasions before fulltime sounded with Northside 2-0 victors – the third time UTS have beaten Vipers in five encounters.
Player-coach-goalscorer-Futsalroo Lynch took off his hats to bow to a commanding Pepper. “I was very happy with the collective performance, we were very workmanlike, but I have to give a big wrap to Alex as he was a big part of our result,” he said.
“It was a great defensive effort generally; we scrambled well, were disciplined without the ball and hit them on the counter. They had most of the possession in the first half, we played better with the ball in the second and while they kept coming at us, we dug in deep defensively and forced them into bad decisions.”
“As a club we want to finish top-four in the club championship and our men’s are also aiming for a top-four spot this season,” Lynch said. “A lot of youth boys are coming through and adding quality and depth to the bench, and it’s always good to get a result to start the season; but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves – we’re still learning.”
Magic defeats Majik
Inner West Magic were made to work hard for their 3-1 win against a strengthened Mountain Majik at Blacktown Leisure Centre – Brian Griffin-Colls and Jonathan Barzel goals setting up a 2-0 halftime edge before teenager Adam Khalaf scored a long-range screamer on his senior debut to seal the deal, Manuel Duarte adding a last-minute Majik consolation.
Inner West maestro Matteo Maiorana applauded his team’s resolve. “It’s a good start considering we only had five men’s players available and had to use several from our youth team,” he said.
“With so many missing we had to change the way we play and control the ball as much as possible, be more possession-based, and it worked because Majik played a defensive game and tried to catch us on the counter… we just kept the ball away from them.”
“It was a tough game; Majik are stronger than they were in the past, but we were just too experienced. I expect a lot of games like that, where teams have improved from last year.”
Enter Mountain Majik’s new peak – Irani-born coach Babek Mentai, whose fascinating story is bridled with hope but hinged by reality.
A bit of background: Iran is to Asian Futsal what Brazil is to the outdoor game. The Middle Eastern powerhouse has won 11 of 14 continental championships and never finished outside the top-three. Its godfather, Hossein Shams (who spearheaded five titles), was named international coach of the year in 2009 – and one of his pupils is Mentai.
Mentai had been playing for Fath Tehran under Shams’ tutorage when an injury ended his playing days and ushered him into coaching. However, his journey to Australia was to study architecture at Newcastle University, where he was drawn into mentoring the men’s and women’s teams at the Australian University Games, where they finished third and first respectively.
“I had met some of the girls who were playing serious Futsal in Sydney and we talked about the competition, booked a court and I came down from Newcastle to help them train – most of them are famous and play at the big clubs, but we kept it private,” Mentai explained.
“Someone then told Mister Stephen Knight about me and we met and talked about Futsal and became very, very good friends; we understand Futsal in the same way so I asked Stephen to help him at the 2014 Asian Championships as a technical adviser.
“After I finished uni I got a call from Sutherland and coached their men’s youth team in Premier League 2 and they were unbeaten; we won every game but lost the final to Boomerangs,” he said. “Stephen then gave me a call to work with the Inner West F-League team this year and we made the final but lost to East Coast in a very, very good game.”
“Also, one of my neighbours is Jordan Guirerro and I would help him train individually… it was Jordan who asked me to coach his Mountain Majik team – and that is why I am still in Australia.”
Mentai has brought a unique set of eyes to the Mountaineers and his Irani fortitude against Magic was evident. “In the second half Inner West tried to draw my players out, and they are young players and wanted to, but I knew that’s exactly what they wanted them to do, so I told them to stay in the game and wait for the mistakes, and after the game I was very happy with them – they played in front of many national players and did a good job and I’m very happy with their progress. They’re young and talented and asking to learn and they will show this with each new game,” he said.
Despite his Aussie calling, Iran is forever in Mentai’s heart. “I’m already True Blue! My son is born here and I want him to grow up in Australia, but he is also Futsal’s son and I’m just here to look after him. It might be better for him to play in Iran because Futsal is so strong, but we will see.”
“Australia is full of talent and heading in the right direction, but the players need more looking after. It’s not just about the coaching, it’s investment and sponsorship – there needs to be a plan. [Football NSW’ support of the F-League has been critical, but] Japan has a 20-year plan and [other Asian countries] are more serious about their long term,” he continued.
“The biggest difference is the league, which is not quite professional. There are many countries with a professional competition, and in the world these are the strongest Futsal countries. Australia has to bring in the experience from overseas to develop more, to make new movement, and there needs to be a stronger future for Futsal players to be a part of.
“What is most obvious is the biggest thing that is missing and that is involvement from the Football Federation Australia – this is stopping Futsal from doing great things in this country.”
Next week’s games
It’s pumpkin night as the Premier League heads into Halloween with round two Saturday night action featuring Mountain Majik versus Enfield Rovers at Blacktown Leisure Centre (3.50pm), South Coast Taipans welcome Dural Warriors to the University Of Wollongong Sports Hub (5.40pm), Boomerangs FS meet UTS Northside at the AIS Training Halls in Canberra (7.20pm), and Inner West Magic host Mascot Vipers at Valentine Sports Park (7.40pm). Visit the Football NSW website (Futsal tab) for full details.
-By Dan De Nardi
