SELECT Futsal Premier League – Round 9 Open Men’s Review
SELECT Futsal Premier League round-9 Open Men’s results puts a new leader in charge of open men’s as Dural suffered an historic successive loss at home to allow Mountain Majik top-spot heading into a juicy double-header weekend.
Majik outgunned Eastern Suburbs Hakoah 6-4, Enfield Allstars shocked Warriors 4-2, Inner West Magic beat Campbelltown Quake 5-1, and Mascot Vipers pipped UTS Northside 3-2 to complete yet another fascinating round of Futsal.
Mountain (19 points) line up in premiership pole position but have heavyweights Inner West (16) and Dural (16) right on their tail, followed by Mascot (14), Enfield (13), Easts (10), Northside (8) and Campbelltown (7).
The golden boot race tightened as UTS star Mason Ireland (10) and Majik’s Jordan Guerreiro (10) edge Magic’s Daniel Fornito (9), Allstars duo Luiz Lobo (8) and Shervin Adeli (8), and Vipers ace Jakov Radas (8).
Mountain Majik 6 (Michael Borg 2, Jordan Guerreiro, Bradie Smith 3) Eastern Suburbs Hakoah 4 (Daniel Basger 2, Gilad Swartz, Ilan Kessler)
Inner West Magic 5 (Tiln Muha 2, Chris Zeballos, Daniel Fogarty, Daniel Fornito) Campbelltown Quake 1 (Joel Bertolissio)
Dural Warriors 2 (Glen Kelshaw, Bruno Pivato) Enfield Allstars 4 (Shervin Adeli 2, Laureano Gomez 2)
Mascot Vipers 3 (Gilly Desouza, Joel Flores, Jakov Radas) UTS Northside 2 (Nathan Amore, Tristan Prendergast)
Majik defeat Hakoah
Mountain Majik beat Eastern Suburbs Hakoah 6-4 in an absolute Futsal feast at Blacktown Leisure Centre on Saturday afternoon.
Easts were in the mood and bolted from the blocks with Daniel Basger nailing two goals inside the opening 10 minutes to outline Hakoah’s intent, but Mountain clung to them with Michael Borg scoring an 11th-minute goal that saw Majik trail 1-2 at halftime.
Whatever was said over oranges Mountain returned a rejuvenated side with Jordan Guerreiro scoring straight after the restart and Bradie Smith and Borg additions taking them to a 4-2 lead with a quarter-hour on the clock.
Smith added another to extend the advantage before Gilad Swartz pulled one back for Easts inside the closing 10-minutes, but Smith’s third moments later sealed the deal and consigned Ilan Kessler’s late Hakoah strike to a consolation goal.
A third successive victory has seen the Mountaineers go four games unbeaten and take first place on the ladder following Dural’s demise.
They are one win/draw away from equaling a Majik record five-unbeaten set two summers ago, and they’ve never won four straight premier league matches (winning three on the trot in 2016/17 and 2013/14).
Mountain assistant Adam Barbera was pleased with the outcome, but understood new pressures surface whenever any team leads the way.
“We knew how important it was for us to continue on from our performance last week,” he said.
“Hakoah are a well-experienced side with good players who can hurt you if you’re not on your game. We just focused on sticking to our strengths, trying to control large parts of the game regardless if we had the ball or not.
“The youth boys who have been required to step up are going a great job. We know we need to stay focused and keep this level of performance up if we plan to stay at the top of the table.”
It’s not as comfortable viewing for Easts. They’re yet to win on the road in their debut season (five outings); only eight times in the past 11 years has a premier league club endured a tougher run – none harder than a brave Boomerangs side that trudged back-and-forth on the Hume Highway and went 14 long road trips without a win from 2013/14 to 2016/17.
Magic pump Quake
Inner West Magic were simply too good for a gallant Campbelltown Quake following a 5-1 result at Valentine Sports Park on Saturday evening.
Magic rising star Tiln Muha continued his good form and scored after just five minutes before Futsal royalty Chris Zeballos tapped into an open goal following Andrew Luttringer’s excellent quarter-hour defence to make it 2-0 at the interval.
Some Daniel Fogarty brilliance kept the momentum going as he Intercepted the ball at half-court and at lightning speed raced past two Quake defenders before letting his fancy footwork do the rest to get past the Quake keeper and bang in Inner West’s third three minutes into the second term.
It was a bit of showtime for Magic’s fourth with a series of terrific passes allowing Daniel Fornito to square the ball to Muha, who’s cheeky back-heel flick into goal created an impregnable 4-0 mountain.
Quake never gave up and teenager Joel Bertolissio tapped in a super Danny Martinez pass at the back-post to put Campbelltown on the board, but Fornito put the finishing touches on a comprehensive Inner West victory after Fogarty won possession and unselfishly played a nice ball for Fornito to latch onto from close range.
Magic’s fourth straight win sees them overtake Warriors, a team they were six points behind just a fortnight ago, and claim second place behind shock leaders Mountain Majik.
Inner West are definitely on a high and can match a club-high five straight wins next weekend (set twice, in 2016/17 and 2014/15) against, oh would you look at that, their old pals Dural.
To underline how tough the top-flight is, in 11 grueling premier league seasons only six sides have won more than five consecutive matches. No wonder club manager Matteo Maiorana is smiling.
“It was another fantastic performance; [coach Steven] Knighty has really got the boys playing well – they have found their groove,” he said.
“Next weekend will be a huge double-header, but with the form the boys are currently displaying, it’s exciting.
“All our players are hitting form at the right time. The return of fitness and form of [Chris Zeballos] Zebba has been instrumental and with [Jonathan] Barzel still out it’s exciting to see how far the boys can’t take it.”
Fornito’s certainly enjoying lining up against Quake as he hit a seventh goal in the last four meetings.
Campbelltown are hitting records of their own, but none of them are good: the club had never lost five league games in a row before this weekend’s defeat, a sequence that also puts them in the top-10 worst runs in premier league history – still half the 10-straight losses from both Phoenix (over two seasons, 2013-2015) and Sydney City Eagles (a dreadful 2012/13 summer).
Allstars trip Warriors
Enfield Allstars finished a rough-and-tumble excursion to The Centre with a pivotal 4-2 win over Dural Warriors on Saturday night.
The visitors rocked up to play and stole a 2-1 lead in an electrified atmosphere, and try as Dural do – hitting the woodwork times than an over-zealous woodpecker – they couldn’t rein in the Allstars, who held on for a memorable 4-2 victory thanks to Shervin Adeli and Laureano Gomez doubles.
Dural’s five worse defeats have all come at The Centre, but they’ve NEVER lost there twice in a row… until now! And Enfield coach Christian Soares was thrilled.
“Very proud of the boys,” he said. “We showed maturity against top-side Dural, holding the pressure, and killed the game in the end.”
“It was very important result for the club, not only in the men’s but in the club championship race. We proved when we came strong we can beat anyone.”
Warriors coach Rob Varela took defeat in his stride: “All credit to Enfield. They took their chances and we wasted numerous opportunities,” he said.
“I’m very disappointed with the result, but quite happy with the way we played. We now get ready for a massive double-header weekend.”
Incredibly, only once has Dural gone more than two matches without a win across nine illustrious PL seasons (an eye-popping four straight defeats last summer – they still went on to win it), and not since their debut year have they gone three straight fruitless games at home.
Mascot flip Northside
Mascot Vipers inflicted more agony on UTS Northside with a gritty 3-2 victory at All Sorts Indoor Sports Centre on Saturday night.
It was blow-for-blow in an explosive first half that saw Mascot head to the sheds 3-2 in front, and then there was the most nerve-wracking second half as neither side could breach the other’s goal to maintain the same scoreline at fulltime.
Nathan Amore and Tristan Prendergast scored for UTS, while Vipers penned Gilly Desouza, Jakov Radas and Joel Flores on the scorecard, the latter netting his fifth goal versus Northside in the last three meetings (the last five had been won by UTS).
I don’t think anyone needs reminding of Northside’s tight-score situation, except that the only club that had a worse success rate over the years (Mascot) lifted above them following the one-goal result.
Next week’s games
SELECT Futsal Premier League round-10 Saturday matches pitches Mountain Majik versus Enfield Allstars at Hawkesbury Indoor Stadium (4.10pm), Campbelltown Quake and Mascot Vipers at Minto Indoor Sports Centre (4.50pm), Dural Warriors play Inner West Magic at The Centre (6.50pm), and Eastern Suburbs Hakoah meet UTS Northside at All Sorts Indoor Sports Centre (8.50pm).
– Dan de Nardi
