The Alfetah Futsal Cup is an invitational tournament, approved by FIFA, where the top futsal playing nation from each FIFA Confederation will compete from 5-11 October for a winner’s cheque of $69,978 (NZD).
The less successful teams won’t be left empty handed either, the last placed national team will walk away with $13,994 (NZD).
The two year OFC Futsal champions were invited to the lucrative tournament by the Libyan Football Federation with most of the major expenses for the trip generously covered by the host Federation.
The Alfetah Futsal Cup will be played under a two group round robin format with the top two qualifiers from each group playing off in seeded knock-out semifinals to determine the finalists. The bottom two teams will play-off to determine fifth and sixth placings.
The Cup field consists of: Guatemala, Iran, Libya, Solomon Islands, Spain and Uruguay (Brazil had to withdraw).
OFC – Scott in your own words can you explain to our readers why this invitation and opportunity is so valuable to the Solomons Futsal team?
After the Kurukuru qualified for last year’s World Cup the team learnt valuable lessons from their matches in Brazil against seasoned international opposition. That same squad demonstrated they had learnt from that 2008 World Cup campaign by their hugely dominant performance at the OFC Futsal Championship this year – they were much better in defence, they were more clinical in attack and they rectified their main deficiency by bringing in a more senior goalkeeper.
I see this as a perfect perfect test for the Kurukuru to see how far they have come since their initiation at the highest level and to see how much they still need to improve. It is also an opportunity for some of the squad members to stand up individually and showcase their phenomenal skills on a world stage.
OFC – What do you expect from the other teams participating at the Alfetah Cup?
This invitation will see them take on the best country from each Confederation. So like the World Cup, there will be some extremely tough matches for the Kurukuru. But it should also be noted that Iran have proven that they have improved massively and are on the brink of breaking the top two (Brazil and Spain) countries’ dominance of this code. Both Guatamala and Libya have also proven that they take futsal seriously and their recent performances have shown that they too are starting to get closer to the powerhouses.
OFC – What do you think the team should be expecting to achieve and what do they most need to improve on at this tournament?
Realistically they shouldn’t be expecting to win the tournament, however, I would hope that they can further improve their defensive play. While Spain clearly stands-out as the formidable opponents, all the international teams that the Kurukuru come up against in Libya will be fast and very dangerous in attack.