Match Report: York Futsal V Leicester Futsal Club

York Futsal took to the court on Sunday against Leicester Futsal Club in the National Futsal League.

York applied the early pressure, and the deadlock was broken on just two minutes after high pressing from the home side resulted in a shot from Daniel Pedras that Leicester keeper Sam Roper could only block to the feet of Tom Blackburn who tapped in.

Leicester chose to defend half court but struggled to play out, and after a number of chances from York the visitors changed to add a more direct route to goal.

However, York maintained possession leading to a second goal on 4 minutes. Michael Bulmer scoring after a one two with Fabinho in the Leicester box.

To their credit, Leicester heads never dropped and they began to work their way into the game. Defending well allowed them to capitalise on York mistakes with counter attacks and long range efforts.

Their best effort came after 7 minutes from a well worked free kick by Deniss Hromovs and Heitor Ferriera which hit the target, but was saved at the feet of Chadwick.

The visitors finally got their reward on 10 minutes. Pouncing on a York error in the centre of the court, Hromovs neatly passed to Lamin Conteh who turned and shot early past the York keeper.

York looked to strike back, but chances went begging and as the fouls began to accumulate they began to lose their composure. Leicester took advantage of this with a strike saved by Chadwick on 12 minutes and a minute later with a counter attack from Ferriera and Sam Nalletamby that would have found the net were it not for some great defending from Ze Eduardo.

With York on 5 fouls and at risk of giving away a 10 metre penalty, Leicester took the initiative with a kick in near their own goal to Ferriera who lost two defenders on the turn before rounding the keeper and slotting the ball home to make it 2-2.

It seemed as though the stalemate would be taken into half time, but York were not done yet. With 3 minutes remaining York scored the goal of the game after Fabinho intercepted a clearance by the Leicester keeper before combining with Mahamadu Ceesay and Ze Eduardo near the Leicester goal, Ze Eduardo cleverly rolling the ball to Ceesay who finished.

Ceesay quickly followed this with another goal after picking up a rebound from a Pedras volley.

A time out was taken by Leicester to try to limit the damage, but with just 1 minute left to play of the half York forced the Leicester keeper into a great save from Fabinho’s long range effort before finding the net again with Pedras stealing the ball on half way and playing in Blackburn to make it 5-2 at the interval.

Leicester, wondering how they’d not reached half time level with the home team, changed their keeper and started the second half positively, but it followed a similar pattern to the first.

Leicester showed great determination, but York dominated the chances and added further goals to the tally by Ze Eduardo and Michael Bulmer before Leicester responded late in the game successfully playing fly keeper and clawing back two goals from Sam Nalletamby and goal keeper Alex Gulenkovs.

Not to be outdone, York finished the game with a fine effort from Mychaell Da Silva making the final score 8 – 4 to the home side in what was a highly entertaining and competitive match.

Head coach Junior Roberti had this to say after the game:
‘Well done to Leicester today. They played really well and gave us many problems on the court. I think overall we adapted well, but it was not easy and at times we lost our discipline which is something we will need to work on as we enter a crucial part of the season with games against two top sides in Manchester and Oxford.’

York Futsal’s next home game is on 15th December at the York Sport Arena. Kick Off: 4:45pm'