Kurukuru edge closer to World Cup
oceaniafootball.com reports on last nights match
The Kurukuru are looking towards their next challenge.
No love was lost in the friendly between Australia and the Solomon Islands in Queensland last night with the Futsalroos taking a 7-0 victory as both teams build towards the FIFA Futsal World Cup in Thailand next month.
Despite a strong first-half performance from the Kurukuru which saw them concede just a single goal, they could not find an answer to the dominant second-half performance from the Australians.
Futsalroos coach Steven Knight is due to name his final World Cup squad next week and captain Greg Giovenali says he was pleased with the way the team performed on the eve of that announcement.
“Although the score was in our favour, the biggest positive to come out of the match was that our defensive effort was very strong,” he says.
“If we had any lapses, a team like the Solomon Islands would have punished us and to our credit we didn’t have any tonight.”
While no doubt disappointed by last night’s result, the Kurukuru are using their first international match in 18 months as an opportunity to build up strength and confidence ahead of the World Cup.
They will now leave Australia to head for Spain where an 11-day training camp, featuring a training workshop and three friendly matches, awaits them as part of a pre-World Cup tour that contains six friendlies on three different continents.
Solomon Islands captain Elliot Ragomo says the pre-World Cup tour is extremely important for his team.
“It is an opportunity for us players, and also our management, to discover our strengths and weaknesses. We have all been looking forward to the tour, and thank the Royal Spanish Football Federation for helping us.”
Kurukuru coach Dickson Kadau also sees the tour as hugely important, and says his squad is privileged to have the chance to test themselves against international opposition before the competition proper.
“This tour addresses one thing that was missing in the last World Cup campaign where we only played against clubs. Now we will play against national teams and this will give us a better reflection of our performance.”
