A hat-trick from Jarrod Basger has helped the Qantas Futsalroos notch up a 6-1 victory over the New Zealand Futsal Whites at the ASB Trans Tasman Cup in Auckland.
A hat-trick from Jarrod Basger has helped the Qantas Futsalroos notch up a 6-1 victory over the New Zealand Futsal Whites at the ASB Trans Tasman Cup in Auckland.
The second match of the series began with the Qantas Futsalroos coming out strong, dictating the tempo of the match, holding onto the ball for much of the opening five minutes and pressing the Futsal Whites whenever they were in possession.
But in fact it was the Futsal Whites who created the first scoring opportunity of the match when Micky Malivuk and James Vaughan linked up to create an opportunity to force a top save from Qantas Futsalroos goalkeeper Angelo Konstantinou.
Miro Major forced another save out of Konstantinou moments later with a drive from distance which was smothered easily.
The deadlock was broken by the Qantas Futsalroos in the 8th minute by the impressive Fernando de Moraes who thundered one in from an innocuous position midcourt after cutting in from the left. The goal seemed to kick-start the Qantas Futsalroos into gear and in a matter of minutes Futsal Whites goalkeeper David Plowright was called into action on three occasions.
De Moraes was causing havoc by this stage and his nonchalant step over was kicked clear by Plowright and the ensuing rebound was slammed against the upright by Daniel Fulton. It was the second time the framework was disturbed after Jarrod Basger had earlier hit the base from an acute angle.
Immediately after the half time interval the Futsal Whites enjoyed a period of sustained pressure, but four minutes into the second half a piece of de Moraes magic resulted in the Qantas Futsalroos second goal. De Moraes provided a delicate lay off for teammate Basger, who took the ball in his stride, while running at full pace, before sliding it home past Clayton Chappell in the Futsal Whites goal.
Shortly afterwards, Chappell was again beaten after Bakr al-Saudi was guilty of showing too much of the ball to Nathan Niski in front of the Futsal Whites goal. Niski poked the ball home between the legs of al-Saudi and past Chappell to take the score to 3-0.
It was then the Futsal Whites turn to take the momentum back through Malivuk who almost created a moment of magic of his own when he spectacularly tried a lob from the sideline after Konstantinou charged out of his area to close the threat down.
Accumulated fouls became a factor for the Qantas Futsalroos, who gifted New Zealand an opportunity back into the match after a foul on Malivuk brought the tally to six for the half, and brought al-Saudi, something of a specialist, onto the court to smash the chance home from the spot to score New Zealand-s first international goal on home soil.
But it was little more than a consolation in the wash-up. With a sniff of a result, Futsal Whites Head Coach Scott Gilligan threw caution to the wind and introduced Marvin Eakins as the fifth man to try and bridge the deficit.
The tactic didn-t pay off for the Futsal Whites and in quick succession the Qantas Futsalroos scored three goals, first to Daniel Fogarty and then a quick-fire brace to Jarrod Basger to complete his hat-trick.
Speaking after the match, Qantas Futsalroos Head Coach Steven Knight was once again pleased with his team-s performance.
"The exercise has been really good to identify deficiencies in our overall game. I'm pleased with how we're going, it's a little different to what we're used to. Normally we're doing more defending than attacking which is good for our overall game"
"In every team there's key players and I rested a lot of our key players when we were 3-0 up,” concluded Knight.
The final match of the ASB Trans Tasman Cup kicks off at 12noon on Sunday afternoon (10am AEST)