Youth Olympics futsal qualifying report
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
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The future of European futsal – male and female – was displayed over the last week in qualifying for the 2018 Youth Olympic games with Russia and Portugal coming out on top.
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The future of European futsal – male and female – was displayed over the last week in the qualifying tournaments for the 2018 Youth Olympic games.
Qualification
- In the competitions, for players born after 1 January 2000, 16 men's teams and eight women's sides competed in four-team mini-tournaments.
- The two teams with the best records in each category will be at the front of the queue to go to Buenos Aires from 6 to 18 October 2018, though with the stipulation that each nation can only send one squad across all the men's and women's team sports (futsal, beach handball, field hockey and rugby sevens).
- It is up to each national Olympic committee (NOC) to pick which of their qualified teams will go to the Games. If any of the qualified futsal teams are not picked, the side with the next best record becomes eligible until Europe is represented by two men's and two women's squads.
The matches
In the men's competition, Russia, Portugal and Spain all secured nine points from three games while Italy also topped their group with two wins and a draw, ahead of the Czech Republic who were also unbeaten. Russia scored 34 goals and conceded just three for the overall best record, ahead of Portugal who scored 31 and let in ten.
Portugal and Spain also ended up with 100% records in the women's groups, the first competitive female futsal played under the UEFA banner. Russia and Italy were runners-up in the groups.
The eventual European representatives will be picked by the NOCs once all the qualification tournaments in the team sports have been played. Spain, Italy and Russia all finished in the top three of the men's beach handball qualifier, while Portugal were third in the women's section.
The competitions were also preludes to the new UEFA Women's Futsal EURO and men's Under-19 Futsal EURO, for which the first final tournaments are in 2019.
Final ranking
Men
1 Russia
2 Portugal
3 Spain
4 Italy
5 Slovakia
6 Croatia
7 Czech Republic
8 Ukraine
9 Netherlands
10 Slovenia
11 Belgium
12 Serbia
13 Hungary
14 Romania
15 Kazakhstan
16 Azerbaijan
Women
1 Portugal
2 Spain
3 Russia
4 Italy
5 Romania
6 Azerbaijan
7 Ukraine
8 Kazakhstan
The action in photos
