Tulpar, Lokomotiv and Târgu Mureş advance
Saturday, October 5, 2013
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Lokomotiv Kharkiv ended the hopes of Marca Futsal as they, fellow debutant Tulpar Karagandy and City'US Târgu Mureş all booked themselves places in the elite round draw.
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Tulpar Karagandy, Lokomotiv Kharkov and City'US Târgu Mureş joined KMF Ekonomac Kragujevac, CF Eindhoven and Araz Naxçivan in reaching the UEFA Futsal Cup elite round after main round Groups 3, 5 and 6 ended.
Two places are thus left to be filled on Sunday, when Group 1 concludes in Riga with three teams in contention. Győri ETO FC, KMF Tango Sarajevo, FK EP Chrudim and FC Litija have also won themselves spots in the elite round draw on Friday 18 October, along with the four highest-seeded clubs: holders Kairat Almaty, former winners MFK Dinamo and FC Barcelona, and 2011 runners-up Sporting Clube de Portugal.
Group 3
Tulpar Karagandy started the day out of the top two but secured progress thanks to a 6-1 success against Sporting Clube de Paris, who only required a draw, as six different players got on the scoresheet.
After that, former semi-finalists Marca Futsal, top at the start of the day, took on bottom side Lokomotiv Kharkiv sneeding just a draw to advance, and having come within one second of going through on Thursday against Tulpar. It was the Ukrainian hosts who played with the greater intensity, though, Dmytro Kameko and Dmytro Sorokin giving them the lead and goalkeeper Yevgen Ivanyak able to score twice into an empty net to seal a 4-1 result after Marca deployed a flying keeper, taking Lokomotiv through ahead of the Italian champions on head-to-head record with Tulpar top of a group where all four teams were split by just two points.
Group 5
Hosts KMF Ekonomac Kragujevac made sure of first place and seeding in the elite round draw courtesy of a 6-1 triumph against section runners-up CF Eindhoven. Both sides won their opening two matches, and Ekonomac made it three out of three after going ahead through Alen Fetič inside three minutes. Daniel made it 2-0, and although Jamal El Ghannouti halved the deficit, Daniel hit a second as the Serbian club continued turned on the style.
In the other game in the section, eliminated duo Vegakameratene and MNK Nacional Zagreb faced off with pride at stake. Norwegian side Vegakameratene put in their best display so far, but it was not enough to deprive Nacional Zagreb of victory, Patrik Drndić and Dino Kovac making the difference in a 2-0 win.
Group 6
Belgium's Châtelineau Futsal needed a win in the early game against eliminated Athina '90 to have a chance of progress and they duly delivered, posting a 7-1 victory. Dominant from start to finish, they endeavoured to score as many goals as possible to bolster their goal difference, with André (taking his all-time competition leading goal tally to 54), Omar Rahou and captain Karim Chaibai both registering twice.
That left Romanian hosts City'US Târgu Mureş needing a point against already-qualified Araz Naxçivan to pip Châtelineau, but they found themselves two goals down inside the first quarter of an hour following efforts from Fabiano and Vitaliy Borisov. Raymond Andras Daniel kick-started the comeback less than a minute later, however, and Cosmin Gherman converted a penalty to level the scores, with Dumitru Stoica putting the Romanian outfit ahead at the break. Davi struck for Araz after the restart, but Târgu Mureş held on to draw 3-3 and finish as runners-up.