Fury & Wilder were not the only heavyweights at battle this past weekend. At Wolverhampton University’s Walsall Campus, the two top teams in the country clashed heads for the second game of the National Futsal Series One this season.
As televised on BT Sport, London Bloomsbury and London Helvecia met for the first time since their match-up in the Summer Showdown Final. Every game in the Series matters, however, for both of these teams it is now more than just 3 points. It is pride of being the best in the country on the line.
Arguably, Bloomsbury came into this game with more of a point to prove than Helvecia. After an impressive run of games in the Summer Showdown, Bloomsbury were unable to make any meaningful impact against the Helvecia team, eventually losing 4-0. Helvecia having the squad depth and experience of those such as Raoni Medina and Vitor Hugo Da Silva to guide them to victory.
This season however, is a fresh new start. Bloomsbury and Helvecia are coming off opening day wins and expect to keep that winning momentum going.
Both teams started the game on equal ground, a win for either team looked plausible. This was until Calvin Dickson & Toluwa Sotonye subbed on and completely changed the pace of the game. The two players worked in tandem to deliver a team splitting pass and tidy finish that Helvecia could do nothing to stop.
On such a small canvas, it takes real skill to play decisive passes against the tightest margins. This goes to show the skill of this Bloomsbury side, as well as the defensive capability of Helvecia that such a pass was needed to break them down.
As the game intensified, Helvecia employed their usual fly-keeper tactic. Helvecia are one of the only teams in the Series with a skilled enough keeper and team to carry this out. Meanwhile, Bloomsbury’s top talent Denerson Moreira had grown into the game and began terrorising Helvecia.
Both teams continued to battle it out until the half-time break, where the score reached 2-2.
The second half of this match was an intensity filled affair as both teams fought for the next, potentially game winning goal. Finally, after squandering a variety of chances, BSB made Helvecia pay with a slick goal set up by a Denerson backwards ball roll. Helvecia tried to equalise by playing five outfield players, but it was too little too late as the game finished 3-2 to London Bloomsbury.
