Welcome to the Algarve! The stage was set for our twelfth Algarve tournament and eurofootballfives 97th tournament in Europe. We had 30 teams assembled with 16 in the Open Age section and 14 teams in the Veterans category. We had teams representing England, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain across the two sections.

It is often traditional for tournaments to kick off with the defending champions playing in the opening game of the tournament. Whilst not the defending champions of the Algarve specifically, we had the current Barcelona Fives holders (L'Albiceleste) making their first eurofootballfives.com appearance since victory in October last year. They were looking for their fourth eurofootballfives.com title.

It is not always a foregone conclusion that the champions of the past will start the tournament with a victory – remember Omam-Biyik scoring for Cameroun against Argentina in Italia 90 and Papa Bouba Diop for Senegal against France in World Cup 2002?

Well, L'Albiceleste (Fra) would hope that 9 Nana Budds didn't have a Papa Bouba Diop of their own. As it turned out there were no banana skins for the French team. Lionel Le Dinh, making his first trip since the successful Riga Tournament in 2016, was on target for L'Albiceleste as they pulled off a solid 1-0 win to open the tournament.

Next up we had a bit of fixture re-arrangement. It was due to be Real De Groot versus Huddingpool – both from Holland. The Dutch contingent at the tournament were due to play with 3 teams but due to last minute injuries and work schedules the group had to consolidate into two squads. Real De Groot would survive, Huddingpool would bite the dust. Real De Groot would earn a 3-0 walkover win.

The next fixture in the opening round of Group A was due to be RSC Andylecht (Eng) versus Indoorsoccer (Por).

Indoorsoccer were due to make the journey from Lisbon to join us where they had played in 3 of our Lisbon Tournaments as recently as 6 weeks ago. The Indoorsoccer team had not yet arrived (they were due to drive from Lisbon on the morning of the tournament) and we could not reach them on the phone. With time ticking away, they had to concede a 3-0 walkover.

Finally, some more action on the pitch. The final fixture in the opening round of Group A was Pique Blinders versus Cruz Del Surely. The former were making their debut in our tournaments, the latter were experienced in these events and involvement in the tournaments dated back to 2012.

Their most recent involvement was at the 2017 Lisbon Tournament where the B team (which formed the nucleus of the Cruz Del Surely team) struggled as they finished 8th in their group and then lost 4-1 to FC Seagrave in the Plate Quarter-Finals. The teams had been jigged around a little since Lisbon and with good effect.

Cruz Del Surely put together a fine opening 2-0 victory with Danny McGee pouncing for both goals to earn all 3 points for his team. There was a clean sheet to boot for David Jamieson as things started rather sweetly for Cruz Del Surely.