Group B began with Cruz Del Sur versus Men Behaving Chadli. The latter were on debut so we would get our first glimpse of them in action shortly.

Cruz Del Sur made their debut at the 2012 Barcelona Fives as Banter Bus FC and it was a fine debut. They finished 2nd in their 5 team group behind Budapest Celtic Lions before going out to eventual winners Black Sheep of Spain in the Cup Quarter-Finals. In Hungary 12 months later they made a twin-pronged attack on the 2013 Budapest Fives title with two teams – BBFC1 and BBFC2. The first team finished 3 rd and qualified for the Cup. BBFC1 went out on penalties in the Cup Quarter-Finals.

July 2015 saw them rebranded as Cruz Del Sur and travel to Amsterdam where storm Zejko defeated all teams. The A team finished 3rd in their group in hugely challenging conditions before the Code Red weather warning curtailed the day's activities. At the 2016 Riga Tournament the A team were on fire in the group phase with 5 wins from 5 games. They were one of the favourites for the title so it came as a surprise when they lost 1-0 to FC Dad in the Cup Quarter-Finals.

Most recently at the 2017 Lisbon Tournament the A team started off with 2 wins before eventually claiming 3 wins and 1 draw from their 7 group games including a win over the eventual champions (Pangare Futebol Clube of Brazil). A sensational win in the Cup Quarter-Finals followed when they beat Barrymoore's Swimming Club who had 6 wins and 1 draw out of 7 up to that point. Their day was ended in the Cup Semi-Final by Portugal's Wonderleague, 4-1.

On their return to Portugal here in the Algarve they began in determined fashion. Liam Kenney scored their first of the day before captain Lois Lewis Henson proved he was more “Superman” than Lois by sealing a 2-0 win.

The other 10.00 fixture in Group B was AC Motxo International versus Lacey Green FC. We were delighted to welcome AC Motxo International as, surprisingly, the first team to represent Spain in our Algarve event.

They would make their eurofootballfives.com debut against Lacey Green FC who were making their 4th eurofootballfives.com appearance and 2nd at the Algarve Open. The zenith of their achievements to date so far was a Cup Semi-Final against the Anglo Knights at the 2009 Barcelona Fives. Could they go further here in Portugal?

With the futsal style goals and relatively short (but frequent) games goals were always going to be at a premium compared to some of our other events. Mark Johnson's first of the day was testimony to this as it helped give his side all 3 points. A notable mention for Ryan Maguire in goal keeping a clean sheet.

On Pitch C next we would have Elbersiktas (Hol) versus AFC Chorltonians (Eng). The English team was on their eurofootballfives.com debut and therefore had a blank canvas upon which to paint their footballing artistry.

Elbersiktas were part of a Dutch group who first competed at the 2017 Mallorca Tournament with four teams – KML, FC De Rimmer, Mannenliefde and Het Sterretje. 3 of their teams qualified for the Plate competition whilst KML qualified for the Cup.

KML went out at the Cup Quarter-Final stage on penalties after a 2-2 draw. In the Plate competition FC De Rimmer and Het Sterretje fell at the Quarter-Final stage. Mannenliefde went all the way to the Plate Final where they drew 1-1 with FC Shark before losing on penalties.

Elbersiktas was made up of players from a whole variety of those teams so it is hard to draw direct comparisons on how they would fare today. It was the English team who forged ahead here though. Anthony Hardy had the honour of scoring his team's first goal in our tournaments. Sadly for him and his team it would not quite bring all 3 teams. An equaliser from Casper Brouwer meant it was a point each and a solid start for both teams with plenty of more games to come.

Last but not least in Group B, it was FC Gymnasium versus Wealdstone Raiders on Pitch D.

FC Gymnasium (Por) made their debut at the 2015 Algarve Open playing as Futeboladas and surged to victory. They finished 2nd in their group with 4 wins out of 5 to RC Lens. They won a 4-3 thriller in the Cup Quarter-Finals against Algarve Stars before a 3-1 win over Why Always Morris in the Semi-Final. They then met RC Lens again in the Cup Final. RC Lens won the group game (2-0) but Futeboladas won the game that really mattered (3-0) to collect the title.

In 2016, they played as The Avengers and recorded 2 wins and 2 losses in Group A which saw them finish in third position. They would progress to the Plate competition which was played in a group format. They recorded 2 wins, 1 draw and a defeat to finish 3rd in the Plate.

We'll introduce Wealdstone Raiders in more detail as we progress with this report. Talking of “report”, there was nothing to report in this game in terms of goal-scoring action. The two defences were on top as the teams played out a 0-0 draw.