Group B began with Vodafone Netherlands taking on Team Extreme of England. Vodafone Netherlands were on debut so this was our first chance to see their footballing credentials.

Team Extreme were making their third eurofootballfives.com appearance. Their debut was in the 2012 Valencia Fives where they finished 2nd in their 6-team group behind Oman's CBD Boys to earn the right to play Grant Thornton (Fra) in the Quarter-Finals which is where they left the competition. Grant Thornton (Fra) incidentally went on to win the 2013 Mallorca Fives a year later which Team Extreme also competed in. Team Extreme finished third in Group B which meant qualification to the Plate competition. They were defeated in the Semi-Finals by Son Gual who went on to win the Plate competition.

It was a tight start to the game with nothing to choose between the teams early on and we entered the turnaround 0-0. After half-time Chika Kalu broke the deadlock to put Team Extreme 1-0 up. A second Chika Kalu sealed the victory for the travelling team as they completed a 2-0 win – the perfect start for them.

Game 3 of Group B was Big Dogs versus Damn Big Dogs. We had a derby on our hands to provide the climax to the first round of games in the group.

It is not often teams from the same club meet in eurofootballfives competition (and when they do it tends to be in the knockout phase rather than the group stage) but when they do it often has a strange atmosphere – sometimes the games can lack a little intensity or sometimes the games can have a bit too much intensity with players determined not to lose to their tour-mates. Either way, there's bragging rights up for grabs so much more than a normal group fixture.

In this one it was the Big Dogs that could claim those bragging rights as Stephen Lawley struck twice (a goal in each half) to earn his side all three points and begin Group B in fine fashion. Other than the obvious disappointment of defeat, Damn Big Dogs should not be too disheartened as there was still four more games to come.