Results
 

Luca Toni FC (Swi)

4

V

4*

The A Team (Fra)

Springfield A (Eng)

0

v

1

Epsilon Rovers (Eng)

* The A Team (Fra) won 4-3 on penalties.

 

We were at the 2019 Amsterdam Fives Cup Semi-Final stage and from 18 teams who started the day we were down to the final 4.

Up first was Luca Toni FC versus The A Team. By reaching this stage Luca Toni FC were matching their best performance in one of our tournaments. At the 2017 Krakow Trophy they reached the Cup Semi-Final but were knocked out by Slovakia's GSF Drunkerz in the Cup Semi-Final (2-1). Could they go one step further today? Luca Toni FC certainly had the form – they remained unbeaten with 5 wins and 1 draw.

The A Team also had a rich history in our tournaments. They had qualified for the Cup for the 6th time in their 8 appearances. They were appearing in their 5 th Cup Semi-Final. Their record to date had read 2 wins and 2 defeats in this round. The worry for them would be the wins came in 2013 & 2015, the defeats came more recently in 2016 & 2018. They were on stunning form today with 6 wins out of 6.

The game itself saw Luca Toni FC go 2-1 up with first half-strikes from Marco Amezuca & Mario Flores. Randy Tchutio scored his 14 th of the day for The A Team. In the second half The A Team recovered to draw the game 4-4 helped by Tchutio going on to complete his hat-trick and Damien Griezmann also on target. For Luca Toni FC, Matthijs Withagen scored his 7th and 8th goals of the tournament.

We went to a penalty shoot-out. This was Luca Toni's first penalty shoot-out in our competitions but The A Team had previously appeared in two (won 1, lost 1). Both teams were showing good skills from the penalty spot and at the end of the 3 regulation penalties each we were tied at 3-3. The first round of sudden death settled matters – The A Team scored, Luca Toni FC missed and The A Team were through.

 
 
 

So, who would take their place in the Cup Final from the second Semi-Final? The two teams set to do battle were Springfield A against Epsilon Rovers.

This game was every bit as close and dramatic as the first Semi-Final but was a much tighter affair. The Semi-Final above saw the teams share 8 goals but defences were more dominant in this match. This was perhaps no surprise as Springfield A had the second best defence in the tournament and Epsilon Rovers had the third best. Springfield A had kept 4 clean sheets compared to 3 from Epsilon Rovers.

It looked like the crucial factor in this game would be who could take their chances and Epsilon Rovers perhaps had the upper hand statistically. They were the second top scoring team in the group phase with 18 goals (Springfield A had scored 10 in the same period).

At the end of the first half this was perhaps borne out as Epsilon Rovers held a narrow 1-0 advantage thanks to Anton Cole's fourth strike of the day. In the second half Springfield A were unable to find a successful route to goal as Rich Simmons kept his fourth clean sheet to help earn his team a berth in the Cup Final.

It was the end of the road for Springfield but an excellent debut for them with both teams qualifying for the Cup and their A team just one match shy of a European Cup Final.

 
 
 
 
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