April 30th, Barcelona, a glorious summer's day and the start of the 2011 eurofootballfives.com season was upon us. The battle was on for the 20 participating teams to stake their claim to be 2011 Barcelona Fives champions.

First up was 2009 Barca Fives winners, hailing from France, Luminy Wolves. The French side are unbeaten in eurofootballfives.com competition with 4 wins and 2 draws behind them. The team trying to inflict that first defeat was Smack My Pitch Up of England. Alas for the latter, the team from Marseille started strongly and by half-time had opened up a 2-0 lead through Byllel Ben Khalifa and Mehdi Yousfi.

In the second half they were ruthless and showed their opponents no mercy as Aikel Ben Khalifa (2), Allan Gosselin and Sid-Ahmed Bourriche all opened their account to complete a 6-0 victory. Smack My Pitch Up would hope all games would not be this tough!

Next up was the 2009 Barca Fives Plate winners – Equipo A of Spain against San Torrei Stags. The Spanish side struggled in 2010 finishing 5th in their 6 team group and were looking to reproduce their '09 form. We weren't sure what to expect of San Torrei Stags who were making their debut but they more than held their own in an even first half which finished 1-1 thanks to goals from Marc Cheucos and Ian Storer. In the 2nd half Equipo A took advantage of being on home soil (well, home 3G) as Marc Cheucos and Albert Marx both scored to claim a 3-1 win and all 3 points.

The last team to get on the field in Group A was Shallow Hals. Having witnessed Luminy Wolves opening game performance they probably would have stepped on the pitch with trepidation. If that was true their fears were well founded as Luminy Wolves were in full flow. They were playing superb football and even Shallow Hals must have (grudgingly) admired their opposition even though it was painful to concede goal after goal.

In the end the French team handed out a 12-0 lesson. Allan Gosselin top scored with 5, Aikel Ben Khalifa scored a hat-trick and there was one goal each for Mehdi Yousfi, Byllel Ben Khalifa, Naim Tarbi and Sid-Ahmed Bourriche. Luminy Wolves were top and looking impressive. Shallow Hals needed to forget this result and look ahead to the remaining group games.

Game 4 saw Smack My Pitch Up meet Equipo A. The English team may still have been shell-shocked from Game 1 and if they were the Spanish took full advantage as they raced into a 4-0 lead by the break. It was an improved second half performance for Smack My Pitch Up but they could not prevent the gap increasing as Equipo A made it 2 wins out of 2.

The game saw Albert Marx claim a hat-trick, Marc Cheucos score his 3rd in 2 games and Eloi Marin Girona score his first of the day. The Spanish side were looking healthy in 2nd position on a healthy 6 points.

The game that took us to the halfway stage in Group A saw San Torrei Stags meet Shallow Hals. The Stags had been the only English team thus far not to lose a half in Group A when they held Equipo A to a draw at half-time in their first fixture. They went one better here as they enjoyed a 2-0 lead at the break.

Shallow Hals were suffering a Luminy Wolves (and possibly last night's beer) hangover. They were unable to prevent further goals as San Torrei Stags claimed a 5-0 win to move into 3 rd place. Ian Storer scored for the 2nd game running with two plus there were goals from Jonathan Kirby, Richard Birch and Edward Blackburn who can now all claim they scored in Europe!