After 132 games of football we came down to the most important of them all. Game 133 – The 2017 Barcelona Fives Cup Final. Previous Winners:

2008 Rapid Bosco Navas (Spa)

2009 (June) Anglo Knights (Spa)

2009 (November) Luminy Wolves (Fra)

2010 Magic Monkeys (Eng)

2011 (April) Equipo A (Spa)

2011 (November) Midshire FC (Eng)

2012 Black Sheep (Spa)

2013 Los Swallacticos (NIR)

2014 Monexy (Ukr)

2015 Club Esportiu Llefia (Spa)

2016 Elcombe Old Boys (Eng)

Would we have our first French winner since 2009 or our sixth Spanish win in 12 tournaments? Let's have a look at the two teams:

Naranjitos (Spa)

They have saved their best performances for Barcelona in recent years. After a 100% record in the group phase last year they qualified for the Cup again this year. They won the Plate competition at the 2014 Barcelona Fives and 2015 Barcelona Fives. This was their first Cup Final. Over the years, there have been 8 teams that have won a Cup and a Plate at our tournaments. They could be the 9 th team overall, the 4 th Spanish team and the 3 rd here in Barcelona after Equipo A Cup (2011 Barcelona Fives), Plate (2009 Barca Fives) and Club Esportiu Llefia: Cup (2015), Plate (2016).

Today, they finished second in their group with 5 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat before two excellent 1-0 wins in the knockout phase defeating the #1 ranked Spider Mans & Eagle and the defending champions Elcombe Old Boys.

L'Albiceleste (Fra)

The French team was seeking out their third eurofootballfives.com title. They already boast the 2013 Mallorca Fives and 2016 Riga Tournament in their trophy cabinet. A third eurofootballfives.com title would make them the joint third most successful team in eurofootballfives.com history. They were on a run of 16 unbeaten games in our tournaments since they lost their opening game to CAP FC in Riga last year.

Today their unbeaten record read 6 wins and 3 draws. 2 of those draws came in the knock-out phase where they converted them to victories via a penalty shoot-out.

So, where's your money? Who do you think will be crowned champions at 18.00 CET?

With the game underway it was L'Albiceleste who took a fairly early lead in the Cup Final. The goal came from the penalty spot after the referee adjudicated a handball from one of the Naranjitos players. We have seen that L'Albiceleste are pretty good at penalties with four wins out of four in penalty shoot-outs in their eurofootballfives.com career. Cedric Castarede was the man to step up to the Plate and he coolly slotted the ball into the bottom right hand corner.

The game looked over when L'Albiceleste made it 2-0. There appeared to be no danger as Cedric Castarede took a forceful throw-in but the ball ricocheted off the defender and into the back of the net. Obviously you can't score from a throw-in but as the ball had taken a touch on the way through the goal was perfectly legal and stood. It was a bizarre goal but a legal goal.

Naranjitos were not done just yet as Adrian Rodriguez Ortega provided a neat finish to make it 2-1 and set up a thrilling finale. L'Albiceleste were able to see out the game in relative comfort except for one major scare. Juan Jose Garcia had a chance when the ball fell to him 6 yards out but he could only put it wide in the final minutes. That ended Naranjitos's hopes and when the final whistle blew it was L'Albiceleste who were victorious.

Our sincere commiserations to Naranjitos who had come so close to glory but just missed out by the narrowest of margins. They had been brilliant on the day and it was their best performance at a eurofootballfives.com event to date.

Our congratulations go to L'Albiceleste on their third eurofootballfives.com victory. They are now just 1 behind CIS Committee of Belarus and England's Olympic Phil Babb who have 4 titles each.

We'd like to say a big thank you to all 32 teams who participated. The success of this great event really was down to you playing the tournament in a great spirit, being on time for fixtures and helping us keep everything running so everyone could have a superb time. The Barcelona Fives, as ever, proved to be a fantastic climax to our season and will live long in the memory. We very much hope to see you all in 2018 in Barcelona and/or one of our other destinations.