After 35 games of football in the Veterans competition we only had one more to play - The 2017 Lisbon Veterans Tournament Cup Final.

What a Cup Final we had in prospect! We had two teams who had both excelled throughout the day. The two teams;

FC Miracle: Played 6, won 5, lost 1. They had scored 18 goals along the way and conceded just one. They boasted the tournament top scorer, Laszlo Zsolt, with 14 goals. Looking for their second eurofootballfives.com title after winning the 2012 Valencia Fives.

Talhos Mariete: Played 6, won 5, lost 1. They had scored 15 goals and conceded two.

As you can see there was really not much in it. The one thing to note is that these two teams had met at the end of Group A and on that occasion it was Talhos Mariete who emerged victorious, 1-0. It was the only goal that FC Miracle had conceded all day.

The game was underway and the two teams did not quite look as evenly matched on the pitch as they did on paper. FC Miracle looked a different side to the one who had been so imperious earlier in the day. After the tournament they said they were tired at the end and lost concentration. Talhos Mariete certainly punished them.

Two goals from Alexandre Teixeira plus a double from Bruno Silva put Talhos Mariete 4-0 up in a first half blitz. Marton Rekli had conceded 4 goals in an 8 minute blitz having only conceded 1 for the whole tournament before this. It was a stunning performance from the Portuguese and they had one hand on the trophy already.

We kicked off the second half at 4-0 and FC Miracle looked to embark on some sort of miraculous recovery. Laszlo Zsolt scored his 15th and 16th of the tournament to reduce the lead to 4-2. Could this be a repeat of Newcastle versus Arsenal from the Premier League in February 2011?

It was not to be for FC Miracle as Alexandre Teixeira completed his hat-trick to make it 5-2 and end any hopes of FC Miracle completing a comeback.

We offer our commiserations to FC Miracle who we thought could be the second team to win both an Open Age and Veterans title in our tournaments. There was some personal consolation for Laszlo Zsolt who picked up his second golden boot award. The 2017 Lisbon Veterans Tournament trophy will now sit alongside the 2012 Valencia Fives trophy.

Congratulations to Talhos Mariete who became the sixth different winners and the fourth Portuguese team to claim glory at a eurofootballfives.com Veterans Tournament. The Veterans Tournament will be hosted in the Algarve (16th June) and Mallorca (22nd September) for 2018 and we hope you can all join us next year.