The 4th annual Mallorca Tournament (and our 5th on this sunshine island) kicked off on the 14th June on a glorious day for our largest event ever – 30 teams assembled with 20 teams in the Open Age draw and 10 teams in the Veterans Tournament. The sun was shining, the teams were ready…the big kick-off was upon us.

First up on Pitch A was Centrale Football Club versus El Local. The latter were on debut so we would find out about them during the course of the day.

Centrale Paris first competed on the eurofootballfives.com stage at the 2011 Budapest Fives where they made quite an impact with both their squads finishing second in their group behind strong local Hungarian teams. The Cup Quarter-Finals saw both squads go out with the A team losing 1-0 to Olympic Phil Babb (who had won all 4 tournaments they'd played in at that stage) and the B team losing 3-1 to Csabagyongye who were only seconds away from knocking Olympic Phil Babb out in the subsequent Cup Semi-Final. They followed this up by playing in the 2012 Algarve Open where their A team went all the way to the final but fell just short as they took the Runners-Up medals. In 2013 they were also to miss out by the narrowest of margins as CFC lost in the Cup Final to FC Radbroke. In 2014 they swap the Portuguese sun for the Spanish sun – could they go all the way?

It was a close first game here in Mallorca but the Spanish team edged it 2-1 thanks to goals from Alejandro Sanchez Solano and Ismael Gil Gomez. Benjamin Cahart scored the goal for the French team.

The final team to get underway was Paris St Gentleman. They were part of the County (Re)United group that has competed annually in our tournaments since 2011 in Valencia. They were part of a three team attack on the 2014 Mallorca Tournament. Paris St Gentleman would kick-off against Centrale Football Club.

So, we had a French team against a team with a French name. We had a team from Paris against a team who had Paris in their name. When we reached half-time it was the team that had flown in from France rather than England who had taken a 1-0 lead thanks to Benjamin Cahart.

In the second half, 1-0 became 2-0 as Olivier Debaillon Vesque doubled the advantage. It was enough to secure the victory for Centrale Football Club who had bounced back from opening game defeat to seal their first 3 points of the day. Paris St Gentleman still had time to kick-start their title challenge.

El Local's second game was against Kazakhstan FC. Both teams had started off with a victory and another one in their second fixture would be just what the doctor ordered.

There were now three teams on three points so a win here would open up a good lead at the top of Group A. It was El Local of Spain who struck first as Ismael Gil Gomez scored his second in as many games. It was the only goal of the first half – could Kazakhstan FC respond in the second half?

Yes they could as Phillip Beeston also scored his second in as many games and Chris Barnfather added another. However, it would not be enough to win the points as one man made the difference between the two teams. That man was Alejandro Sanchez Solano who bagged a second half hat-trick and won the game for El Local, 4-2.

Son Gual were up next. They had experienced a tough introduction at the 2012 Mallorca Tournament as they were drawn in a group with 2 previous eurofootballfives.com winners (Inter Women and 4 x winners Olympic Phil Babb). They finished 4th in their 6 team group to qualify for the Plate Quarter-Finals where they exited 4-2 at the hands of Whiteley Stags. In May 2013's Mallorca Fives they also finished 4 th in a group that contained 2 previous eurofootballfives.com winners (Skidmarks and Policia Mallorca) and went on to the Plate competition – which they won! In June 2013 they finished 3rd in their group and went through to the Plate again. They were on the march to another victory after defeating Whiteley Bad Boys 4-2 in the Quarter-Finals but a 2-1 defeat in the Semi-Finals to Haveago Heroes ended their campaign.

After recent success they had stumbled to opening game defeat today. They were hoping to put that right against Paris St Gentleman who were also looking to put opening game defeat behind them. This looked to be another closely matched contest and there was little between the two teams going into the break – the tie was level at 1-1 thanks to goals from Paul Roman and Danny Jones.

After the break a brace from Dani Chanes for Son Gual completed a 3-1 victory for the Spanish team who joined a congested mid-table cluster in Group A.