Last week we were pitted against the North’s finest football-kicking clothing obsessives in Mundial magazine's Le Tournoi de Mundial five-a-side football tournament. How did we do? Here’s some 100% non-biased match analysis from the humble mouth of OP player-manager Liam Daly…
“The first game we played was against the Trickett Terriers. It was a bit of a shit game really — they beat us 2-1. My mate Foley who was in net… he’s not a keeper and the goal they scored was an absolute pot-shot from their area. So yeah, we didn’t deserve to lose.
Our second game was against Casual Connoisseur. We beat them 4-1. I scored an absolute Zlatan Ibrahimovic free-kick laid-off from Ebo — an absolute pearler into the bottom corner. I think they captured it on camera.
The goal they scored was, again, a pot-shot. We didn’t have a proper keeper so every goal we conceded wasn’t our fault. Josh and Ebo scored good goals in that game.
Our third game was against Size? I went in net for that one. David De Gea sort of skills with a triple-save that got me Man of the Match — that’s true as well. Josh, Ebo and Stu all scored really good goals in that game. Stu especially, he nutmegged someone, took it past them and then put it through the keepers legs too — a double nutmeg. Brilliant team performance meaning we won the group.
The semi-final was against Scotts. They were a good side… but they did play over head height, and in five-a-side you shouldn’t be able to play over head height. They beat us 4-2… or 3-1. I can’t remember.
Then we played Size? in the playoffs. We were a man down as Josh had to go and everyone was tired, so they beat us 2-0. But, we'd beaten them when it mattered. We beat them in the group stage 5-1 and we were happy with that. Fourth place out of eight isn’t bad considering we struggled to get the numbers together and Curtis had to miss it because of his graduation.
In my opinion Josh or Ebo were our top players, but I will say that I was supposed to get Player of the Tournament until I was sent off in the last game. It wasn’t a bad tackle, but he dived and I got sent off.
I think if we’d have had one more player we would have done a lot better. But yeah, it was well organised, Le Coq Sportif did a good job and Mundial did a good job.”
Photos by Mike Sallabank.