Dubai: UAE beach soccer coach Gustavo Zloccowicz has targeted the semi-finals of the fifth Samsung Beach Soccer Intercontinental Cup despite a tough draw, which was made at the Westin Hotel in Mina Siyahi on Tuesday.
Hosts UAE were drawn in Group A with double Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup champions and Intercontinental Cup winners Russia, one-time South American champions Argentina and African challengers Egypt.
Meanwhile, in Group B, current World Cup holders Portugal will take on three-time North and Central American winners Mexico, one-time Asian and Intercontinental Cup champions Iran and one-time Oceania winners Tahiti.
The tournament, which is seen as beach soccer’s equivalent of football’s Confederations Cup, takes place at Dubai International Marine Club (DIMC) from November 3-7. “Our group is tough,” said Zloccowicz, whose UAE side are double Asian champions but have never gone further than the semi-finals in this tournament. “Argentina have potential, Egypt are one of the most progressed sides and Russia don’t need any introduction,” he added.
“But in beach soccer there’s very little difference between teams. We lost all three group games last year but only by small margins. We played well but the results just didn’t come. Now we have a renewed team and despite a tough group I’m confident that we can do something.
“Hopefully, we can qualify to the semi-finals as a first step and then from there we will see what we can do.”
Last year’s Inter-continental Cup champions and record 13 time World Cup winners Brazil won’t be competing in the tournament this year. Gabino Renales, deputy vice president of Beach Soccer Worldwide said Brazil’s omission from this tournament would enable them to get their house in order.
“Unfortunately, Brazil is facing hard times,” said Renales. “Just before this year’s World Cup in Portugal in July they changed their management and had a very bad tournament getting knocked out in the quarter-finals. For them that was a big thing considering that beach football is part of their culture.
“After that beach soccer in Brazil has gone through some difficult times with disagreements in the federation, which is why they requested not to play here this year because they need more time to start again with new structure and organisation to reach the main objective, which is to be world champion again.”
The current contract for this competition, which has always been held in the UAE since its 2011 inception, expires in 2017. But both Renales and Dubai Sport Council secretary general Saeed Hareb expressed an interest in extending.
“We are happy to continue co-operating together and hopefully within two years we will have a new agreement,” said Hareb.
