Another England Demise

Well the World Cup is over and it's Summer time so head on down to the beach. That's certainly what England did as their beach soccer team participated in the group phase of the World Cup qualifying tournament this past weekend. The top four teams, i.e. the eventual semi-finalists of the tournament, will automatically qualified for the World Cup in Dubai next year. England weren't exactly looking toward that but at least progression from the group which contained Estonia, Israel and Portugal. On the whole it looked like England could bag second behind Portugal who are one of the best beach soccer teams in the world. It started well against Estonia beating them 1-0 which is a very un-beach soccer scoreline but that's England for you. Portugal beat Israel which meant if England beat Israel on the Saturday and Portugal beat Estonia then both England and Portugal would go through to the last sixteen. Portugal beat Estonia with ease however England somehow managing to lose 5-2 against Israel, Iloz getting two for Israel and Gould scoring the goals for England in his debut tournament. So this left England in a must-win situation against Portugal who beat England 17-4 in November, there was only going to be one winner for sure especially as there are no draws in beach soccer. With the tournament held in Bibione, Italy the stage was set and after Estonia beat Israel it would be between England and Israel to finish second and progress. England unsurprisingly lost 5-2 with Belchior getting the pick of the goals for Portugal. So another English demise on the World footballing stage, maybe next time!