Deceptive tricks, cunning passes, crafty footwork. Premier Futsal is here and it looks its here to stay.
The tournament had a very strange pre-tournament hype. At the beginning, they managed to generate a social media riot when the Pele of futsal, Falcao, had been brought in as the 1st marquee player. It peaked even when it was announced that Paul Scholes was jumping on the bandwagon. Then, the hype all died down before the remarkable signings of Ronaldinho and Ryan Giggs, but they, yet again, brought all the spotlight back on to the tournament.
The opening ceremony got off to a flying start and the first match between Giggs’ Mumbai and Falcao’s Chennai was underway. Mumbai managed to get the better of Giggs with a 4-2 victory. Giggs setup the 4th goal beautifully. Overall, the game was a good one and set up the 2nd game beautifully. It was against Ronaldinho’s Chennai and Hernan Crespo’s Kolkata. Ronaldinho didn’t live up to the Ronaldinho standards of his prime years but was nevertheless, a treat to watch out with his typical grin and boyish charm. It eventually went in the favour of Kolkata who won with a scoreline of 4-2.
All in all, it looks like a tournament that might not reach the intensity reach of an ISL but will do well enough to recover the money invested by the Indian entrepreneurs, in the hope that as T20 caught up with cricket in India, Futsal will do too.
