The new team on the block – the Canning Ultra Tigers – is excited about making its debut in Series Futsal Australia, which kicks off on Friday.
After finishing fifth in the regular season, the Ultra Tigers won its way through to the competitive national futsal tournament after making its way through to the final in WA’s State Futsal League Cup.
Despite being defeated 3-1 by reigning SFA champions Cambio Cumbre, the Ultra Tigers are cautiously optimistic about its chances, according to leading team player Chandra Nagendran.
“Whenever we play, we play to win, but we know this is going to the biggest challenge our club has ever faced,” Nagendran told SeriesFutsal.com.
“Of course we want to win and we will give it our all and play our best. We have a very strong squad, but we know all of the other teams will also be very strong too.
“Our main aim is to make the semi-finals. Once you get there, anything can happen.
“It will be just great to share the court with some of Australia and the world’s best futsal players and we hope to learn a lot from the experience.”
The Canning Ultra Tigers will compete in Group A, taking on rival West Australian team Stirling FC.
These two clubs recently met in the opening round of the SFL where Stirling won 3-2, but according to Nagendran, the match served as great preparation for the SFA Cup.
“We played Stirling on Saturday and we know they like to keep the ball and hold possession,” he said.
“We try to absorb as much pressure as possible and use our counter attack as best as possible. That was working really well at the start, we led 2-0, but they came back and won 3-2. They scored the last goal with 30 seconds to go.
“We know that all of the matches this weekend will be like that, and I feel we all know what it is going to take to do it. We just have to execute our plan and be very calculated.”
The Ultra Tigers will play its first match on Friday against Hume FC at 9:20pm at the WA State Futsal Centre.
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