ZC Excess start Euro adventure today

Malta futsal champions ZC Excess open their commitments in the Preliminary Round of the UEFA Futsal Cup this evening when they take on BGA Futsal, of Denmark, at the Cottonera Sports Complex.

ZC Excess are making their first appearance in the European ­competition but despite their lack of experience in such scenarios, Romanian player-coach Florin Anton sounded optimistic that the Malta champions can still ­negotiate the opening hurdle in the tournament.

“I think ZC Excess are strong enough to qualify to the first round proper of the UEFA Futsal Cup,” Anton was quoted as saying when the launching of the group qualifiers was held last week.

“This team has enough ability to secure a place in the next round. We trained really hard this summer and the acquisition of new players has significantly strengthened our team.

“We have played a number of warm-up matches over the past few weeks and there was great cohesion in the team. Now, we expect the Maltese futsal fans will be there for us on Monday (today) to give us their support.”

This summer ZC Excess agreed to sign new players Gabriel Dobre and Emil Andrei Raducu, both hailing from Romania.

Anton has a squad of 18 players at his disposal and apart from Dobre and Raducu he has three other overseas players in the group, namely, Brazilian Fabiano Bassi, Romania’s Florin Manea and Turkey’s Metin Turk.

The programme

Today: 6 p.m. FS Ilves vs FK Tirana; 8 p.m. ZC Excess vs BGA Futsal.

Tomorrow: 6 p.m. BGA Futsal vs FS Ilves; 8 p.m. ZC Excess vs KF Tirana.

Thursday: 6 p.m. KF Tirana vs BGA Futsal; 8 p.m. ZC Excess vs FS Ilves.