New Caledonians show their strenght as they hold AFF Futsal to a draw

The first matchday of OFC Futsal Champions League came to and when the New Caledonia champions AS Olympique PTT Nouméa faced the New Zealand and home side AFF Futsal. The strong squad of the Kiwi had to battle hard to save a point from the encounter. Counting with players as Dylan Manickum, Marvin Eakins and Josh Margetts in their squad – all of them runners-up of OFC Futsal Nations Cup held in New Caledonia last month – AFF started early to show what they are capable of taking the lead with Sean McIntee.

The star Dylan Manickum made a reckless pass that left Christophe Kausuo in front of his goalkeeper to level the game with a powerful shot. But it did not take longer, since the same Sean McIntee scored for the New Zealanders to make their team upfront in the scoreline before the break.

The New Caledonians shown lots of quality in the second half – they took the control of the match and could find an equalizer after a powerful shot of New Caledonian Futsal national team captain Cédrick Humuni was deflected by Christophe Kausuo to find the nets of AFF to make the game levelled once again.

Minutes later of finding their second goal, AS PTT saw themselves ahead of the scoreboard when Cédrick Humuni hit the target with a powerful right-foot shot to deny any chances of defense of the opposition goalkeeper.

With few minutes still to be played, AFF Futsal decided to add one more player to their attack – the strategy to leave an empty-net but having five players to create a goal chance. It has a lot of risks, but when well trained the strategy may have a good effect – as it happened. Despite the New Caledonians having some shot opportunities without a keeper in the goalposts – for the luck of AFF all of them were out of target – Marvin Eakins found Adam Paulsen in the left side, he dribbled one defender and found Stephen Ashby-Peckham free just to tap the ball to the nets to give the New Zealanders the equalizer – a fantastic play Paulsen!

With the draw, both sides leave the court with one point each. They will be back for the second matchday of competition – the second match in the tournament for AFF Futsal and AS PTT Nouméa will be D’York Street and AS Pirae, respectively.