A NUMBER of Futsal players from Wrexham have represented Great Britain at an international tournament

Owen Williams, George Baxter and Lee Phelan along with the team’s goalkeeper coach Andrew Ruscoe competed at a tournament in Milan, Italy as part of Great Britain’s Futsal team.

The Great Britain team comes under the AMF (Asociacion Mundial De Futsal) version of the game.

Futsal is a smaller sided version of football, originating in South America, with an emphasis on improvisation, creativity and technique, as well as ball control and passing in small spaces.

Andrew Ruscoe, who has been involved in developing the game in Wrexham at Brickfield Rangers for a number of years, said the Wrexham-based players were all thrilled to be given the chance to play on the international stage at the Continental Cup.

He said: “It was brilliant, absolutely amazing.

“We flew out on Saturday morning at 7am, landed in Italy at 10am and our first game was against France at 5pm which we lost 4-2.

“Owen Williams from Wrexham scored one of the first goals and he was top scorer for Great Britain at the tournament.

“In the second game we played Italy and lost 12-3 but George Baxter, also from Wrexham, scored a wonder goal.

“The Italians were amazing. I came on for my debut as goalkeeper in the last few minutes and was just glad I didn’t let any goals in.

“Lee Phelan from Wrexham also played in all three games and we finished with an 8-6 loss to Switzerland.”

“It was a great experience.

“We got back on Monday at about 5pm so it was a quick turnaround.

“It’s lovely to have a nucleus of local lads playing at international level because it proves the strength of the sport and growing popularity of Futsal in the Wrexham area.”