Spain is knocked out of the Futsal World Cup after losing to Venezuela

The Spanish men’s futsal team was eliminated from the World Championship being held in Uzbekistan after an unexpected 1-2 defeat to Venezuela in the round of 16, in a match in which they were never comfortable and which was decided by a goal by Víctor Carreño with 1:21 left.

The team led by Fede Vidal is eliminated from the tournament for the first time before the quarterfinals since the 1989 edition. After finishing first in the group with two wins and a draw, the Spaniards were unable to overcome the Venezuelans, who achieved the best result in their history in their second participation in a World Cup.

From the start, the great defensive work of Robinson Romero’s team collapsed Spain’s attacks, which reached 58 shots, 13 of them on goal, and were only able to score once.

After several minutes of hitting a wall and without the scoreboard moving, the Venezuelans managed to take the lead after a serious error by goalkeeper Jesús Herrero, who went out to pass to the pivot of the other goalkeeper José Villalobos without hitting the ball, reaching 0-1 in the 13th minute of the first half.

The Spaniards were forced to come back again, as they had to do in their debut against Kazakhstan (1-1) and against New Zealand, when they started off losing but managed to turn it around to a final score of 7-1. However, the script of the duel against the South Americans was very different.

After the first half ended 0-1, Raúl Gómez equalised with a loose ball in the area after a great move by Francisco Cortés. With 16 minutes to go, the Spaniards tried to attack Villalobos’ goal in search of the winning goal to get rid of rivals who displayed great defensive strength, with the new Jaén Paraíso Interior defender Carlos Sanz standing out.

When it seemed that extra time was a reality due to the impossibility of scoring the 2-1, the situation became irremediably complicated with the goal by Víctor Carreño when there were only one minute and 21 seconds left on the clock.

Fede Vidal reacted with a time-out and placing Catela as a goalkeeper-player to have a numerical advantage, but the lack of freshness and mental fatigue of the Spaniards prevented them from even having a clear chance to tie the game beyond shots rejected by the defensive line.