Canada falls 3-2 to Costa Rica to open CONCACAF Futsal Championship

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Frederico Moojen scored twice, but it wasn’t enough as Canada fell 3-2 against Costa Rica on Sunday to open the group stage at the CONCACAF Futsal Championship.

Erick Brenes had a pair of goals and Alejandro Paniagua scored the other for the defending champions from Costa Rica (1-0-0), which was the only nation to open Group B with a victory after Curacao and Cuba played to a 1-1 draw.

Canada’s (0-1-0) next match is Monday against Curacao.

The CONCACAF tournament, which has eight nations in action, will send four teams from North and Central America and the Caribbean to the 24-country FIFA Futsal World Cup this September in Colombia.

Futsal is a five-a-side indoor game, played in 20-minute halves on a surface no larger than 25 by 42 metres (and no smaller than 20 by 38) for international matches. Goals measure three by two metres.

Canada has not qualified for the Futsal World Cup since the inaugural event in 1989 in the Netherlands, where it failed to advance from the first round after beating Japan and losing to Argentina and Belgium.

Already qualified for the Futsal World Cup are host Colombia, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mozambique, Paraguay, Portugal, Russia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Brazil has dominated the world scene, winning five of the seven Futsal World Cups including the last two. Spain won the other two titles and has finished runner-up to Brazil three times.