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Nora Fernandez Fernandez
Yesterday afternoon, the URJC futsal girls managed to prevail 8-4 against the Dragomanov National University of Ukraine to become the winners of the European University Championship.
Already last year, the team was proclaimed winner of the tournament and, as a reward, they have been able to travel again this year. In addition, they have done it in the best possible way and return home with the title.
As Alexander Gil Arias, URJC's deputy vice-rector for Sports, tells us, "the tournament went from less to more, beginning to measure ourselves against more affordable rivals until, in the semifinals, the level jump was significant." “The truth is that our players have a lot of quality and many play in the first division; In addition to the physical plane, in which there is a high level in Europe, they also have a lot of knowledge in terms of plays and strategy, which is what, I think, we were superior in”, adds Gil.
The rival with which the URJC team played the final, Dragomanov University, “was one of the most difficult, it has very good players and some play here in the Spanish league. However, I think that the strategy proposed by ours fitted in perfectly and allowed us to have a 2/3 goal advantage throughout the game, which also gave us comfort and made us approach the game as we wanted, so that the other team was at our mercy."
In addition to the collective award for champions, two players from the team stood out individually and received an award at the awards gala. Silvia García-Milla Remírez, a student of the Degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, received the distinction of 'Best Goalkeeper' of the Championship and Carmen Noreña Rodríguez, a student of Early Childhood Education, the 'Top Goalscorer' of the tournament.
Both the coaches, Alfonso Catalina and Malika Lozano, as well as the technical team and all the other players, "are very happy and excited to have been able to revalidate the title of champions," says Gil. “Being able to renew this medal was an extra motivation for the girls and, as there are some who have already left the team because they finished their studies, this is leaving with a very good taste in their mouths”, he adds.
The last thing that the vice-rector wanted to highlight from this whole experience is “the human quality of our players, the group of friends they are and the cohesion they have shown both on and off the court. All this, added to the values of respect, discipline and the feeling of belonging to the URJC have allowed us to revalidate the title of European champions”.