A SOUTHAMPTON based futsal club has won the National Futsal League, going the whole season unbeaten.

Southampton Athletic Futsal Club was founded last year by 26-year-old GSF Sandylight Contract Manager, Pedro Alexio who is the team’s Chairman.

Having grown up playing futsal in his native Portugal, Pedro was eager to develop the game he loves in Southampton.

He told the Daily Echo: “I’m a really big fan of futsal and I found that there were no futsal clubs in Southampton.

"I was brought up in Portugal and futsal is something we play at school and in the community, so I thought it would be great to start up a club in the city.”

Futsal is a game much like football, with the main differences being that the game is played indoors over two 20-minute periods as smaller teams of five take each other on in a more technical battle that sees the ball played more along the ground.

Having founded the club last year, Pedro and his friends trained at Bitterne Park School before finding a place to train at Solent University as the team’s 23 players vary from 19 to 35 years of age.

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Daily Echo:

The team won all 10 of their southern division games this year against teams from the likes of Portsmouth and Sussex, on route to the National Futsal League final played at England’s training ground – St George’s Park – that was viewed worldwide with the game televised on BT Sport and streamed on YouTube earlier this month.

Pedro said: “There was a lot of pressure because we hadn’t played a game on this scale before.

"For the final we competed against Bolton Futsal Club and in a really close game I’m proud to be able to say that we won the match 5-4!

“It was amazing because it felt like all of our hard work had really paid off. You know, we all have full-time jobs, but everyone is really invested and has a passion for futsal.

"I’d say 80 per cent of our team are nurses at Southampton General Hospital, so it’s just amazing for everyone involved.”

He added: “We’ve had success in a short time, and it would be great to do it again, but more than anything I’d love to be able to grow the club.

“At the moment we have one men’s team but we’re looking to expand so that we can have both a women’s team and a youth team, so we can have people of all ages take part.

"We want to grow the game and we want the people of Southampton to join us. We want to bring attention to the game in Southampton.”