Futsal, straight into the league play-offs: first round tomorrow

With the Titano Futsal Cup now in the books, it is already time for the league play-offs for the top six teams from the regular season. The action begins tomorrow evening with the fixtures for the first round, traditionally the stage that pits the second-placed sides against the third-placed teams from the group phase. The opening match will see Domagnano take on La Fiorita: the Wolves made it all the way to the semi-finals of the Titano Futsal Cup, where they were beaten by Folgore, the eventual winners. La Fiorita, on the other hand, missed out on the cup play-offs and have therefore not played a competitive match since 2 May, the date of the final round of the regular season. Palermino’s side battled right to the end to try and finish top of Group B, but in the end had to surrender first place to Tre Fiori. Domagnano, by contrast, fell out of contention for top spot in Group A – and then for second place as well – relatively early, and in the closing stages of the regular season focused their efforts on defending third place, which in truth was never seriously under threat. The sides have already met twice this season, once in the league and once in the cup, and both games ended 1-1. The second match of the evening will be between Fiorentino and Virtus. Both teams were knocked out at the quarter-final stage of the recent cup play-offs: Virtus by Tre Fiori and Fiorentino by Domagnano. The Neroverdi, however, are still riding the wave of excitement after securing a place in the league play-offs – the very first in the history of the Acquaviva club – clinched on the final matchday, while Fiorentino, who enter as defending champions, will be able to draw on the greater experience built up over the years – especially in the most recent ones – at this stage of the competition. This season the two sides did not share the same league group, but they did share the same cup group. In the Futsal Cup they also finished level on 12 points at the end of the regular season, with Fiorentino ultimately placing above Virtus thanks to a better goal tally in the three head-to-head encounters involving these two teams and Juvenes-Dogana, who also finished on 12 points. The direct clash between Virtus and Fiorentino went the way of Pollini’s team, who in that match even saw their goalkeeper, Lorenzo Bizzocchi, get on the scoresheet. In the league, though, things went very differently: Fiorentino "took revenge" for that cup defeat by handing their opponents a heavy 7-0 loss. Here is the schedule for the first round of the league play-offs:

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