It's Portugal vs Brazil in Beach Soccer final

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Its Portugal vs Brazil in Beach Soccer final
Portugal and Russia players in a battle during the Huawei Beach Soccer Intercontinental Cup match in Dubai on Friday

Dubai - UAE will contest for the fifth spot against Egypt after the hosts defeated Paraguay 4-1

By James Jose

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Published: Fri 3 Nov 2017, 9:02 PM

Last updated: Fri 3 Nov 2017, 11:07 PM

Portugal will have their first shot at the Huawei Beach Soccer Intercontinental Cup but they go up against world champions Brazil.
The Seleccao das Quinas avenged their Euro Beach Soccer League final defeat by beating three-time winners Russia 3-2, while holders Brazil held off Iran 6-4 in the semifinals at Marasi Drive, Business Bay, on Friday night.
Portugal, whose best finish has been third here, will also be eager to avenge their quarterfinal defeat against Brazil at the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in the Bahamas in May.
It sure makes for an intriguing contest between the world's top two sides with Brazil in red-hot form, unbeaten in two years. This was their 46th win.
Russia, who missed out for the second successive year, will take on Iran in the play-off for the third place.
Meanwhile, UAE will contest for the fifth spot against Egypt after the hosts defeated Paraguay 4-1. Earlier, in the first match of the evening, Egypt edged past Mexico 6-5.
It was tight tussle between Portugal and Russia with honours even at 2-2 in the third and final period and with a little more than nine minutes left on the clock.
But midfielder Jordan Santos was brought down by defender Artur Paporotnyi with close to two minutes left. And Jordan made no mistake with the freekick, tucking his left-footer, for the winner.
The game had begun with Portugal making a flurry of early moves. Ricardo Batista shot wide from the right with four minutes left.
Aleksey Makarov then headed wide from the far post for Russia.
Portugal went into the lead with three minutes and 44 seconds remaining through Bruno Novo.
Russia desperately went in search of the equaliser with Alexey Pavlenko drilling his freekick wide of the post.
But with just four seconds remaining, Russian shot stopper Maksim Chuzhkov ensured they would take the break on even terms.
Pavlenko came close to giving Russia the lead a few minutes into the second period but his bicycle kick was tipped over the cross bar by goalkeeper Elinton Andrade.
The Russians did take the lead though with seven minutes and 53 seconds remaining with Paporotnyi scoring from a freekick.
Portugal came close to drawing parity just two minutes into the third period but Chuzhkov pulled off a brilliant save to deny Jordan.
The equaliser did come with nine minutes and 26 seconds remaining with Andrade on target.
As the clock ticked away, Paporotnyi's foul proved to be costly as Portugal went on to book their spot.
Meanwhile, it was a tepid first period with both the UAE and Paraguay not taking too many risks and keeping it tight at the back.
After that goalless first period, the UAE took the lead through Haitham Al Kaabi and they added cushion to that with Hasham Al Muntaser scoring with three minutes and 27 seconds left.
A third was almost there with a minute and 24 seconds left after Ali Mohammed had the goalkeeper Saul Gonzalez and a defender at his mercy. But after slipping through from left to right, Ali shot wide of the post.
Paraguay reduced the margin through Amado Rolon Caballero, who scored from a penalty. The Albirroja had a couple of more attempts but UAE marched ahead with Al Kaabi getting his second after which Ahmed Beshr put it to bed with eight seconds left.


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