A thrilling ‘golden goal’ has sent the GB goalball team into the semi-finals at the European Championships in Munich, Germany.
In a tough quarter-final today against Russia, the GB goalball team played with great tenacity but it was Jessica Luke – whose sister and fellow GB teammate Emily is currently the Championships top goalscorer – who secured the winning point with a golden goal in extra time.
As indicated by the 3-3 scoreline at the end of normal time, the game had been an extremely close one and Russia had defended excellently. But the young GB team displayed great maturity to secure the victory – and a place in tomorrow’s semi-finals.
“We’ve achieved out pre-competition aim”, said Performance Director Tabo Huntley, “but now we’d like to go one further. We had an aspiration to medal, and at this stage of the competition anything can happen, but if we don’t go any further we have still achieved what we set out to do at the start of the year.
“The result today is all the more exciting because we are a developing programme based around a young squad. We have jumped from a ninth place finish in the European Championships in 2007 to at least fourth here.”
GB will play against reigning European Champions Finland in the semi-final and Huntley is looking forward to the challenge.
“Tomorrow we face Finland. We are now preparing ourselves for that. We are quite confident but I am sure it will be a close one. As our only loss in the preliminary round was to Finland we will be seeking to avenge our earlier result.”
GB qualified second from the group stages of the competition, securing victories over Germany, Israel, Turkey and Spain and only losing to tomorrow’s opponents.
