Montesilvano top Ekaterinburg and Araz

Italian champions ASD Città di Montesilvano C/5 have reached the UEFA Futsal Cup finals on their competition debut following a 10-0 defeat of AGBU Ararat Nicosia FC in Russia on Thursday.

Going into the last day of elite round Group B action, Montesilvano trailed Araz Naxçivan on goal difference with hosts MFK Sinara Ekaterinburg a point behind. First to kick off, Montesilvano secured the win they needed against the Cypriot entrants and then were able to celebrate when 2010 bronze-medallists Araz lost 3-2 to 2008 winners Ekaterinburg.

Cleyton Baptistella was the star for Montesilvano with five goals and Rogerio Da Silva contributed a hat-trick in a game where the victors were without Marcio Forte and Christian Borruto. That result ended Sinara's hopes and left Araz needing an unlikely ten-goal win; Aleksei Mokhov won the game for Ekaterinburg with his second strike of the game with two minutes left not long after Rizvan Farzaliyev had swiftly cancelled out his previous effort.

Baptistella, who was in the Luparense C/5 team that reached the finals last season, losing to Araz for third place, said: "It was a great personal satisfaction for me to score five goals, but it was indeed qualification that counted. It's the second straight finals for me after last year with Luparense, I hope to go further with Montesilvano than we did in the last tournament. This team very much deserves to achieve these ambitious targets."

Coach Fulvio Colini added: "I feel a very great satisfaction about reaching the finals in my first UEFA Futsal Cup. This is a victory I dedicate to Junior, Burato, Patias [who all helped the title win last season but have left], [third-choice goalkeeper] Scordella and [injured] Calderolli because they contributed to us being able to celebrate here today."

For Ekaterinburg, it is their second straight elite-round exit having won on their 2007/08 debut and reached the final the following season. Coach Sergey Skorovich, whose team were beaten by Montesilvano on Monday, said: "First of all, it is psychologically difficult to play such games when the train has already left. But we played for the honour of the club.

"It's a shame to realise that we were unable to cope with this task, but we must reach certain conclusions and move on. In these matches the cost of failure is high. In the first match we created six chances and scored once, and our opponents took two of their three. Now to play in Europe we need to become [Russian] champions again. Many thanks to all the fans who do not leave the club in difficult times."