2023 was the 8th edition of the Lisbon Tournament. Up until 2018, it had been Portuguese dominance in this tournament with HS Décor winning here in April 2013, Bubble Football in September 2015, and Parques Tejo triumphant in June 2016. It was the Portugal-based Brazilian team Pangare Futebol Clube who won in September 2017 before Ireland's Saipan FC took the trophy in 2018.

2019 saw more success for Portugal with Indoorsoccer Café O Trem denying Pangare Futebol Clube a 2nd success via a penalty shoot-out. After a 3 year hiatus due to Covid we returned to action in Lisbon in 2022 with CDAL (Por) defeating RAF2 (Por) to lift the trophy. Lisbon has proved to be the toughest nut to crack for our travelling teams – could Dolce & Lallana or Bugiels Athletic emulate Ireland's Saipan FC and take home the trophy in 2023?

They were first up on Campo 2 in Grupo B. Dolce & Lallana came into the tournament with eurofootballfives.com pedigree (more on that later) but their opponents were on debut and had a blank canvas upon which to paint their footballing artistry.

Bugiels Athletic competed pretty well against their compatriots but were unable to convert their performance into points. They lost to a solitary goal in the game. The goal was scored by Thomas Forster as Dolce & Lallana were off to a winning start.

The next two teams to get underway in Round 1 were RAF2 (Por) and FC C(h)ampagne (Swi). The Swiss team were the third debutants in Group B.

RAF2 competed well at the group stage here 12 months ago with 3 wins out of 4. They were free-scoring with 4-0 wins over FC Shark, 3-0 against Riise's Pieces and 7-3 against Southgate Rascals. They did suffer 3-0 defeat to compatriots CDAL but still qualified for the Cup in second place. The Cup QF saw a fine 4-2 win over Montanelas FC (Por). The SF saw them draw 2-2 with 2017 finalists Galacticos but they emerged victorious on spot-kicks. They set up a repeat encounter v CDAL in the Cup Final but were unable to exact revenge as they fell 2-0 to collect runners-up medals.

Here in 2023 they began well and it was the Portuguese who took the lead with Paulo Marta opening his team's account for the day. However, it was not to be a winning goal as they were pegged back by FC C(h)ampagne. Alex Forbes was the man who can lay claim to be the scorer of his team's first goal in eurofootballfives.com competition.

When the referee blew for full-time it was still 1-1 and the teams had to settle for a point each. Only time would tell if this was a point gained or 2 points dropped.