Raskin and Imke Courtois: Flames target top‑2 in European Futsal Championship

From Wednesday to Saturday, Imke Courtois and the Red Flames travel to Poland for the elite‑round of the Futsal European Championship, where Courtois makes her second appearance. While the young team is nicknamed “Raskin”, the Flames are aiming for a surprising top‑2 finish, despite their underdog status.

The Belgian indoor football women debuted at the European Championship in 2022, with Imke Courtois as a 21‑time Red Flame who had stopped five years earlier. Four years later, she is, besides her work as an analyst and her role as a mother, still one of the few older players in an otherwise youthful squad.

“That mix works very well. For many players this is their first official tournament,” says Courtois, who also calls the team “Raskin” as a symbol of the energetic dynamic. The team recently achieved an impressive draw against Sweden in the elite‑round, after a convincing preliminary round.

Preparation and training routine

For this European Championship, monthly trainings with the national team were organized, and two weeks ago the Flames sparred twice against the Netherlands. “But in an ideal world we could have weekly tactical trainings and play against a competitive opponent every weekend,” Courtois explains. The overview lists Football, Tennis, Formula 1 and other sports, highlighting the versatility of the programme.

Ambitions and underdog‑status

The Flames know that against Poland, Ukraine and Norway they will always be the underdog. “Obviously our ambition is to finish in the top 2 and thus push through,” says Courtois, although they remain underdogs three times. She recalls an earlier encounter with Ukraine, when they were “very, very strong”, now a bit less.

Poland has never before played against the Red Flames, but Courtois describes them as an “iron‑strong” team. In Norway the national women’s team is still young, but makes huge strides; every year they move three years ahead, according to the Belgian players.

Out of the fourteen Flames, eight players come from Futsal Topsport Antwerp (FTA), which according to Courtois provides “quite a few automatisms”. This combination of experience and youth gives the team a unique dynamic, even though the opposition in the host country Poland, Ukraine and Norway is “not mild”.

Nevertheless the top‑2 goal remains realistic, provided the team believes in it. “In futsal you can sometimes win or lose by large margins, but you can also pull off tricks,” concludes Courtois, making the contrasts between underdog expectation and ambitious objective clear.