There was an electrifying atmosphere in Guatemala City's Domo hall on Wednesday as the Netherlands beat Uruguay 3-1 in an attractive and emotional match and thus qualified for the next round at the Futsal World Championship.

Henny Lettinck scored the first two goals which gave the Dutch self-confidence, while the man of the match was goalkeeper Tom Sier, who saved a huge number of shots and left the South Americans wondering how they only managed to score once.

Egypt took impressive revenge after their opening defeat by the Dutch, overwhelming Thailand in a one-sided match, 7-0. The Asians, who are taking part in a FIFA Futsal World Championship for the first time, had no chance of winning against a well-balanced Egyptian team, in which Abdel Kader was the dominant player with three goals.

After the 0-9 against Spain, Cuba suffered another crushing defeat. They conceded eight goals to the Argentinians, who were never in any trouble in this game even despite having gone 0-1 behind early on. The Cubans were then completely dominated and had to learn that fighting spirit alone cannot make up for the lack of experience at a high futsal level. Argentina's Augusto Monaco scored a hat-trick. In the other match in the Teodoro Flores hall, the crowd was delighted with Spain's performance against Iran as the runners-up of the last World Championship beat the Asians 7-2. Both Iran's goals were own goals.