East Coast Eagles women's team will hope that's the case after returning to Port Macquarie following a heartbreaking 3-2 penalty shootout loss in the 2019 World Futsal Championships in Florida last Sunday.

In a match that some pundits have labelled one of the best open women's futsal matches for many years, the Eagles and Florida were locked at 1-all after regulation time.

Unfortunately for the local girls, they lost the spot-kick lottery.

Coach Mick Day said while it was disappointing to fall at the final hurdle, his team now knew they were competitive on the world stage.

"No one expected a bunch of girls from Port Macquarie called the East Coast Eagles to go over there and be as competitive as we were," he said.

"(Penalty shoot outs) are hit and miss and sometimes they're on your side and sometimes they don't go your way."

Prior to the tournament, the Eagles had only dropped one match in the last two and a half years.

They only lost one match (1-0 to Florida) all tournament and were the best-performing Australian side across any division.

"There were four Australian teams in other divisions and we were the only Australian team to make a final," Day said.

"We came home with a silver, but we're on track."

The Eagles will use the disappointment as motivation for a shot at redemption in 12 months time where they will be better equipped for what will happen.

"It's really made the girls and myself even hungrier now," Day said.

"We've come back (to Port Macquarie) with the hunger that will drive us all the way through and we want to qualify and get there again next year.

"We want to go that one step higher. Those girls will focus for 12 months and think of nothing else than that end gold medal now."

Day said the Eagles were one of the more inexperienced teams at the tournament, but that would be of benefit in years to come.

"That's the main thing we learned; we're heading in the right direction and we've got a young squad - they're 16 to 26 years old," he said.

"The average age there for most teams was 25-27 and we're not using that as an excuse, we're saying look at our future.

"It's pretty bright."

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