Give Futsal a chance – Les Murray Blog
It will come as no surprise to the most mildly informed football punter that Ronaldinho is a former futsal player. Nor that so is Ronaldo. And, unless I am mistaken, so were Kaká, Robinho and Pato.
It cannot be a coincidence that men of such consummate technical ability are graduates of the indoor, five-a-side configuration of football, as are literally thousands of other Brazilian stars of the outdoor game.
My late friend, Johnny Warren, babbled on about this stuff for decades without being heard. And four years past his death he’s still not being heard, or not enough. The indoor game continues to be sidelined, like some insignificant cousin, its critical importance ignored to football’s utter detriment.
Futsal, or indoor soccer as some still call it, is a burgeoning activity in the suburbs, a great source of fun, especially at junior level, and an even greater vehicle for technical development.
It is, in effect, a long established and deep rooted mirror of what was only recently mandated nationwide to improve the level of skill among our growing young: small sided games or SSGs.
Futsal is played on small courts, five versus five, compelling players, due to lack of space, to have optimum command of the ball. Unlike on a large field, with large goals, there is no margin for error. You place a pass millimetres wide of its mark and it is bound to be intercepted by an opponent. You crack a shot at goal that wavers just slightly from its puny target between keeper and post and you will miss.
In futsal there is no option other than to have the ball completely at your command. With the ball at your feet your only options are to make a telling pass of total accuracy, take a shot that is placed rather than just driven in hope, or dribble, wiggle your bum, and make more space and time.
You can do none of these things without utter ball skills. In futsal you simply cannot win just by being stronger, bigger and by getting stuck in. Hence the conviction, Johnny Warren’s conviction, that futsal is a seriously good medium for correcting what Australian footballers distinctly lack on world comparisons: technique.
In recent times I have taken much time out to attend futsal matches. They were glorious eye openers.
In the first instance I noted that, unlike games of the outdoor variety, they are sources of utter congenial fun for all. Players run free in a quest to express themselves, jutting about, stopping and starting, running into spaces, passing and flicking, sometimes dribbling, always in a compulsion to create.
It is a wondrous spectacle so different to the mindless biff and bang that goes on the outdoor grounds where players, especially children, are asked to chase and run, and boot the bejesus out of the ball in quest of victories, with parents bellowing down their ears in the stupid belief that they become better players for hearing them.
At futsal games, in stark comparison to what happens on the suburban grass fields, there is no bellowing. Parents sit quietly, cheering only when a goal is scored or letting out an occasional ‘aahh’ when someone plays a back heel, a nutmeg or does a swivel to make space and beat a defender.
Yet the wonderful package that is futsal is being vastly undervalued in our football culture. It is time for that to change.
Futsal is not integrated in any planned or purposeful way in the broad totality of our technical structure. Futsal competitions go on, separately and largely independently of the mainstream, with no attempt to congruently enlist its virtues by football’s governing bodies.
In 2004 Futsal NSW, then an independent body running its own race, elected to come under the governance of Football NSW in the hope that the sport would gain greater legitimacy and receive some serious benefits.
There have been no benefits. Futsal players are slugged $100 per year each in registration fees, all going into the fat coffers of FNSW, but get nothing in return. This on top of the $200 or $300 they already pay if they play outdoors. FNSW has no strategy, no program that might embed futsal as a serious resource in player development. They just collect the money.
In addition, private operators run their own futsal competitions, for a profit, and act in direct competition with those under the auspices of FNSW, a parasitic activity that takes talented players away from the mainstream.
The matter has not escaped the attention of Football Federation Australia which is currently conducting a review into futsal and is due to report back early next year. One assumes, or hopes, the aim of the inquiry is to find a way in which futsal can best be made to benefit our technical development.
Also encouragingly, the AIS head coach, Jan Versleijen, is now planning to integrate futsal into the Institute’s football curriculum.
It is my view that futsal has to be an integral and critical part of the national development program.
And that means starting with aligning futsal competitions that complement the outdoor seasons.
At the moment many futsal competitions overlap the outdoor seasons or even run concurrently with them, forcing players to play both sports or choose between them. This should cease.
The futsal season should begin when the outdoor season ends and vice versa. This way players can play a form of football all year round and not be lost to other sports in the off-season.
Additionally, incentives should be built into the fee structures that encourage players to play futsal when it’s down time in the outdoor game.
In these ways futsal can begin to be genuinely integrated into our football culture and its enormous value to technical development better harnessed.
Editors Note : Check out some of the comments the article has attracted on the SBS Site, they can be seen here.
Source : The World Game (SBS)
By : Les Murray
Thanks JogaBonito for pointing out the article
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Recent Forum Updates
“At the moment many futsal competitions overlap the outdoor seasons or even run concurrently with them, forcing players to play both sports or choose between them. This should cease.”
Great…so Les sees futsal as nothing but a training game for football, something to be done in the off season.
what about the people who actually want to play it all year around as their chosen sport ?
This is another example of the mentality of Football people. Good one Les, while your at it you’d better stop all indoor rebound centres and then tell all footballers who attend school that they have to stop playing all other sport at school!!!!!!
The sooner Futsal is divorced from Football and the Football mentality the better
Too many people see futsal as just an off season training session for outdoor. That is why there is just not enough dedication from some players. The other problem is the coaches letting their prize players get away with not turning up for training and then the coach blames the ones who do turn up for the teams losing a game.
I can’t believe some of you people. Les writes an article telling everyone how great futsal is yet you still bag him. He even attacks FNSW for their treatment of the sport.
A rare futsal article is published on a popular football site, he should be congratulated rather than attacked.
Bigs
The first part of the Les Murry story reads well but sadly he suffers from the same disease, at the end of the day Futsal is nothing more than an off season game.
“At the moment many futsal competitions overlap the outdoor seasons or even run concurrently with them, forcing players to play both sports or choose between them. This should cease.”
This should cease…. is he kidding himself. I’d like to see Cricket Australia telling all the players they can’t play indoor cricket all year round…..
Les you were close but sadly your still so very far away
Good on you Les. You can see the big picture where others can’t.
Very thought-provoking article. Not sure he’s correct about parents sitting quietly; obviously hasn’t been to too many Premier league or State Titles games !!!
Good job toepoke, you tool!
“The matter has not escaped the attention of Football Federation Australia which is currently conducting a review into futsal and is due to report back early next year. One assumes, or hopes, the aim of the inquiry is to find a way in which futsal can best be made to benefit our technical development.”
Yeah. Futsal’s a training event. That’s what this means. He’s saying it should be in the “football offseason” so that it can be played – something you and you Vikings propaganda has been spouting CONTINUOUSLY – it’s just that he thinks football can live in harmony with it. And if you are refering to the AIS program, you’re right – why would a football group ever think of using a small sided game as part of their training. COMPLETE UNHEARD OF – you idiot.
Get into the REAL world toepoke. There are some people who play indoor cricket all year round. There are other who only play it for half the year when their sport of choice, cricket, is not available. Are you suggesting that anyone who plays futsal shouldn’t be allowed to play football if they decide they enjoy playing football more?
Come off the grass (or stop smoking it) and realise that you are just as backwards as you seem to think Les is. Maybe you should start saying football is a training ground for futsal because you have more time to control the ball, training you up nicely for when you have less time in futsal.
As has been previously said, a great article highlighting our sport – your sport – and it’s administrative flaws (which you are also quick to point out) – which is probably aimed at getting some people to react positively in the corridors of power … and you do nothing but bag it. Great work from the narrow minded, short sighted fool you are making yourself out to be. Vikings must be proud to have you in their promtional ranks.
i agree with bigs, Futsal is lucky to have Les…we should kiss his feet after he has walked through the mud……… embrace him and his good comments….be proud and lets put our best foot forward and lets help this sport grow the way it should…..and for all you negative people out there.. ….. get a life.
lets face it too, the majority of players like both sports , indoor and outdoor and they play it…if the games were concurrent then the choice would be to either do one or the other…this way , we can enjoy it all year round……some poeple are absolute fools….
Forgetting all the emotional slagging , i am a little bit lost on this one. Is everybody agreeing with Les that that futsal comps should ‘ cease’ when outdoor soccer season in on ?
never said it was a bad article just a football mentality….. “Futsal should cease during football season….” yep that makes sense
We see these 2 sports clash, for which based on fundamentals are the same.
This may not seem like a great thing to those power clubs in NSW State League, however I would like to see it as the way of the Future:
The year is divided equally into 2, neither sport takes precedence on the other. Players only play for the 1 club, At the conclusion of Football, Futsal Starts, then when Futsal Concludes, Football starts. A Continued roll over from game to game, where players need not to chose from either game or club.
This would make it great all year round where there is no decision from the players on which club takes precedence.
But with Victoria’s new summer league, when does the football season end?
And there are a lot of players who play futsal but do not play football and vice versa. Why should they be told they can’t play because others are playing football or futsal at this time of year?
These are two different sports!!!! Why is that so hard for people to actually take in? So, they attract a common group of players for obvious reasons, however it is up to the player to make his/her choice if that is required. This should not be dictated to them. The only reason to run them on opposite seasons would be due to a lack of players. I am not sure we have come to the stage where there are not enough players to adequately sustain both sports. No, Football Australia should not be regarding futsal as an off season trainer for football players. If there are enough players to sustain it as a seperate sport all year round, which of course there definately is, then who the hell has the right to tell us not to play it ?
Is it FFA’s fear that some players are stretching themselves too thin trying to be the best at both sports? Maybe, but again it is their choice. If players are willing to risk fatigue or injury whilst playing both sports, then they understand that they risk being left out or left behind when it comes to squads. AGAIN, it is there choice to make. and coaches will soon weed out the players they don’t think will fit their expectations or who do not have the level of commitment they desire in their squad. At the end of the day it is not up to a football body to dictate when another sport should or should not be played, even if they are the FIFA approved body.
Respect Futsal for the sport it is, not as a poor cousin to football.
And as many have pointed out, it is near impossible to find anything about Futsal on the FFA website. If the FFA are so keen on promoting futsal, then they really should put their money where their mouths are. Why push out organisations that are working laboriously to promote futsal in it’s own right? I for one cannot see the agenda clearly but I am sure it won’t be long until it is made abundantly clear to me.
And yes the kids all went to FFA National Schools titles in Sydney this week, which I believe was of very high standard but I can find no results or notes on any FFA or affiliates websites in regards to it. Plenty about the outdoor youth championships though. A bit of equality here FFA please.
*If you want to be the ones holding the futsal reigns, then you have to be responsible for the direction you steer or the sport might just run into a wall*