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Futsal
Futsal really is growing quickly, not least because of media attention which became all the more focussed after England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. Why are we not as good as Spain, Italy, Brazil? Futsal, the answer came back; structure, came another answer.
Many top players have accredited playing Futsal at a young age with the development of dribbling and close control skills. The game is played like five-a side, on a pitch a minimum of 25 metres long (up to a maximum 42m), 15 metres wide (up to 25m); goals are 3m wide and 2m high; three referees are used, each half lasts 20 minutes and the ball is different, a size 4 with limited bounce. Players cannot bounce the ball off the walls, as they can in traditional five-a-side, so the emphasis is on keeping the ball, short passing, dribbling and balance.
The emphasis in the UK has long been on putting very young players into 11-a-side games, so they can learn the rules and discipline involved with their chosen position, and build stamina. What Futsal-friendly countries encourage is that young players enjoy Futsal, and enter into 11-a-side games much, much later in their development, so the emphasis for them as players is on skill and control. Stamina can be taught later, and rules are relatively simple to learn; ingraining basic skills and more complex control into a player takes longer; allowing youngsters time to develop and become confident with the ball at their feet results in an entirely different breed of footballer.
From March 2nd, the Football Association are starting their own National Futsal League, which will have eight teams in each league who will play each other twice. The team that wins the tournament will get the UEFA qualifying spot for the UEFA Futsal Cup.
With the sport growing, and with FA and government money behind it, now is a good time to get gear in; and if there isn't a league near you, why not find out about setting one up? A shop could earn itself free (or at least inexpensive) publicity by naming a team after itself; the name is out there, and players will hear it every league night; your shop name can become associated directly with futsal in your area.
Kevin Bryant is one of the founders of the UK's largest Futsal league, in Grimsby. He's a carpet fitter by profession, but he's also been one of the most influential figures in Futsal's introduction to the UK. The Grimsby Futsal league has grown from four teams to 50, in just eight years; it also led to the formation of the North Futsal Premier League, and South Futsal Premier League.
SGB: There's been a lot of talk in the UK newspapers about futsal because it teaches confidence and technique. How did you get involved in this?
Kevin Bryant: In this country, it started off not exactly with me but I was certainly one of the most influential people because I had done the UEFA coaching courses, and I could see it had no connection whatsoever with technique and kids playing. I thought, if you teach every coach to play the same way and you force them to pass their exams by coaching the same way, you're going to end up with robots - and if you've got the robots programmed wrong it goes right through the game. I like to think of ideas and I'm looking forward, even though I'm 61. I'm not stuck in my ways, I'm looking for new ideas all the time, new thinking and I decided to find out what the Brazilians were doing. I met up with loads of Brazilian coaches coming over here and everybody was helpful, students on university courses, and they all said the same: "You don't play futsal? how do you expect to play football, you don't play futsal?"
I've got young lads that are brilliant futsal players and now, people are ringing me up and asking have you got any good futsal players for our 11-a-side team? With all the UEFA coaching, we wouldn't have produced those players because with futsal, everything has to be done in a small space because the players are playing all the time, four a side [five with a goalkeeper]. Everything you want to coach somebody is embodied in futsal; closing space, creating space, shooting, dribbling.
SGB: Were there problems in setting the league up?
KB: The Football Association [FA] said we couldn't play futsal, they wouldn't sanction the futsal league, so I got in touch with FIFA and pointed out that it was being played all round the world. FIFA said of course you're allowed to play, and told the FA.
John Warnock, brother of Neil [former Sheffield United manager, currently with Crystal Palace], was Academy director at Sheffield United, and had seen futsal on the continent and he'd got an inkling that he wanted to get the FA to go that way; once I'd got started and the internet linked us together, we discovered a group in Tranmere that were getting on cheap flights and going and playing in tournaments on the continent, so we got a tournament together in Sheffield. FIFA came, the FA came, and it was decided that they would have a futsal development committee and I think the first year's budget was about £1,000, which covered coffee and transport for the FA to the meetings. Dermot Collins is the key man there, he's the manager for small sided football and luckily he saw the advantage of futsal almost immediately.
For too long we've seen on television, in World Cups, and they've said that the Brazilians can't defend, yet they go on and win the darn thing. Why can't they defend? They can; they're good defenders, because in futsal there's no sliding tackles or barging, these players are educated not to be flying in on their backsides. You think of every England defender, he spends as much time on his backside as he does on his feet. It looks as good from the stands, but it takes a player out of the game.
SGB: Is there a future for futsal in schools and in the curriculum?
KB: I think they've [the FA] got quite a budget to go to into schools. Of course, the other thing about schools is, because of the fair play involved in the game and there's no barging and no sliding, because accumulated fouls equals a penalty from a slightly longer distance, because of the skill involved, teachers pick up more quickly than anybody else on the benefits of the game. Also, they're not locked in this club culture in England where you've got the players, parents, everybody shouting on the touchline. This might be a way to break that a little bit. But to produce the players that Brazil are producing, we've got to start playing futsal at age nine, ten.
SGB: I think this sport could be good for my readers, independent sports retailers in the UK. All the major manufacturers make futsal gear, after all - but many of them don't sell it in the UK.
KB: If you go to Italy you've got 70,000 men registered to play futsal. That's where that bloody defence comes from. So, every major company sells shiploads of this gear, they just don't sell shiploads in England. When we started out, we were importing balls to play with, just ten years ago. If somebody went on holiday, we were asking them to bring us one back.
