ENGLAND NEEDS TO EMBRACE FUTSAL

This week has seen a bit of a stir in the local football scene, with a seemingly trivial argument about the rules of 5-a-side football. Whilst trivial it may be, the argument has much wider repercussions for our national game.

 

 

During my school days, 5-a-side football meant one thing – mayhem as the PE teacher threw the ball into the court and it was five minutes of complete non-stop action regardless of where the ball went. It was fantastic.         
This form of indoor football was a real treat at school, (in fact Toll Bar don’t allow indoor football in their sportshall now, but I may be wrong) and the lessons were ace. That type of indoor games carried on through my university days, but started to have less impact as I progressed through my coaching badges. Whilst the mayhem was a plus factor in the old days, I struggled to see how some of the rules were linked to association football. In a game on a Sunday morning no one could play ‘off the wall’ to beat me, or if I saw the ball wide whilst in goal the attacker did not get another shot on goal. How does having the ball in the air constitute a breach in the rules? I thought nothing more of this until I met Kevin Bryant… I was introduced to Kevin around three years ago, and I was mesmerised by a version of 5-a-side that seemed to make more sense – Futsal. Futsal is played between two teams of five players, plus in addition each team may have 7 substitutes. Unlike the typical 5-a-side versions of indoor football, the court is delimited by lines, and not walls or boards that players can use to rebound the ball. Futsal is played with a smaller ball with less bounce than a football. The emphasis is on improvisation, creativity and technique. In the teaching profession I’m always faced with players who struggle for ball control, individual skills, flair and confidence on the ball. The Futsal ball helps with all of these, and really helps the girls who can struggle normally. After receiving a free set up pack from The FA, the school embraced Futsal with open arms. We used the netball markings in the sportshall with our normal rectangle goals. (Futsal goals are more square, like hockey goals.) After only playing for a few months with Kevin’s help, we were secured places at the National Futsal Finals in Sheffield. To be honest, we were given a free lesson. For the first time, I saw school / club teams playing a slow, methodical tactical way of indoor football which made us look like amateurs. Whilst we still had the players to give a good account of ourselves, I knew that this game could be the remedy to the blood-and-guts attitude of English football. Over the next two years myself and Kevin worked hard to get TLS to be a shining example of how a school can embrace Futsal. We won two National Futsal titles, and were runners up in three age groups. I’m the first to admit that the competition is not as fierce in terms of numbers at these events, but a national title is a national title! Unfortunatly the powers that be still haven’t got Futsal to the place where it should be in 2008. The English Schools Football Association still play ‘off the boards’ rules for their U12 tournament, as is the case for the U15 Playstation Cup and the Oasis Wintringham tournaments. In North East Lincs TLS is the only secondary school that embraces Futsal, though the primary schools are improving. So why do we need to play Futsal? It is clear to see that our national game is at an all time low. In the vast majority of games we are out played, out thought and out skilled. It is an embarrassing situation when our so called stars have less technical ability than teams such as Poland, Russia and even Serbia. And what does Serbia have that we don’t – a place in the UEFA Futsal Championships that we didn’t even qualify for. As well as the national academy in Burton, shifting away from ‘mayhem’ 5-a-side leagues to Futsal leagues is something that the FA needs to introduce now. There is some money available for schools and clubs but it is insignificant to the money needed to make whole-scale changes. The ESFA, The FA and the Minister for Sport need to address this situation now. So what would I do? Here is my three point plan. 

  1. All new Sportshalls / Astroturf pitches must have full Futsal markings and goals. The football foundation can help with the costs of these.
  2. All schools indoor football to be Futsal rules. The FA and ESFA need to be far more explicit than they are at present.
  3. A greater role of the SSCO and FDO to really push Futsal in schools.

 I really feel that with a consorted effort, Futsal (along with Burton) could make a big difference to the way the national team progresses in the next 20 years. Without it, we are a million miles away from emulating the feat of 1966.  

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