COULD FUTSAL BE THE KEY TO UNLOCKING TALENT IN ENGLAND’S NEXT GENERATION. THE GUARDIAN

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Fábregas plays futsal with a children’s team during a promotional event
in Jakarta this week. Photograph: Beawiharta/Reuters

The FA is finally embracing futsal, with the game growing on these shores and clubs implementing it into their academies

The passing was crisp and incisive, the movement restlessly
purposeful; the relentless pace of the game and ambitious dribbling on
show were yielding goalscoring opportunities continuously. It was, by
common consent, a feast of technical excellence, gladdening the heart of
anyone keen to witness controlled creativity on a pitch.

This was last weekend – but the venue was not the Olympic Stadium in
Kiev, where Andrés Iniesta and the tiki-taka brigade were pulversing
Andrea Pirlo’s Italy in the Euro 2012 final. It was 1,600 miles away in
the Birmingham Futsal Arena, where a bunch of 10-year-olds from East
Hull Saints were up against Whiteknights Toffees from Reading in the
national youth futsal finals.

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