News Article

Why play futsal?

As we enter our first winter training sessions as the Michigan Fire Juniors, I wanted to take a minute to explain why the Soccer Leadership Team has chosen futsal as the vehicle for developing youth players in the winter.

The game finds its origin in Uruguay and the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil in the early 1930’s. The game was played on a small hard court, with a low bounce ball, with each team consisting of 4 field players and a goalkeeper. Futsal began as a version of soccer played in the YMCA’s of Uruguay, but it quickly became popular throughout South America. It is now considered one of the most effective tools for young soccer players to develop technical skills and futsal has become the standard for indoor soccer worldwide. 

The benefits of futsal as a developmental tool are widely known. The game has been credited with creating some of the greatest players of our time including Messi, Robinho, Neymar, Xavi, Iniesta, Ronaldinho just to name a few. Most would also concede that futsal has played a critical role in the flair and creativity that so many of the world’s best players display on the ball. 

There are many reasons futsal is such a great developmental tool. The first of which is the game is fun to play.  Another reason is that futsal is much safer to play than indoor (boarded) soccer, or the 11 aside game. The rules of the game prohibit physical play. It is really soccer in the purist form. In addition to these reasons, according to a recent FIFA study, in a 40 minute futsal match each player will have roughly 80-90 touches, and in a 90 minute 11 v11 match a player will have roughly 30-40 touches per game.

The additional touches play a critical role in the player’s ability to develop improved skills. Futsal also provides its players with numerous goal scoring chances which will allow all the players on the court to practice finishing versus a live goalkeeper in a game setting. Futsal is a game that has all of the elements of the 11 aside game, close control and good technique are required, and because the game is on a small court, players must play quickly to survive, and players are under pressure constantly so they must react and think the game at a much faster pace.

We are very excited to see this change in programming pay dividends for our club. The format for winter training will be a Coerver warm up and then as much futsal as we can squeeze into the time slot allotted. There will be little coaching and the coaches have been instructed to let “the game be the teacher.” If your team is interested in taking part in a league or being involved in any of the futsal activities that are available locally please have your team manager or coach contact me and I will be happy to provide that information for them.   

Jeff Merritt