Courtesy: Football Fan Cast


Could 'Futsal' turn around the fortunes of English football?

By Adam Daley

4 Mar 2009

Football FanCast columnist Adam Daley wonders if Futsal can help turn around the fortunes of English football.

It's now 43 years since the mother of football won a major football tournament. Let's face it, even with Capello's Italian hope; there is something wrong with English international football. Opinions often vary from too much pressure being put on the players, the players not actually being good enough, there not being enough decent English players and sometimes that too much emphasis is put on physical power over skill. This is something that the FA have actually tried to confront in recent years, and in 2006 they commissioned the chairman of Rugby League, Richard Lewis to look at how England can better develop their youngsters.

The resulting report mentions (amongst other things) that:

There needs to be "a change in ethos in age groups 5-11 so that much more emphasis is given to skill development and acquisition rather than an emphasis on results in matches."
'Skills coaches' should be encouraged.

The FA, Premier League and Football League should initiate a promotional campaign to demonstrate why the winning of matches at a young age is not important and does not reflect best practice in countries that consistently produce top international senior players.

Clearly the implied problem with English football is youngsters are thrown into matches and expected to learn how to win before they are actually taught any basic skills. Recently I visited football youth development officer Pav Singh at the West Riding County FA and asked him about this. He said:

"I believe that every kid and every coach should be trying a variety of techniques. There's Futsal, there's the Brazilian skills. If kids are trying different skills, different methods, it's only going to benefit them as players."

So could games like Futsal help turn around English football? For those of you who haven't heard of Futsal (and to be honest I hadn't until recently), it's pretty much the FIFA official 5-a-side football game. It has a smaller ball and is strictly a no contact game, which means that the old English 'up and at em' approach won't work (which is probably why it hasn't taken off in this country). The emphasis is more on skilfully getting the ball past opponents. I interviewed English International Futsal player Adam Lowthorpe about whether Futsal could benefit football development and he said:

"It's the amount of involvement you have as a young player and the amount of touches you have on the ball, which makes you improve as you get older. I'd certainly say if we could incorporate Futsal more in some of the youth development programmes here you would get more technically proficient players."

Since Richard Lewis's report in 2006, Pav Singh informed me that English football development is starting to use Futsal (as well as other things such as Brazilian Soccer schools) in its youth development, and that there is an emerging shift towards skill emphasis over match competitiveness. It could well be that this shift is exactly what English football has needed, and so it will certainly be worth keeping an eye on future generations. Ironic perhaps that in order to bring football home we have to take something from abroad, but if it works there won't be many complaining.






Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com