Courtesy: The FA.com


Pro clubs embrace Futsal

by Simon Walker

Tuesday, 01 February, 2011

20 club academies entered Festival in Birmingham.

Over the weekend, the youth academies of 20 leading professional football clubs headed to Birmingham, not to play outdoors in the cold, but to the warmer indoor surroundings offered by the largest indoor Futsal facility in the UK.

The Premier League and the Football League combined to run a Youth Futsal Festival for professional club academies at the @Futsal Arena in Birmingham.

The U11 boys academy teams were watched by Pete Sturgess, the England Futsal Head Coach, as they went head-to-head in this exciting Futsal festival. For many of the clubs, it was their first opportunity of playing Futsal and they clearly enjoyed it. Clubs of the magnitude of Chelsea, Manchester City, Bolton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur embraced the event, which was spiced up by the addition of Sporting Lisbon who flew in from Portugal to take part in the festival.

Futsal is recognised around the world, particularly in places like Spain, Portugal and Brazil, as being a game that can assist the technical development of young footballers.

Fabio Capello recently commented that: “In the schools in Spain they practice a lot technically. In the gym, they play Futsal all the time. It's a really important way to improve."

The likes of Iniesta, Xavi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Cesc Fabregas have all grown up playing Futsal, and so it is exciting to see young English talent at some of the leading Premier League academies starting to become familiar with the game, and hopefully in the future they too can benefit from the merits of Futsal.


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