Courtesy: Kuensel On line

Introducing Futebol de Sala

By Bishal Rai

12 April 2005 - The soccer king Pele grew up playing it. Today’s soccer stars like Ronaldo, Denilson and Roberto Carlos, to name a few, also developed some of their skills from it.

Futsal, a mini-version of football, which is played with five players a team on a ground roughly the size of a basketball court, is the latest sport being kicked in Thimphu.
For the past one month the Bhutanese national football squad have been picking up the basics of the sport at the sports complex basketball court in Thimphu under the guidance of two Thai coaches.

It is also preparation for the Asian Futsal Championship in Vietnam with 23 other Asian countries in which Bhutan will be participating for the first time. The championship will begin from May 22.

Main defender Krishna Subba of the national squad says it is a game of speed and agility.” It demands speed of thought and quick reflexes.

The player is constantly in touch with the ball and owing to the reduced play space one has to decide quickly,” he said. In normal football, sometimes a player would touch the ball barely three times in an entire 90 minute game.

It requires 100 percent fitness and stamina says Pasang Tshering. “We have to get used to the small ball that does not bounce and try and shoot it through the goal post that is about the quarter size of the normal goal post.”

The team comprises of two defenders and two strikers and a goal keeper. But the defenders and strikers do not follow a fixed pattern of defending and attacking. As the defender goes in for an attack, the striker takes his place as defense, explained Dinesh Chhetri who is being groomed as a local futsal coach.

The rules vary slightly from the normal football like a kick-in instead of a throw-in, players can be changed any number of times and there is no off-side. And a game last 40 minutes, 20 minutes in each half.

Futsal originated in the streets of South American countries of Uruguay and Brazil in the 1930s. It derived its name from the Spanish words for soccer, futbol, and indoor, sala. Futsal is an abbreviation of Futebol de Sala adopted by the FIFA after it took over as the governing body of the sport in 1989. The same year, the first FIFA Futsal World Championships was held in Netherlands. Thereafter, the sport had followed the calendar of normal football of once every four years under FIFA.

Bhutan was among the 11 Asian countries under AFC, yet to formally introduce this sport, coined as the first kick to normal football.

“With the first participation at the Asian Futsal Championships next month, we are officially launching the sport in the country,” said the national football coach Khare Basnet.

As a member of FIFA and AFC, it was mandatory to promote futsal, as much as womens’ football.

“We will introduce it in schools and for the time being basketball courts and volleyball courts will amply serve the purpose.”

Mr. Somjit of Thai Futsal Association, who is on a friendly exchange programme, with colleague Mr. Song Pong, to coach the Bhutanese squad, told Kuensel that the Bhutanese standard matched that of Kuwait and Lebanon.

The 12-member team will also spend a week in Bangkok, Thailand, to further hone their skills before the tournament.




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