Courtesy: The FA.com

England's blind ambition

By Alex Stone

Tuesday, 21 November 2006

England's Blind football team arrived in Argentina at the weekend to fine-tune their preparations ahead of the World Championship which kicks off in Buenos Aires tomorrow.

The 4th IBSA World Five-a-side Football Championship takes place between Wednesday 22 November and Friday 1 December and features Argentina, Brazil, Paraquay, England, France, Spain, Japan, South Korea and Senegal.

England qualified for the tournament after finishing third in the European Championship in Spain last December and received a boost this morning from MP and Sun newspaper columnist David Blunkett, who has been blind since birth.

He said: "I wish the lads the best of luck. I have heard great things about their prospects and used to play five-a-side myself at university, and loved it.

"I hope they have a good first aid team. It's a physical game and I still have the scars to prove it! I'm sure they are a lot better than I ever was."

Argentina, Brazil, Spain and France will be the favourites and could be classified as 'professional' as they have large domestic leagues financed either via sponsors or national lotteries, so the national squads are together virtually every week of the year.

The England team in comparison meet up on average every month at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford and are the only team in the world to be funded by their national Governing body; The FA.

Although there isn't a domestic league structure as yet in England, more and more regional competitions are beginning to take place around the country after The FA launched its inaugural three year development plan for Disability Football in 2004.

John Ball, Assistant Coach told TheFA.com: "Logically you would not expect us to finish higher than fifth if you look at the world rankings but our aim is to go for 'gold'. If we have all our players healthy and fit and playing to their potential, Tony [Larkin] and myself are sure we can do well."

Larkin is the Head Coach who has been involved with the England set-up for over eight years and was himself a former professional player at Wrexham, Shrewsbury Town, Carlisle United and Hereford United, after starting his career as an apprentice at Everton.

His challenge now is to help bring through a new generation of young, blind footballers who can compete in future tournaments as well as potentially the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008, and London in 2012. Next July the Blind World Games will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with the European Championship following in September in Greece.

Qualification for the World Games hinges on England finishing second amongst the European countries in Argentina, which would then give the team a tilt at qualifying for Beijing in 2008.

The draw for the tournament will be made tomorrow night, and TheFA.com will keep you up to date with the team's progress. Below you can also find a video which explains the rules of the game.

Did you know?

- The FA fund seven national disability squads which compete in European and Blind championships. Blind, Partially Sighted, Amputees, Learning Disability, Cerebral Palsy and a men's and women's Deaf Futsal team.

- The women's deaf futsal team finished runners-up in their European championship in Moscow last week.

- This summer, a delegation from the England Blind squad went to Germany during the World Cup to put on the first ever Blind Football workshop. As a result, yesterday the German FA confirmed they are committed to developing a 2 year funding plan with a German charity, to then enter a national team in future competitions.

- In mid-December, The FA will host a four-team international competition for the Partially Sighted at the Velodrome in Manchester. More details will follow on TheFA.com over the next fortnight.



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