Courtesy: The FA.com

Five alive for Dell

By Graeme Dell

Tuesday, 16 January 2007

Today we begin the third of our regular columns for 2007. Graeme Dell, Head Coach of the England Futsal team, introduces himself and the game of Futsal...

Hello everyone,

For those of you who don’t know, or have not yet been fully introduced to the game of Futsal, I’m the Head Coach of the England Futsal team. Futsal is the UEFA and FIFA official version of five-a-side football and is very different to the game traditionally played at soccer centres up and down the country. Indeed, due to the technical challenges the game offers, it’s also very different from the eleven-a-side game, too. Around the world, Futsal has been played for many years and there is a whole host of nations who run professional Futsal Leagues, but we are very new to the game and have some 30 years to catch up on.

I’ve been coaching the England team since the start of the programme, which is only three years ago, but football has always been a part of my life. My father was heavily involved in the game and last year he received an award from The FA for 50 years service to football, which made me very proud. He was a referee, then the secretary of the Athenian League for over 20 years and is now a life-member of the London FA, so you can imagine plenty of lively debate on the game between us!

We used to always go to games, and I played a bit too. I was at Watford for about three years as a schoolboy but an injury forced me to finish with them so I moved into the non-league game with the likes of Wycombe, Slough and Maidenhead. I then got into coaching and, at 21, I was the youngest person to be awarded The FA's full coaching licence, what is now the UEFA ‘A’ Licence. I went back to Wycombe as Jim Kelman’s first team coach. Jim was the predecessor to Martin O’Neill and the season before he left we finished fourth in the Conference, which was some achievement.

I left Wycombe just after Jim and was only out of the game for a few weeks before Don Howe offered me a job at QPR as Director of their Centre of Excellence and as their first team scout, which was a massive privilege and great career move. After that I spent a number of years working for The FA in the Centres of Excellence programme with Les Reed and the late Ted Powell, so I've had some great tutors along the way.

In 1995 I was given the assistant coach’s role for the Great Britain team at the World Student Games, and again in 1997. Two years later I took over as head coach and I’m still doing that now.

However, my main focus is with The FA and the England Futsal team. I first came across Futsal working with the Universities. I remember watching one of my first ever matches and I was total hooked. I just thought what an amazing game it is and what a great tool for developing players.

At the end of 2003 I was asked to take a representative team to Kuala Lumpur to compete in the KL World 5s, and early in 2004 we entered a team in the European Championships and England played its first official game of Futsal, against Albania, in January 2004.

As a coach, the game is really testing. So much is going on, you have to deal with tactics, player changes, the blend of the four outfield players and physiological issues; it keeps you on your toes, keeps you thinking. It really prepares you for eleven-a-side football and it’s also great for conditioning players, so it develops football skills and tactical awareness as well as fitness.

One of my main jobs is to go out and watch as many games as I can, check out players who are already in the system, or look at players who have been recommended to me. At the weekend I was at Moor Green as it’s only down the road from Lilleshall where we had the squad in to prepare for this week’s trip to Romania for the European Championship pre-Qualification group.

On Saturday we did a lot of goalkeeper specific work as they often get forgotten about if you're not careful, but they are a vital part of this game, then on Sunday the whole group was in working on set-plays.

Sadly, over the weekend, we got news that meant we have lost two players from our original squad. Steve Torpey has had to pull out of the trip to Romania due to work commitments -that’s another issue with this group as you have to deal with clubs and employers - and Mickey Lyons went down with flu.

Steve’s manager at Halifax Town, Chris Wilder, has been brilliant regarding his involvement with us as he clearly sees the benefits of the game to the player and the club. I have to thank Chris and the other managers who have all co-operated with me on this.

The job is so much about building bridges and also helping clubs to develop their players.

I am almost packed to head off to Romania later today and it will be a difficult trip, but we are confident we can build on the performances against France a maybe get our first win in one of these three matches.

Along with the hosts, we'll play Latvia and Bulgaria, but it's the Romanians who will be the toughest prospect as they are full-time professional Futsal players, not eleven-a-side players playing Futsal. If we want to compete with those nations, the dream has to be that, within four or five years, we have a professional league, or at least semi-professional, in England. We are dedicated to getting one up and running.

Although we have a long way to go to compete with the best teams, we have come a long way already and I’m confident that within the next few years Futsal will be even more popular on these shores with more players, leagues and fans cropping up everywhere.

I am sure TheFA.com will be keeping you up to date with how we're getting on but I’ll tell you all about it next time.

Graeme Dell

Stay logged on this week as we bring you all the latest news from Romania.

If you'd like to ask Graeme a question ahead of his next column in a fortnight, email us at editor@TheFA.com



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