Courtesy: The FA.com

Return of the King

By Graeme Dell

Tuesday, 13 February 2007

With Spain, currently top dogs in the Futsal world taking on England in the eleven-a-side arena and France legend Zinedine Zidane handing his nation a Futsal boost, England Futsal Coach Graeme Dell has had a lot of food for thought as he explains in his latest column...

Hello again.

Last week was an odd international week where we didn't do anything with the Futsal squad, but because of that it meant I spent most of the time on the road watching our other teams in action.

All of the National Coaches have a great relationship and we all support each other and the teams wherever possible, so this week was my turn.

It was an opportunity for me to look at our young players, but more so at their opponents to see how Futsal has fitted into their development. There's always positives and negatives to pick up and that can only come from watching and listening, which is a key element of my role. Like any coach should be, I'm really open to new ideas, not only from football but from other sports, but you have to do the groundwork.

It was great to see that Brian Eastick's U19 group had a fantastic win against Poland last Tuesday. The Under-21s were also in action that night and supporting Stuart Pearce's first game was important.

I am a fan of Nugent and Reo-Coker, whilst Leroy Lita was a breath of fresh air when he came on and his pace and urgency made a difference, which is so essential in today's game. He does it for Reading regularly, but repeating club performances isn't as easy in a National Team as you might think.

At the game I also had the chance to catch up with one of the country's top swimming coaches, Ben Titley, as well as 200m freestyle Commonwealth Gold medallist Ross Davenport. Interaction with other sports is important in my own personal development and there is so much you can learn from brief conversations over a coffee. Coming from indoor sports, the freezing temperatures reassured all of us that we've got the better deal this time of year!

As if Tuesday wasn't cold enough, at a bitterly cold Old Trafford on Wednesday it really was one for the bobble-hat and glove brigade . However, I had my 'Futsal hat' on and during the game watched the Spanish players as most, if not all of them have grown up with Futsal a major part of their junior development. From that point of view we can learn a lot from them and how that transfers to football is what really interests me.

Their ability to keep the ball with comfort yet move it with pace, retain close possession and pass accurately over short and long distances is something every coach should be striving to develop in all of our young players. The spatial awareness and support play of Spain generally resulted in an attacking opening as did the pressure their strikers imposed on the ball - they dispossessed us several times when coming out from the back.

Maybe that's something to do with Spain being the current World and European Futsal champions?

But it was Futsal in France which was in the headlines last week. We played them just before Christmas and it was interesting to see that Zinedine Zidane will resurrect his playing career by appearing in a French Futsal shirt in Paris at the end of March.

The mini-tournament has been organised to promote the game and its emergence in France, where the Federation now requires all young teams up to under-14, irrespective of their level, to play at least one hour of Futsal a week as part of their development programme.

After a week of international football I watched a series of handball games in London at the weekend and in particular the interactions and techniques of their goalkeepers. Many European Futsal teams employ handball goalkeepers and I want to look into it further to get some technical tips that we can transfer to Futsal.

We have so many areas to consider and plan for as the Futsal team is very different to the other England teams. We have varied procedures for dealing with the clubs, players and, in some cases, their employers, which requires careful communication. That's taken up a lot of phone and email time over the past two weeks and it will no doubt continue over the next two weeks.

So that's it from me for now. Until next time, enjoy your game

Graeme Dell



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