Courtesy: The FA.com

Lessons learned in Turkey

By Graeme Dell

Thursday, 27 September 2007

Hi everyone, the column arrives a little later than normal this week, as I’ve only just got back from Turkey this morning which was a sobering yet interesting experience.

Due to a variety of issues with player availability, I ended up with a squad containing no more than four previously capped players. Whilst that has to be an issue when you’re playing two teams in the top 30 in the world and one rapidly improving nation, the players need games like these to accelerate their learning until we get the national league set up here.

First up on Monday we played Azerbaijan, fresh from their shock defeat of Holland the night before although I was unable to watch that game as we didn’t arrive in Izmir until late on Sunday evening. Nonetheless, at our early stages of development we have to concentrate more on what we can do well than on the tactics of the other team. It was a baptism of fire for our lads, eventually conceding eleven goals with none in reply.

Tuesday was a similar story against Holland, this time conceding 12 goals without any in reply, although we did create a number of good chances. However, this game is so cruel if you aren’t clinical with those opportunities. Holland had just scraped a 3-3 draw with our hosts Turkey on Monday evening and for so-called newcomers, their players don’t reflect their infancy on the international stage.

Last night’s game against Turkey was an unbelievable turnaround and yet again Futsal surprised me. I’ve seen it before with some of these lads when we played Ipswich earlier in the year as part of their development. We went about the game with a sense of purpose and remembering that Turkey had pushed Holland and given Azerbaijan a rough ride earlier in the week, I was somewhat dumbfounded to see us two goals up in the space of 11 minutes.

However, mental strength and composure is also key to Futsal and despite some courageous play, we were unable to hold on to that lead at the break as Turkey’s pressure paid with three goals in quick succession.

The second half was a similar story. We had a lot of the ball but capitulated in front of goal and eventually fatigue took its toll. Turkey scored two tremendous goals which most teams would have struggled to defend but our own pressure resulted in three 10-metre penalties in our favour at 4-2, one of which was missed and two were saved. A final flurry by Turkey saw us end up on the end of a 5-2 defeat.

Overall though, I was pleased for the group as they had come to learn and that’s what they did but the challenge now is to keep moving them forward and it’s hard to put any shine on conceding 23 goals in two games.

Next up in October will be Andorra at the English Institute of Sport at Bath and they will be a tough challenge and we now know who our World Cup qualifying opponents will be next February after last Tuesday’s draw in Nyon. We will travel to Budapest to play Hungary, Poland and Macedonia in our first FIFA World Cup experience.

Some quite astounding news from Madrid since I last wrote is that Javier Lozano, Head Coach of the Spanish National Team has left the game to become part of the management team at Real Madrid. Transference from Futsal to football at the highest club level.

He will have been well known to Real and already had a good relationship with them as his previous job at Las Rozas, the Spanish Federations National Football and Futsal centre, doubles as Real’s training base. It’s an amazing appointment which simply enforces the perception of Futsal on the continent as a contributor to football.

Lozano, who was the brains behind Spain's dominance of international Futsal, becomes director of Real Madrid’s professional football department. He previously gained football experience as part of José Antonio Camacho's coaching team at the 2002 FIFA World Cup which suggests to me that the continentals see the link.

Well done to Hope Powell and the women on their achievements in China. They have evolved into a very good young team with a great future ahead of them as a unit in women’s football. I spent time alongside the women’s game in Bangkok this summer and it enforced to me that women’s football is a game in its own right and should be viewed as such without comparisons to the men’s game – that’s maybe the factor which has limited its spectator uptake here at home.

Our senior women looked and played like real athletes and have matured even more since their Euro campaign two years ago. I know their exercise scientist Dawn Scott is one of the unsung heroes in that entire staff group and should take much credit for guiding the conditioning of the girls, thus giving Hope the tools to make them a team to be reckoned with.

On a final note, I’ve been watching some of the Rugby World Cup over the past two weeks and I’m always amazed at the relationships and acceptance of the referee’s decisions by the players, something football has a lot to learn from. Maybe the microphones on the refs are the answer so that you can hear everything that’s said. There is parity there with Futsal too. I was only thinking this week that I’ve yet to witness any confrontations between players and officials in Futsal. The game moves on at such a pace and remonstrating with the referee simply results in compromising your teammates and consequently it doesn’t happen – a breath of fresh air!

Enjoy your games this week and catch you in another couple.

Graeme



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