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Women put their best foot forward in futsal

By SABRY TAHIR

PERSPIRING, they showed slick footwork as they glided and weaved around the turf.

It was Ladies Night at Sports Planet in Ampang, but the ladies did not come this Monday night to party. They came to battle it out in a futsal tournament.

Sports Planet assistant manager Abdul Mutalib said the trend was picking up as many women found the game a fun way to exercise and socialise. Women's involvement in futsal now is a far cry from when the sport was first introduced in 2002.

Central to the attraction is the indoor nature of futsal. Many women, he said, liked to play football but did not want to be seen playing it on normal football fields.

Mutalib said the women need not use so much energy when playing on the relatively smaller futsal pitch.

“They also don’t have to play under the sun and worry about getting darker,” he said.

He said it was easier to find futsal arenas now than netball or hockey pitches in big cities like Kuala Lumpur, and it was convenient to play it after office hours for working people.

“It’s a game to be enjoyed with friends, officemates or family members,” he said, adding that the patrons were in the 18-to-35 age bracket.

Paluan Sejati Sdn Bhd project executive Anies Maizura Ibrahim said it was almost impossible to play netball after leaving school.

“You can neither find the people to play with nor the pitch to play on,” she said, adding that she solved the problem after switching to futsal.

Anies discovered futsal in 2005 and, like many of her friends, took up the sports just for fun until she was selected as a goalkeeper for the Malaysian women futsal team.

The team recently competed in the second Asian Indoor Games in Macau, and it was the first time Malaysia participated in an international women futsal tournament, she said.

Anies said her stint with the national team called for her to juggle her job and other chores.

“It feels good to play futsal after you get stressed out with work,” she said.

Anies is currently on an intensive training to compete in the upcoming SEA Games.

J. Calli (M) Sdn Bhd marketing executive Masrurah Abdullah, meanwhile, said she was a regular at the Ladies Night's tournament organised by Sports Planet in Ampang.

Describing futsal as a healthy activity, she said she hated to vegetate at home, as too much of it would make her feel lethargic.

A former Selangor state women futsal player, she was introduced to futsal in 2003 while studying at Universiti Teknologi Mara.

“I meet more friends via futsal than any other single activity I have been involved with so far,” she said. Masrurah relies mainly only on futsal for fitness and normally jogs before a big tournament to increase her fitness level.

While the female players come and go, Masrurah said she was proud to have been one of the ardent female futsallers around and hoped to be able to continue playing the game even after raising a family. As she put it, “if it is good for me, it is good for anyone.”




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