Courtesy: The FA.com


Diary from Kuala Lumpur

By Alex Sykes in Kuala Lumpur

Friday, 01 February 2008

Whilst the England Futsal squad are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the KL World 5's Futsal competition, we will be hearing from several players throughout the week as they bring you their exclusive thoughts on all manner of things from training, games and the hectic schedule in place. Alex Sykes, England's top scorer in the tournament so far, is the latest to bring us up-to-date as he looks back on the first two games and what takes place inbetween matches.

After a very difficult opening game against Argentina, we woke up for breakfast surprisingly upbeat, with no real injury worries and ready for Indonesia later on in the day. With being so far away from home, it has been reassuring to be looked after by the staff at such a good hotel. The food so far has been top drawer and this does make things a lot easier when results are not necessarily going the right way.

Our morning continued with an intense video analysis session led by Delly, where we were looking at our deficiencies in the Argentina game. When you look at the world rankings, one may think that 12-1 was respectable, but as a group we pride ourselves upon trying to rectify silly mistakes in our game play. The video analysis we do on a daily basis really highlights our mistakes and hopefully helps us to look to put things right. As a group of lads we could see that we gifted them at least a couple of goals and for many parts of the game, we managed to restrict what is, a very talented, Argentinian side.

Next step was to try and get rid of any aches and pains from the previous day (especially important for an old timer like me!) and Dawn Scott has been instrumental in keeping the lads upbeat with another pool recovery session. Then on to the main event of the day – Indonesia. This game had been targeted by the lads and staff as what looked to be our best chance of a win. We had seen them narrowly miss out on a result against the hosts, losing 3-2 so we were confident of getting something out of the game.

We started brightly and were well within ourselves at 0-0, restricting the opponents to few chances and also working hard to create space for each other. With such a demanding physical game plan we have, you are always reliant upon your team mates to help create space and passing options and for much of the first half, we achieved this. Unfortunately though, we were undone, yet again by a couple of lapses in concentration and one very good finish. We conceded the third with 30 seconds to go so the second half was always going to be an uphill struggle.

Our second half started much better and we were first to score through the captain, Rich Follett (pictured above). Yet another great technical finish from the skipper who is also my regular travel partner. At this level though, teams are unrelenting, Indonesia demonstrated an excellent powerplay tactic due to an injury to their second choice ‘keeper and with their number one suspended for this match they had to be tactically astute, which they were and that led to them killing the game off with a 7-1 lead.

Fortunately for us we did create some more chances that could have bought us closer, but it was not to be. We were able to get one back right at the death where I was able to get on the end of a good move. Although it’s always nice to score, there was an overwhelming feeling of disappointment amongst the boys as we knew we could’ve done much, much better but retorting to a simple five-a-side mentality doesn’t work in this game.

The evening for five of us was then taken up with a coaching clinic at a local Futsal centre. Our resident FA Skills Coach, Marc Canham was responsible for recruiting four other expert coaches!

Unfortunately for me being a PE Teacher, I was amongst the four! After a very disappointing defeat, it’s always hard to cheer up, but the journey to our coaching venue supplied a lot of laughs. We were in the esteemed company of our local guide but unfortunately though, he got lost five or six times and a 10 minute journey suddenly turned into over an hour. The highlight being him trying to reverse 200 metres back down the main KL freeway with a mobile in his hand and not being able to see out of the back window!

The coaching gave us, as players, enormous satisfaction to put something back into the game and help some local players here in Kuala Lumpur. Once there, it was very similar to being back at school except it was a lot warmer than Gloucestershire is at nine o’clock in the evening!

Our next game against Australia will be tough. It’s now our first chance to play an international Futsal fixture against an English speaking nation which will make a strange change. With only a few games left, we are adamant we will get a result along the way and hopefully give some cheer to all those back home looking at our results.

Alex Sykes




Courtesy: The FA.com


Diary from Kuala Lumpur

By Richard Follett in Kuala Lumpur

Monday, 04 February 2008

Whilst the England Futsal squad are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the KL World 5's Futsal competition, we will be hearing from several players throughout the week as they bring you their exclusive thoughts on all manner of things from training, games and the hectic schedule in place. Skipper Richard Follett takes his turn and explains all about the last few days in the camp.

Well, another day, another game! This time against the home nation Malaysia in front of an enthusiastic and expectant home crowd. We felt pretty positive after the last half against Australia, having drawn the second period and therefore we approached the Malaysia game with some optimism.

We had started the day with the familiar yet appropriate routine of a swimming pool recovery session to try and shift the soreness from our legs and a video analysis session. The analysis of the Australia game only heightened our disappointment at the sloppy six goals we conceded in the first 10 minutes and a pressing game plan was developed to try and get at the Malaysians, as we felt they would find keeping the ball and creating chances difficult under high pressure.

A 3pm kick off meant little recovery from the Aussie game. This has been a particularly challenging tournament in terms of fitness and our ability to maintain our intense ‘English’ pressing game but was what we needed to test ourselves ahead of Hungary. We are used to playing back-to-back games in our friendly internationals but to play five games in six days is some task.

However, it is of course the same schedule for both teams and as our understanding of Futsal is still developing, with this necessary experience comes tactical nous and greater ‘Futsal awareness.’

We need to learn to better reserve our energy by not making unnecessary runs and keep the ball much better than we currently do. Even though we have worked hard on that in training, we still can’t transfer that to game play.

And so to the game...we welcomed Leigh Holbrook back to a full strength squad for his third cap after he had to sit out the Aussie game with a thigh strain. It’s always a relief to get the game underway after the now familiar, lengthy formalities of waiting in the tunnel and belting out the national anthem, something which still gives a huge sense of pride, particularly for me captaining the side. I know all the players sing their hearts out so at least we win something on match day! I won us the toss – a second ‘win’ of the day – and we got the game underway.

After a strong positive start, Malaysia snuck in to open the scoring after 10 minutes. We replied almost immediately through Alex Sykes’ superb turn and shot from an acute angle which rifled past a stunned Malaysian keeper into the top corner. As the game moved on, we were unjustly on the wrong end of a refereeing decision when Luke Ballinger was heavily challenged from behind whilst trying to shield the ball and having committed men forward, the Malaysians countered and we found ourselves 2-1 down.

A part of travelling to other countries to play is having to deal with local referees but I have to say the standard of refereeing has been very good – but that made this bad decision stand out. A missed 10 metre penalty by Luke Ballinger and a Malaysian third before the break meant a 3-1 reverse at half time which probably didn’t reflect how much possession we had gained but did reflect our inability to keep the ball when we got it.

Half time left us in no doubt as to why we had gone behind and we were buoyed by focussing on our positive play from the first half as we started the second half brightly but once again were undone by individual errors and poor defensive play to concede a further three goals.

Marc Canham’s consolation made it 6-2 when he foxed two opponents with a drag back, raced towards the advancing keeper and curled it into the top corner. It was however, a case of too little too late. Looking at the nature of our individual goals highlights our inability to finish off the typical ‘Futsal goals’ that other more experienced teams make look so easy.
At least we are starting to create some ‘Futsal chances’ – but more work needs to be done on converting these chances under pressure!

Our objective for the week, given the high standard of teams at the tournament, was to win a game, so Saturday was a rest day geared towards winning our Bowl Final (9th / 10th play off) match against China on Sunday. Part of the learning experience was watching the Brazil v Australia semi final this evening. Talk about making it look easy! Brazil cruised to a 7-0 victory without reaching fourth gear. Fantastic to watch at first hand and inspiring for a final chance at victory, but that will be hard against a defensively well drilled Chinese team, but as always we will be suitably prepared and simply have to apply the tactics and eradicate the basic errors which have cost us all week.

Thanks for the continued support from home from family, friends and supporters.

Richard Follett






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