Courtesy: The Electric New Paper


Flop at football? Play futsal

England's football team struggles because its players lack technical ability, says JAMIE YEO. She offers a solution.


February 12, 2008

AFTER a week at the KL World 5's, I believe I've figured out the solution to England's football problems.

The international 5-aside futsal tournament featured the world's top teams like Brazil and Argentina.

England just need players with real football skills, great technical ability and flair.

And the way to do all that is simple - start developing them with futsal first.

I don't profess to be an expert on this topic, but hear me out.

The 11-aside English game is fast, aggressive, physical and full of high-tempo defending.

But this encourages players to pump lots of high and long balls, looking for crosses and aiming for headers - successfully hiding the glaring fact that many English players don't have much technical ability on the ball.

Make no mistake, the English Premier League is the most exciting league in the world.

But I'm guessing if we were to subtract all the foreign players from the league, it would be no different from the Championship, where teams play the kind of football that's drab, direct and boring.

Case in point: Arsenal, despite often being criticised as the only Premiership team with no English players in the first 11, play the most beautiful and elegant football in the land.

I did some research on the web about futsal and here's another fact to augment my argument - I checked out the list of Fifa's World Player of the Year winners' list, and, yes, you guessed it - there was a glaring absence of English players.

A dipstick test found Brazilians (Kaka, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Romario), one Frenchman (Zinedine Zidane), a Portuguese (Luis Figo), two Italians (Fabio Cannavaro and Roberto Baggio), a Liberian (George Weah) and a Dutchman (Marco van Basten) on the revered list of the world's best players.

STREET FOOTBALL

It shows that the greatest players of the last century sharpened their skills playing street football on the Brazilian beaches, in the alleys of Dutch and Italian cities, and in Argentinian playgrounds. They all developed their silky smooth skills playing futsal, or some other version of it.

I saw plenty of this at the KL World 5's.

Futsal emphasises skill rather than brute strength, with lots of refined foot skills and cool one-touch passing, and the really good players dribbled as if the ball was glued to their feet.

In the Brazil v Argentina final, it was like watching five Cristiano Ronaldos taking on five Ronaldinhos, both of whom credit futsal for making them the players they are today.

Some of them were able to play the ball with every part of their foot.

And it seemed that every player had a bag of tricks, and could improvise to get themselves out of tight situations.

However, if the KL World 5's was a measure of a country's level of technical ability, then England would be at the bottom of the heap.

Their reputation as a footballing nation took a beating after losing all their games against the likes of Argentina (1-12), Indonesia (2-7), Australia (1-6) and the hosts Malaysia (2-6) in the group stages.

Their final game, the Bowl Championship match against China, was another 7-3 thrashing.

As you can probably tell by now, I'm not a fan of England - I love the flair, panache and finesse of the French, but that's a story for another day.

Indeed, while playing aggressive, physical, and fast in the 11-aside game compensates for their lack of skill, they were hopelessly caught out in the 5-aside indoor version.

England struggled to keep possession of the ball, had inferior ball-control and lacked the technical qualities that futsal demands.

But there is hope yet for the England team.

I've read that Newcastle's captain Michael Owen used to play futsal, which allowed him to develop his skills and control.

Manchester City's Micah Richards, widely regarded as one of England's more skilful defenders (a rarity), was also schooled in futsal as a youngster.

If more players like Owen and Richards come through the ranks - players who combine English football's traditional work-rate with good technical ability - then maybe the future doesn't look so bad for the Three Lions.


Jamie Yeo co-hosts Nokia Football Crazy on STAR Sports




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