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By David Knopf
Futsal World Editor
dknopf@kc.rr.com As futsal continues to evolve in the U.S. and Canada, it will become more of a priority for coaches to refine their approach to formations, player movement and tactics. From personal experience – as both a league owner and coach – there are few youth coaches who teach the game with the more advanced techniques used outside of North America. It’s no one’s fault, really, since futsal’s often seen here as off-season training for outdoor teams. That’s not a bad thing, of course, because players benefit from the game’s speed, confined spaces and the inherent value futsal places on foot skills, vision and quick combinations. And, coaches who value two-way players love the game because everyone defends and attacks and has to adjust to the quick transition between offense and defense. What’s missing, though, is knowledge of how futsal’s played in countries where it’s long been part of the culture. Although there are a number of experienced, foreign coaches who live in North America – including many Brazilians — their influenced is limited geographically. Aside from U.S. National Team Coach Keith Tozer and his assistant, Brazilian Vava Marques, English-speaking coaches find few tangible resources (instructional videos or printed manuals) at their disposal. Tozer recently held a futsal coaches’ clinic for Cleveland Super F League and has said he hopes to do more teaching. That’s progress, but until he or someone else creates a futsal coaching DVD and/or PDF there will be limited access to his experience in the world game. From an English-speaking point of view, help is on the way from England, Ireland and Australia. As we’ve noted here several times, futsal’s now a national sport endorsed by England’s Football Association. With more and more teams playing at the adult, collegiate and youth levels, English coaches want to know more about the game. And, since England (and Ireland for that matter) has fared poorly internationally against futsal-savvy nations such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Croatia, English National Futsal Team Coach Peter Sturgess is intent on developing amateur players. It benefits him and the national program to refine the coaching techniques used in the developmental pipeline. The growth of English-speaking interest in the game is reflected when you perform a simple Google search. Using the key words “futsal formations,” for example, I found a link to Paul Saffer’s 2008 “UEFA.com’s Guide to Futsal,” a concise outline of what’s prevalent in futsal formations, substitution techniques, defending etc. around the world. The easiest way to access the guide is to go to www.uefa.com and type “guide to futsal” in the search box. Visiting UEFA site’s an eye-opener in itself. Futsal Euro (UEFA’s European club championships) is a main tab at the top of the page — along with such heavyweight events as the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. In a nutshell, UEFA’s promotion of futsal reflects how important it is in continental Europe, as opposed to England, the U.S. and Canada. In those countries, one has to search national association sites and read the fine print to locate futsal information. But all’s not lost. Also found in my search was a futsal pamphlet published by the Irish FA. While it’s intended as an introduction, the sections “Anatomy of a Futsal Player” and “Basic Technical and Tactical Tips” are both well-informed and useful. Coach-Smart.com’s video “Intro to Futsal Attacking Techniques” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWhxFETOG8I) is very valuable since it involves concise instructional narration accompanied by actual game film. It starts from the premise that futsal teams play a diamond shape – a defender/playmaker in back, two wide wing players and a forward who plays with his or her back to the goal — in itself a step up from the 2-2 static formation used by many novice coaches. This is the perfect film to distribute to coaches, players, parents and non-futsal-playing outdoor teams. As is often the case with You Tube, one link leads to another. In our search, we found “Coaching Futsal Tactics I,” a translated video featuring the Italian futsal professor Prospero Brum Paoli (yes, Dorothy, there are futsal professors in some parts of the world). The film is part of a series that lays out, in considerable detail, such topics as player positioning and rotations, defensive approaches, goal clearances, offensive plays and runs etc. It’s a valuable resource for the coach who wants to know more about how the game is played overseas. Best thing is, it’s free. As futsal develops in North America, it’s likely that some coaches will want to begin working on the game just a few months a year. They’ll organize academies with year-round futsal training, both to supplement the development of outdoor players and to develop select futsal teams that may wish to play year-round. It’ll happen as more coaches realize that futsal’s a game in its own right, not a stepsister of outdoor soccer. It’s also a game that can be taught and played at a higher level with the right training. That training’s available now – you just have to dig a bit to find it. David Knopf, a journalist from Kansas City, is a coach and co-owner of Northland Super F League in Kansas City.
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