I know what futsal is. You know what futsal is. We in this forum all know the benefits it gives. The problem for our younger players is that their parents don't know what futsal is and many kids never get a chance to play it. In my area soccer is popular, but not a hotbed. It's a more rural area surrounding a medium-sized city (Lexington, KY) and there are three metro locations for indoor soccer. All three offer futsal, one exclusively. The other two facilities end up with wall ball leagues because when they offer both futsal and indoor for U8s on up, their parents see the word "futsal" and don't have a clue what the heck that is. They think indoor is indoor. The facilities don't put any effort into explaining it, or not offering wall ball as an option until U12. Another example is Coerver. The only licensed Coerver trainer in the state offered week-long camps here in town two summers in a row at the local indoor place. I signed up my son for both times and they were cancelled due to low registrations because most parents have no idea what "Coerver" is or means. I don't know, maybe marketing futsal as "5-a-side" like they do in England would help, or calling Coerver "foot skills" training would get parents to give these things a closer look. Then again, as many uninformed people I hear lamenting small-sided games at U-Little age they'd probably be against 5-a-side/futsal anyway. Do you have similar stories in your area? It's frustrating because the kids could have much richer opportunities to develop but the parents aren't knowledgeable enough to know there are other options.
When you market it, don't put the title of the league as futsal...call it "indoor soccer" and explain in the detail that it small sided games, no walls, develops skills better than standard indoor wall ball format. Coever...just call it a "footskills develop or training clinic". In the details you mention the training methods are based from some Dutch guru and such. Title it in layman's terms and describe in detail.
Any ideas to help this would be greatly appreciated. I sold my son's team on signing up for futsal this winter, only to end up having the league for his age group cancelled due to not having enough teams. The two indoor facilities have plenty of teams for his age group though, so now we're stuck with indoor instead. I also tried to get my adult team to switch over to futsal, but the majority declined since they don't think their skills are up to it. So I've dropped off the team and joined up as an individual in futsal. Maybe I'll get some of them to sub for us and change their minds. As for Coerver, we had a progression of learning Coerver skills be a part of our goals for this season. I posted videos of the skills we worked on each week for the parents and kids to see/review. So the Coerver name is getting out there that way. Basically, no issue with educating those I have contact with regarding these terms and the developmental benefits, but that is a very small number of parents.
Same here. Out of 27 U8 and U9 teams, ours was the only one who requested futsal. So we're playing wall ball instead.
Might be a little off-topic, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Does anyone know of a good resource that clueless parents can read/watch to explain to them some of the things that we wish they all knew? My team has a few decent girls on it (U8). I try to teach them to dribble the ball thru traffic but they will occasionally give it a big boot from the back when there is plenty of room to dribble. This is met with big cheers by the parents for a "great kick" which winds up at the feet of the other team. I'd also like all of my parents to have a little bit of an idea of the Laws of the Game. They don't need to know everything but at least some of the following: -What is and what isn't "handling" -The difference between a DFK and IFK -Advantage (they don't really call this at U8, but at U10 it is in play). -Offside - (Again, they don't call this at U8, but next year they will).
In the parent meeting at the beginning of the season (and I do this with U12s even), I tell them there is to be no coaching from their sideline and that I don't want anyone yelling, "Get it out of there!" or "Big kick!" or cheering for a boot. I then explain those things about developing, learning the game vs. playing sandlot kickball and loss of possession. It won't remove it totally but if you keep at it, most will get the message. The head coach I assist had to have another meeting in the middle of the season after the game because one of the parents was screaming to get rid of it and cheering for a boot. I have some YouTube links for some of those that I'll post later.
There a lot of resources on the internet and several books on topic available as well The first link is to a website article and the second is to the parent resources page at the USYSA site. http://www.drstankovich.com/articles/parents/All You Need to Know About Youth Sports.pdf http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/parents/
Handling=playing the ball with the arms or hand (except for the keeper within his penalty area). DFK vs IFK=you can score a goal directly from a direct free kick. You cannot from an IFK. Advantage=a ref doesn't stop the game and award a free kick for every foul. If a "foul" is "triffling" it is ignored. This is related to advantage, but something triffling is technically not considered a foul. The advantage rule applies to significant events. If stopping the game for a foul would disadvantage (take away a real advantage) the victimized team, play is not stopped. The victimized team is allowed to keep its advantage. (I find it hard to believe referees don't play advantage, but assuming you are correct, they will not stop play for something triffling--it is part of foul recognition.) Toward the bottom on this page is an official USSF explanation of what I said about advantage. This site also explains the other laws of the game as well. http://www.thereflink.com/USSOCCER/pages/law5.html I recommend that you not try to explain the offside rule to them. Just say that offsides is always a judgment call by the referee.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ussoccerdotcom/videos Search here and there is a series of "Laws of the Game" videos.