Futsal Before 11v11

Discussion in 'Pro Indoor Soccer' started by koppite4ever, Dec 28, 2008.

  1. koppite4ever

    koppite4ever New Member

    Mar 5, 2004
    Washington DC
    I am not going to knock some of the posters here with their opinions but clearly some people have never worked in the game at any level and give opinions.

    So it's important not to read anything infantile and give it any credence.

    So let's stay on topic. This is a futsal discussion and it is relevant with indoor soccer, pro or amateur.

    1. Futsal can be played indoor and/or outdoor, with goals or with cones or 2 poles or anything else you want as a target.

    For example, when I worked with urban youth, we played futsal on a basketball court all summer kicking to the post (as a goal) and they loved it so much, that hours after practice, they played their own futsal scrimmages until dark.

    All my urban players went on to play college soccer on scholarship. 3 are now outdoor pros. I am not saying that was because of futsal but it certainly helped them in their youth development.

    2. Indoor soccer requires boards. This is not easily reproduced in any gyms unless you have a gym with walls where there is nothing impeding the rebound or ball roll on the sides.

    My suburban elite players used to play indoor soccer every Winter. Their combination play was excellent. But none developed the footwork that made them stand out on the pitch until I worked on dribbling every week and encouraged it in outdoor games and promoted it more in futsal in summer and winter.

    When we moved from indoor to futsal the difference was night and day and the teams they used to play in indoor (with their constant banging it long and looking for rebounds) were replaced with teams who had control of the ball, passed with accuracy and speed and enjoyed many 1v1 and 1v3 challenges.

    3. The tricks are what makes a player special with the ball. Just who would you say is the best player in the world?

    Ronaldo or Beckham, Messi or Gudjonson, Ronaldinho or Pirlo, Robinho or Adriano, Kaka or Seedorf, Ibrahimovic or Trezeguet, Marta or Wambach?

    All the above are top notch players but what separates the best is their ability to do something extra with the ball. The tricks. Futsal promotes the tricks in YOUTH players and they bring that to the outdoor game. That lack of fear, that total confidence that enables them to go beyond the average "collect and pass" style soccer, that promotes real skill and ball mastery.

    Working in youth development, I am only interested in doing things that promote the skill in the game. That could be anything from traditional soccer squash (banging the ball off a wall with a teammate) to develop shooting power and accuracy to street soccer to bring out individual creativity without fear of consequences.

    But when they go from the practice environment, I want players (of any age) to still play with the freedom and self expression of their personalities. Then the game is enjoyable to watch.

    There are already too many "anti-soccer" coaches out there that kill all the fun and skill out of players and focus only on team results...Peter Nowak at DC United was one who killed America's greatest talent in Freddy Adu. People like that who put their own ego ahead of the player's character do not belong in the sport.

    So with America being so big, there needs to be a thread that ties the nation together in skill development. A culture. Outdoor soccer with the endless calender of tournaments is not the way (and I've done all the major ones for years). Indoor soccer with it's Winter only playing off the boards is not the way (fun but too limited). Futsal with it's easy access indoor or out could be the way. We have to at least give it a generational chance to succeed.
     
  2. dmain

    dmain Member

    Mar 4, 2003
    Gig Harbor, WA
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Speaking from personal experience in our club we train our boys with small sided games -4v4, 7v7- to I think its u12 before they go 11v11 now. It all comes down to coaching. if its a win at all costs coach and does not teach individual skill( or more likely does not know how to!) i don't care if its futsal, indoor, 5-a-side, or outdoor the players are not going to develop the skill set that koppite is speaking of. We are club team not select and we play indoor in the offseason we do not treat it any different we always encourage individual skill to help the team. So what I'm saying is yes Futsal/indoor/5 a side can be effective/more productive training but its only a part of the puzzle
     
  3. Tom Higginson

    Tom Higginson Member

    Jan 12, 2000
     
  4. NSL2004

    NSL2004 Member+

    Jul 23, 2002
    The player with the most goals on the team with the most wins (give or take).
     
  5. DavidP

    DavidP Member

    Mar 21, 1999
    Powder Springs, GA
    Well, seeing that "futsal" is an amalgamation of "futbol de salon," which translated, is "indoor soccer," you could, theoretically, call the American version of indoor "futsal" as well. :D

    I'll comment on koppite4ever's comments:

    "1. Futsal can be played indoor and/or outdoor, with goals or with cones or 2 poles or anything else you want as a target."

    - So can regular soccer (gym floors are why there are those fuzzy/suede balls), and often times, more readily (low bounce balls can be a bugger to find). The biggest difference between indoor soccer and futsal (besides the obvious--court size, surface (though not always) & walls) is the ball. And a low bounce ball leaves much to be desired on a grass surface (I used to have a bag full of 'em and I've tried it).

    "2. Indoor soccer requires boards. This is not easily reproduced in any gyms unless you have a gym with walls where there is nothing impeding the rebound or ball roll on the sides."

    - Funny, the Brits have played indoor soccer for years, and don't always have boards (their rules allow for using walls or not). Boards are a relatively recent development, and aren't absolutely necessary, although our game uses them almost exclusively.

    "3. The tricks are what makes a player special with the ball. Just who would you say is the best player in the world?"

    - Tricks are cool, until some dude nutmegs you while you're playing around, and makes you look like a doofus (why do you think so many players take a dive, and then roll around and scream like they've been shot?). Free, unstructured play is what encourages experimentation, as kids use their imagination to come up with stuff to get around opponents and dazzle their friends. They bring that stuff to the table when they play organized ball. Free play is discouraged these days because parents are afraid their kids won't get a college scholarship if they don't spend a ton of money for coaching, and have their kids learn the "right " way to do it. There is no "right" way to do it; that's what makes soccer so much fun. I heard a guy on the radio during the World Cup lamenting that when he shows up at a camp, the kids are sitting in the bleachers, waiting to be told what to do, rather than kicking around and playing among themselves. Neither futsal nor any other small-sided game will do anything if the players don't put their heart into it. The US is great at "manufacturing" players, but we don't "grow" them. When Frank Klopas was asked what was the main thing missing from American soccer players, he pointed to his heart.

    The players who played futsal first, then outdoor, played out in the streets and in parks and on the beach before they even did that. That's where all the cool tricks came from. Futsal just became the stage on which they performed. Some honed their craft and took it outside, some stayed in and kept going there.

    I'm not against futsal; I was a state futsal association president for ten years (I fell, rather jumped, off the futsal bandwagon a few years ago). But I'm not convinced that futsal is the be-all, end-all for player development. Any small-sided soccer game, indoors or out, is the key to getting touches on the ball, and building teamwork. Each has plusses and minuses, but in the end, they accomplish the same mission. A lot of it has to do with the player, and also the coach (or not). Like I said, if it works for you, have at it. If not, do something else. Just don't over-coach and kill the players' spirit and imagination. They're people, not robots.

    I'll get off my soapbox now.
     
  6. Phil Cheesesteak

    Phil Cheesesteak New Member

    Oct 27, 2008
    bring back zungul, preki, segota, haaskivi and those guys in their prime and you might have something.

    i guess i missed how misl was like outdoor soccer when it went out of its way to not be like outdoor soccer, and that was its appeal. read everything they said back then - it was an attempt to distance themselves from outdoor. 'this is soccer, american-style,' 'this is the brand of soccer americans like,' and on and on.

    the goals weren't made ginormous. the talent just got smaller. because all of it went back outdoors when the opportunity presented itself.

    as for know-it-alls who think futsal is the fricking magic elixir, well, yeah, you're right - it's obvious who knows eff-all.
     
  7. Phil Cheesesteak

    Phil Cheesesteak New Member

    Oct 27, 2008
    you could say cristiano ronaldo. but he'd be the best player even if he did no tricks in a game.

    you want tricks, watch david freaking copperfield.
     
  8. Gareth

    Gareth Member

    Dec 13, 2000
  9. kingshark

    kingshark Member+

    Mar 3, 2006
    The poster want to disscuss 'Futsal Before 11v11',not 'Futsal or indoor soccer which is better sports'.

    I say futsual is more like real soccer, don't mean futsal is better sports than indoor soccer but better tools to develop required skills for outdoor soccer.

    Look at the futsal world cup, I don't know why our players couldn't hold on the ball and couldn't string together more than 3 passes. Doesn't indoor soccer need these basic footworks? I thinks the wall's existence or not effects a lot.
     
  10. DavidP

    DavidP Member

    Mar 21, 1999
    Powder Springs, GA
    You actually hit on what I was talking about with your first sentence. When outdoor players were playing indoor, when the New York Arrows were actually the Rochester Lancers, the Houston Summit Soccer team were actually the Houston Hurricane, and the Philadelphia Fever were a collection of ASL players and top local talent, the quality of indoor soccer was better. True, players of that caliber have gravitated toward outdoor. The large goals were a byproduct of MPS, which had to have them in order for 3-point goals to work (I remember when it happened; Atlanta had an AISA/NPSL team at the time that these changes were implemented--it sucked then, and it sucks now). To me, it was the NPSL admitting that their brand of indoor was inferior to that of the MISL/MSL, and they had to resort to gimmicks to get people to come out. They won, but it was a Pyrrhic victory; it started the slide that has all but killed the pro indoor game.

    As far as "tricks" are concerned, the part you quoted was me quoting koppite4ever. My subsequent paragraph is more in keeping with what you said.
     
  11. Andy Zilis

    Andy Zilis Member+

    Mar 9, 2005
    Rochelle, IL
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sorry to bring this argument back up, but disregarding the entertainment value of the sports, why exactly is futsal so much better for developing skillful players than American-style indoor soccer? They're both small-sided games played on fast surfaces. I fail to understand how adding boards to the field makes the game less skillful. It may penalize a team slightly less for sloppy play, but it also opens up new options for skillful play.
     
  12. DavidP

    DavidP Member

    Mar 21, 1999
    Powder Springs, GA
    I think the main reasoning is that the ball, being low-bounce (and somewhat more dense (most of them have foam in the bladder that makes them low-bounce)), doesn't get away from you like a regular ball does, and thus stays closer, allowing the player to get more touches on the ball (or something like that; I know what I want to say, but I'm not sure that's it). Some people see boards as too easy an out; just knock it off the boards if you get into trouble. Futsal people will say that the smaller court gives less room, thus forcing a player to think about what they're doing, and make smart decisions (of course, if you're double-teamed up against the boards, you have to make smart decisions as well). I see both sides of the argument, being away from futsal for a few years. The bottom line is that small-sided soccer is great for player development, whichever flavor you choose. The American version of indoor has a many-year jump on futsal, and works well with what we have (hockey rinks). Futsal is a relative newcomer, and past decisions by FIFA have made it hard for the game to catch on (handball-sized court instead of basketball court, for one).

    The main thing is for kids to get up off their butts, go outside, and play soccer. Playing the game as much as possible is the key for player development. No coach or book can take the place of playing.
     

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