the day when futsal courts are as ubiquitous as basketball courts, is the day when the United States..may have a shot at becoming a soccer power. It's absolutely necessary for the continued growth of soccer and the development of technical/skillful players.
Actually, we have thousands of courts - basketball and tennis - sitting lightly used. What would be key would be for the local SelectEliteGoldalona United Youth Soccer Club to send their coaches out into those communities, maybe every other week, for a year or so, and show the kids how to play variations where hitting the post is a goal, or putting down 4 crushed cans, etc. The game being the best teacher and all that But I realize, there's no money there. Sure everyone can float a scholarship for 1 baller from a disadvantaged background, but when 18 kids show up that are all better than Dylan and Cooper it's hard to sell the parents with cash to play on the B team and support an A team.
In the United States ONLY fancy infrastructure and equipment MIGHT get people to TRY futsal and even then likely to fail to catch on. Doesn't help trying to grow a "NEW" sport in this tech age...where kids and adults are locked in and spend their free time bullshitting on social media,video games,etc.. Furthermore the sad fact is that there is no tradition of soccer here.(at least 100 years behind) Thanks to America's belief in exceptionalism and isolationism. 19th century Americans wouldn't dare be fond/love a sport created by England..the former oppressor/ruler. That's why baseball and american football were created, then later on basketball. Unfortunately all that infrastructure is in place and un-likey to be converted into soccer fields or futsal courts. Unless residents demand it of their recreation depts and their local government with petitions,etc..
None of which is true. The first professional league in the US was started by baseball owners. The ASL in the 1920s was very popular but killed itself through infighting over Open Cup participation. NASL was given every chance to succeed but failed because of the way it was led, not because of any "exceptionalism".
Whatever happened to the rumored Futsal League being backed by Mark Cuban? https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/features/investors-banking-fast-growing-futsal-take-united-states
Local indoor soccer facility here in Northern VA--where there are multiple travel clubs--set up a designated futsal court when new ownership bought it and renovated the whole place. It never got used. They ended up having to re-configure it as a second, smaller indoor soccer court. I'd hoped that local coaches would use it for training and development, but it never caught on.
soccer folks(players,parents,coaches,etc..)in the United States should aggressively urge their local government to retrofit existing playgrounds into multi-sport courts,with special emphasis on building futsal courts...will grow the game massively.
I would like the local governments to retrofit existing soccer fields into a large circles with a bowling patch in the middle so kids can play cricket. That will grow the game massively here. I'm tired of the US lagging behind other cricket playing countries. Plus no pay to play cricket clubs either, that will also grow the game here. Is there a bigcricket.com website?
Build any field you want but you need people to use them to get benefit out from them. Would making more courts correspond with more people playing? Or would be the same group of dudes of various ages that play at the park at 9 o'clock at night? We have lots of baseball field but pickup baseball is almost nonexistent.
I have no doubt..that if there are Latinos, Africans...they will be used..for another group of people..who knows...but since the demographics indicate a huge number of Hispanics growing...well answers your question.
They are launching in 2017. Or something. They have said nothing in a while, haven't even tweeted the normal pablum in quite a while. They may not be dead, but they are not at all a well cat.
There are probably a dozen full-size soccer fields/pitches within 5 miles of where I live and I've never seen one being used for anything other than an organized game. How do you make impromptu kick-abouts part of the culture?
Same for me as well. Pickup golf is more likely to happen on the multiple soccer fields near my house than pickup soccer. Which goes to show you don't need a specialized playing surface to get out there and play.
And that's the thing--the fields don't create the demand, no matter what the OP insists. See my example above--a local business gave the local youth scene a regulation futsal court, available for a very low cost. They got no takers. Meanwhile, I see pickup cricket games being played every weekend on open spaces here in Northern VA. Not on designated cricket fields, sometimes not even on grass--there used to be a regular Sunday game on the parking lot of one of our local high schools, for example--but wherever local enthusiasts (south Asians, mostly) could find some open space they could use for a few hours.
There's a lot of pickup soccer played in my part of Northern Virginia--we have an enormous immigrant population. My son grew up playing pickup with local kids he met through school soccer, and then made friends in the pickup soccer scene here. To a large degree, those players have to work around the public park system because of permit issues, etc. There are three really nice Bermuda grass fields withing walking distance, and my son and his crowd used to get chased out by park rangers all the time. There is a local middle school with a turf field which tolerates pick up soccer when the school isn't using it, and that became their main outdoor venue. What's notable is that while my son played club all the way from first grade through HS graduation, by and large he never played pickup or street soccer with his club teammates.
If there is popular demand for futsal courts, they will be built. If there is no popular demand, and someone builds them, they will not be used. It's that simple.
fine, they should be built where they will appreciated...that being where there are Latinos, Africans and anyone else that loves soccer in any way,shape or form. As far as i'm concerned..futsal is soccer.
Futsal is outdoor soccer without all the excitement. Futsal is baseball if all you could ever hit in baseball were singles.
If the fields are in good condition then there is probably someone who has the right to use them and shooo's people off if they try to get a pickup game going. That's what happens here in the Newport Beach/Costa Mesa area. You get a 3 on 3 going and a "park ranger" shows up to shut it down. Not only that, the OP is about *futsal.* 6 kids getting together to play 3v3 is very different from getting 22 together to play full fields.
Totally agree with your post. When Gulati stepped down, and there was some general request for ideas on "how to grow the sport", that was my response. Imo, in these days, any time a public park is built w/ a basketball court, there should also be a futsal court. The Fed should be pushing this. They should be funding futsal courts in he construction of new public parks as a proof of concept. See what gets used, the basketball court or the futsal court. And, MLS teams should be required to build/pay for a certain number of public courts within a 50 mile radius of their home stadium.
If the demand was there it would probably happen. See skate parks, which are a lot more ubiquitous now than in the 90s. What's needed first is a glut of soccer kids clogging up spaces for other sports. Fenced-in basketball courts are soccer ready as is, for instance.
I've been kicked off basketball courts for playing soccer, when there was no one wanting to play hoops, and there wasn't going to be. And, at least in So Cal, the skate industry was super pro-active getting skate parks built, as in they designed and paid for them. The skate park example is actually a great example of why the Fed should be investing in an initial push for futsal courts in public parks.