England Futsal team heading in the right direction

English Futsal continues to make great strides under the guidance of head coach Peter Sturgess and their recent victory over Libya demonstrated this.

The fact that England are starting to challenge some of the leading futsal nations is a postive sign for the future of a sport that has often been overlooked by those involved in the 11-a-side game.

The victory shows that with further investment and support England could emerge as an elite
nation that could challenge the top futsal nations in the years ahead.

Libya 1-1 England
Friday 4 December 2009
Libya 1-2 England
Saturday 5 December 2009


The England Futsal team put in two superb performances against the African Futsal champions, Libya, in Tripoli. England fought courageously and showed real character to dominate two friendly internationals against one of the leading Futsal nations in their own country. Drawing the first game and winning the second, England exhibited two of their best –ever displays with the squad really delivering high-level performances when it really mattered.


Libya have a fine recent pedigree and are ranked 26th in the world, 70 places above England. As well as reigning African Futsal champions, Libya won the Arab Futsal Championships, with their star player Mohammed Omar selected to play against Brazil in a World All-Stars Team.England travelled to Tripoli with the odds stacked against them. Libya defeated England last year in the only other previous meeting, while England had only recently won for the first time in their history away from home.


England began the first game cautiously, but confidence grew quickly and the England team settled into the game better than their illustrious opponents. England dictated the early rhythms of the match, with half-chances falling to Thomas Obasi and Luke Ballinger to establish an early lead. But it was the home side who scored first, against the run of play. A speculative long-distance shot ricocheted into the path of a Libyan player to slot past Curtis Holmes in the England goal.


Libya began to exert more influence over the game after taking the lead, showing some of the hallmarks of a true Futsal force. England weathered the storm and regained their composure and dominated for a five minute spell before half-time. Wave after wave of English attacks crashed against the Libyan goal, with the agile Libyan goalkeeper having an extraordinary game repelling every English effort. Colley, Obasi and Vallance all having good chances to level the score before half-time.It took a thunderbolt from England’s captain, Luke Ballinger, to beat the Libyan keeper. Obasi’s effort rebounding back to Ballinger, who instantly crashed it into the top corner to stun the Libyan crowd.


England continued to press, with Head Coach Pete Sturgess making effective changes to offer different attacking options. However, the Libyan goalkeeper would not be beaten again, and at the end a sharp save from Holmes kept the scores level.Although disappointed not to win, the England team were upbeat with the quality of their performance.England started the second game with greater belief of securing a much desired victory, but were soon on the backfoot after a mistake by Dean Thornton, playing in goal for the second match, allowed Libya a simple goal inside two minutes.England were rattled, and for a significant spell clung on desperately to prevent conceding a second.


Libya sensed their opportunity and pushed and probed, but the steadying influence of Nick Colley helped England restore some shape and order to their play. The creativity of Rob Ursell and Thomas Obasi began to come to the fore just before half-time, with a couple of half-chances giving the Lions some confidence going into the second half.The England captain again led by example to restore the team to parity at the start of the second period. Ballinger capitalised on a Libyan mistake to go through on goal, with a smart finish to beat Libya’s talented goalkeeper. Halfway through the second period Ben Mortlock sent the England squad into raptures after he finished a slick passing move.

Joy almost turned to despair as while England celebrated their lead, the Libyans took advantage to shoot at goal from the kick-off. Thornton was alive to the situation and tipped the ball over the bar. This signalled the start of a tense last period to the game, with both teams having a number of chances. Thornton, Mortlock and Colley all stretched to prevent Libya equalising as Mohammed Omar began to exert his influence on the game.England were also on five accumulated fouls for the final period, and with a minute to go the referee awarded a penalty to the home side as a result of a sixth foul.

Mohammed Omar stepped up but hit the post to the disappointment of the home fans.England withstood the pressure to see out the game and claim an important victory for English Futsal to the delight of the squad and coaching staff. Under the guidance of Sturgess, the England squad has been in a period of intense development, and this win helps to show that the squad and Futsal in England is moving in the right direction.


There is still much development required, and expectation should be tempered with the realisation that this is one step on a long path. But England Futsal will enjoy this win and the high quality of the performances in these two matches will provide much-needed confidence for the future.

http://www.thefa.com/

Benefits of playing futsal

Football players, coaches, managers, and football enthusiasts are always asking us why should we play futsal ? Why do we need to implement futsal into our training sessions? Well…. we though it would be a good idea to show them what are the benefits of playing futsal and how it can help to improve football players. Here are some points:

The smaller ball with restricted bounce makes it easier for young players to master their ball control skills.

As the futsal ball is designed to stay on the floor, players get far more contact with the ball than in traditional 5 a side. This results in players improving techniques such asdribbling, passing and close control at an accelerated rate.

As the rules of Futsal include the pitch having sidelines and end lines, players must be moreaccurate with their passing as opposed to just kicking the ball wildly off a wall.

The dimensions of the Futsal court and reduced number of players means players participate more in the game than they would in outdoor 11 a side.

Playing in reduced space helps develop creativity. Players are encouraged to find their way out of tight situations with a clever pass or piece of individual skill. Futsal can encourage self reliance and free expression.

Playing close to opponents in a small area encourages players to think and make decisions very rapidly. It also causes players to learn to move off the ball in order to create free space for their team.

The continuous rapid action means players quickly learn to develop their awareness in relation to game situations, positional sense and their reading of the game.

Because of the free flowing substitution rule, all players get approximately the sameplaying time.
It’s easy to put a team together as only a minimum of 5 players are needed.

Futsal is the smallest, easiest way of playing football without losing any of the ingredients such as the ball, opponents, team mates, space, pressure, rules, time, direction.

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The FA is backing futsal

We thought it would be good idea to actually show you what the FA has done to promote Futsal. Here are some futsal initiatives that has been introduced over the last few years.

The FA Futsal Leagues comprise of three regional men’s competitions that provide six teams for the end of season play-offs to determine the national champions. The 2008 winners were Helvecia who will also represent England in the 2009 UEFA
Futsal Cup club competition.

The FA Futsal Cup for men and women begins with local leagues and progresses through regional qualifiers to the three day Finals at the EIS in Sheffield in July.

An England senior men’s futsal team has contested qualification matches for the FIFA Futsal
World Cup and UEFA European Championships. The team draws its players predominately from senior

Futsal Clubs and semi professional 11 a side football. The squad get together on a regular basis and each year open trials are held to recruit new talented players.

A School-Club Links programme has introduced Futsal to Schools and School Sports Partnerships.

The FA Youth Futsal Festival takes place in Sheffield in June.

The introduction of a British Universities Futsal Championships with a representative team to
taking part in the FISU World Futsal Championships.

A two level coaching award and areferee’s course

An English referee has been promoted to the FIFA futsal panel.

Recognition of the technical merits to be gained by playing Futsal and other formats of small sided games in the FA’s new development and coaching strategies.

English national teams for the deaf, blind and partially-sighted also play Futsal or a near variation of the sport and are highly ranked in the world.

http://www.thefa.com/

Why FIFA and UEFA are supporting Futsal?

There are a few reasons football governing bodies got behind futsal.
It seems that the growth of Futsal illustrated by the growing numbers of entries for the FIFA Futsal Cup. A total of 46 countries entered for Spain 1996 but this figure increased to 70 for Guatemala 2000, 86 for Chinese Taipei 2004 and 96 for Brazil 2008. From commercial point of view FIFA wishes to develop an exciting and lucrative version of indoor football that has appeal for spectators and is attractive to sponsors and broadcasters.

As we also know that Futsal has helped to develop some of the greatest football players in the word. Consequently FIFA is using futsal as a Technical Development as their sees futsal can make a contribution to the technical development of football players.

Let's see what world football players and coaches had to say about futsal.

Luiz Scholari has commented ‘Futsal is a good starting point for a footballer, we need to take advantage of what Futsal has to offer – namely the lightning speed with which it is played’.

Robinho: "Futsal helped me a lot, a lot of things I do on the pitch today stem from my days playing Futsal," reckoned Robinho. "It is a really enjoyable way of playing football and increasing your skills. Even now when I go home for my holidays I like to play.

Deco: "Many things from my way of playing came from futsal. I don't control the ball like this [points at the instep of his right foot], I step on the ball because in futsal it's normal.

Ronaldinho: "It's helped me a lot because in futsal it's all short passes and on a football pitch it's totally different - you have more time to think. "When I was little we always played futsal and now it's easy to control the ball in short spaces. The way I control the ball, that's where it's helped me a lot."

Zidane: "The technique of playing futsal is different to the eleven-a-side version; there are spectacular things you can attempt in futsal that you would not dare trying in football. It adds more fun to the discipline."

Messi: "In Argentina, when I was a young boy, I used to play a lot of Futsal. It was a really nice game that's helped me a great deal.