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Wanted to stir the Futsal pot. I was lucky enough to spend the holidays in Barcelona watching the World Futsal Cup. Barcelona had teams in every age division, squads from Madrid, Benfica, Lazio, etc… The skill, the tactical awareness… Just insane…
So who here states side is playing it, using it for development?
Anyone attending the Futsal regionals and Nationals? I will be in St Louis this weekend for Midwest regionals. Hoping to see some good competition.
I love futsal and have been running a futsal program in my club for the last 3 years that has proven to be pretty popular. Given that my area is smaller and new to futsal, I’ve taken the approach of trying to simulate street soccer by creating a free play program built around futsal in the winters. Basically, we don’t have the coaching staff to support teaching futsal so I’ve focused on keeping the coaches out of the way and letting the kids play. We offer 3 sessions every Saturday where the age groups are relatively close in age (i.e. U8-U10 from 5-6pm, U11-U13 from 6-7pm, etc.), but kids can show up in different time slots if they want to test themselves against the older players (or more often the younger kids stick around to play against the older). We create teams each session based on who shows so we’ll have boys and girls of all ages mixed up and playing on the teams. Then we run a little ladder style tournament with 10 minute games where the winners move up a court and losers move down with the ultimate goal to get to championship court by the last game. It adds a little competition, but it’s up to the kids to organize their teams since there are no coaches.
I formed most of the ideas from this after following the Joy of the People program in Minnesota where they are doing some really cool things to try to replicate the successful soccer breeding grounds in South America — http://joyofthepeople.blogspot.com
What level are the JOTP squads. We have them on our schedules for Midwest Regionals? My daughter trains in a Futsal residency program during the school year. http://www.CityFutsal.com She plays on the U9 boys squad.
The trip to Barca was amazing for her and I both. Her group was lucky and landed a private chat with Andreu Plaza from Barcelona’s futsal academy and he led a private training session for them as well.
The futsal focus has transformed her outdoor game. All facets of her game have exploded. Speed of play, speed of thought. movement, confidence on the ball…
Luv it! I’ve been running an after-school futsal program up here in the interior of British Columbia for 5 years now. I’m completely sold on futsal as a skill/tactics development vehicle . Unfotunately I’m unattached & have insufficient facilities, but we make do the best we can. The kids all benefit immensely in such a short period of time. Gotta run, but I’ll check back in with some ideas soon.
I use futsal during the winter for development. A lot of the high schools here host weekend tournaments as fundraisers, most only 3+GK, which isn’t really futsal. Most of my practice sessions include:
1) Footskills and 1v1 – I use stuff from Beast Mode Soccer and a few basic 1v1 exercises
2) Rondos – often 4v1 a la 3four3
3) Rotation and passing patterns. Add finishing, shadow defending and transition to live play. I start with a 2-2 butterfly rotation: http://youtu.be/d-my0J1e8F http://youtu.be/ieHT-NHJEoc and I’ve developed a couple other passing patterns that use the same rotational movement. My boys don’t use the rotation very often during games, but do on occasion.
4) Basic zonal defensive patterns/choreography: http://youtu.be/7HI39PHKxM4
5) Play. I’ll often use restarts to rehearse rotation patterns, i.e. the defending team may only shadow defend until a signal and then back to live play.
I don’t get much time, but I may briefly introduce a couple of options on GK starts, corners, kick-ins…
Most coaches around here either just let kids free play, use it to emphasize footskills (1 coach required a footskill before passing even in games and his team was really good), and at most teach them to stay in a diamond. I think there is an incredible opportunity to learn about creating and occupying space through rotation patterns.
Hi Mark, we are going to Barca this April (family holiday), where can we see & play futsal in the city center…do you know any kids futsal clubs there? Thanks, John
Hi John,
I’ll be in Barcelona the first week of April. When are you going?
Also, you can reach out to Danny Lederman (danny@celebreightfc.com) and see if he can help you out with that. He lives in Barcelona, and his son is a player at La Masia.
Was under the impression he was no longer with the academy due to sanctions against Barca…
http://soccergods.com/2015/01/10/barcelona-transfer-ban-ben-lederman-la-masia/
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