Futsal in Massachusetts

If you live in the state of Massachusetts and want to play Futsal, I recommend checking out
www.futsalma.com

The league has about 250 teams.  There are great Futsal players with some of the best Futsal coaches in the US.  The league uses about forty of the best Futsal referees.  The level of competition is great.  Every Saturday and Sunday during winter time there are at least 100 games per day.

Visit the website and you will be able to look at the schedule.  If you have the time go and watch a game. After watching a game you would want to jump in and play yourself.  The sport is one of the best sports that I have ever played/watched.

Try it!     

Futsal Refereeing

Refereeing this game is very harder than what it looks like.  The majority of  Scocer referees think that refereeing Futsal is very easy.

Since the game is played on a smaller court ( compared to Soccer ) the game becomes a lot faster.  There will be a lot of contacts between player and referees must make decisions way faster that they do it in Sooccer.  As a matter of fact I strongly believe that refereeing Fusal will make you a better Soccer referee.

The game is officiated with two referees on the pitch ( Referee 1 & Referee 2)  and two referees out side the pitch ( Assistant referee & Time keeper).  The referees must 'Bracket' play and in needs a lot of running and eye contact between Referee 1 and Referee 2.

Every restart must happen in four second ( exceptions in PK and Kick off) therefore the referee must always be on his/her feet and ready.

I strongly suggest that soccer referees, officiate Futsal in winter time ( when the outdoor season is on a break).  It will make them better referees.

What do you think about the final game of the Futsal World Cup 2012

I watched the whole game between Brazil and Spain and frankly it was not an exciting game.  Its a known fact that the teams who are in the final game usually are under so much stress that they don't play the way they used to play.  Players and coaches are under a lot of pressure and that will not allow them to make the correct decisions. The fear of losing the final game takes over and it will change the whole game.

I personally thought Brazil was completely out of it at the first half.  They way the team was defending was very different. Brazil usually starts the press from the other half of the pitch and takes all the passing options from the other team. 

I was shocked when I didn't see Falcao play at the first half and had a really hard time figuring out what Brazil wanted to do.

Futsal Coaching methods in the US

The Futsal training sessions that I saw in Spain were completely different that what we do in the US.
The warmup starts with having the player run 6-10 laps around the Futsal pitch and then the loosening is all static.  After the warmup/loosening the head coch will start showing drills on a white board and then they will all move to the pitch and do the drill on the pitch.

There are times that the palyers wont even get tim to scrimmage at the end of the sessions. The whole training session is about the drills and methods of transitioning from Defense to Offense or vice versa.

In  US what we as coaches are being taught is that we divide the training session  into warmup/loosening and after that we teach the players in small sided and extended sided and eventually finish with scrimmage.

I myself find the Spain method a lot more intuitive.  It seems to me letting the players getting in the small sided activities will not teach them different methods of play.  I think that drills will fix the technic of the players also.  Repetition is the key in Futsal and creating self confidence for players by allowing them to be creative in their touches with the ball will eventually  have a  better result.

Futsal players must have good technic and a good touch.  This will only be fine tuned with drills.

Why is it that USA National team didn't make it to the World Cup ?

Unfortunately in America Futsal is considered a winter sport.  Soccer players will play Futsal just because there are no outdoor fields available in winter.  Players will be playing Futsal for a maximum of three months and then they will all go back to outdoor soccer.

Players for the national team should be picked from a Professional League that is playing Futsal all year around. There is no Professional Futsal League in the country and the players that are being picked for the team are taken from the Indoor Soccer league teams.  Indoor Soccer has no similarities to Futsal.  The ball is different, the field size and surface is different, there are six players on each team versus five in Futsal, etc.

At the coaching clinic in Spain I realized that players play Futsal as Futsal, for the game itself, not because there’s no outdoor soccer. Few, if any, also play outdoor soccer on a competitive level. That’s a big contrast to the U.S. or Canada, where players focus on outdoor soccer for nine or 10 months a year, then transition to a 10-week Futsal season when winter arrives.

There is no doubt that Keith Tozer ( current Futsal National Team Head coach ) is one of the best Futsal coaches in the US.   By growing the sport we will be having Futsal players who are now coachable also.  The coach will be able to pick from a large pool of Futsal players ( instead of picking players from the indoor teams ) and train the new methods of play.

In order to grow the sport we will need the support form the US Soccer Federation in order to put together a league that is focused on Futsal.