Friday, November 9, 2012

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.