By youth coach Steve Watson

Turbo charge your players’ football skills in 20 minutes








I am not exaggerating when I say - in terms of youth player development - 20 minutes playing futsal is worth hundreds of minutes playing regular youth football.

What is futsal?

Futsal is a 5 a side football-like game that is played on a small (usually indoor) court.

How will playing futsal help your players?

Children develop their football skills via practice and experimentation. They need to find out what works and what doesn't when they're faced with an opponent.
Several studies have shown that in a 60 minute small sided football match a young player will have the chance to practice their skills in 1v1 situations about twenty times.
But in a short, twenty minute game of futsal, the same player will find themselves in more than eighty 1v1 situations!

Futsal is great for young players to learn a range of key skills

Children who play futsal become more agile, faster, stronger and have better balance. It also helps youngsters become more comfortable with the ball and give them lots of opportunities to practice passing, dribbling, turning, shooting and ball control whilst under pressure. Your players will pass more often, shoot more and score more goals.
Compared to football, futsal demands more versatile players. It's normal for every player to play in every position on the field during the course of a game. Futsal players are not labelled as defenders, midfielders or attackers like they are in football.
In futsal, you will never see bored defenders stuck in their own half while all the action is taking place thirty yards away, as you do in so many youth football games. You will never see a young futsal keeper shivering from the cold and desperately trying to look interested as his team-mates play with the ball at the other end of the field.
The small court and the way a futsal ball sticks to a young player's feet helps players learn how to control the ball quickly in tight spaces, make rapid decisions, shoot instinctively and constantly look to support their team-mates. So it's an excellent way to develop competencies that can be directly transferred to seven, nine or eleven a side football.

So why don't more coaches teach their players to play futsal?

1. Lack of facilities
Futsal is best played indoors but there is no reason why you can't play futsal in school halls, car parks, on Astroturf, 3G or even on grass.
2. I don't have a futsal!
A futsal ball has a special bladder that gives it it's unique low bounce but if you don't have one, you can play futsal with a football ball that has been slightly deflated.
3. I want be The Coach!
The coach in futsal is very much in the background. There is no time to shout instructions and players have to think for themselves. There are often no parents on the sidelines to impress. So futsal is a bit of let down for the many coaches who like being The Coach and love to hear the sound of their own voices.