News and Events

Pelada Australia Futsal Club Championship - Ballarat, Victoria (Easter 2012) April 6th & 7th, 2012)

Football Federation National Championships 2011 – Canberra

The 2011 Football Federation Australia National Futsal Championships will be held in Canberra between the 11th and 15th January, 2011.  Victorian Representative Teams have been entered in the following age groups;
 
Male and Female U/11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.  Youth 17 – 19 and Open mens and women’s.
 
For further information contact Andrew on either M) 0488 086456 or andrew@futsalballarat.com.au 
 

Article: Give Futsal a Chance

Tuesday, 3 March 2009 10:45 PM (Les Murray – SBS Commentator - Give Futsal a Chance)

It will come as no surprise to the most mildly informed football punter that Ronaldinho is a former futsal player. Nor that so is Ronaldo. And, unless I am mistaken, so were Kaká, Robinho and Pato.

It cannot be a coincidence that men of such consummate technical ability are graduates of the indoor, five-a-side configuration of football, as are literally thousands of other Brazilian stars of the outdoor game.

Futsal, or indoor soccer as some still call it, is a burgeoning activity in the suburbs, a great source of fun, especially at junior level, and an even greater vehicle for technical development.

It is, in effect, a long established and deep rooted mirror of what was only recently mandated nationwide to improve the level of skill among our growing young: small sided games or SSGs.

Futsal is played on small courts, five versus five, compelling players, due to lack of space, to have optimum command of the ball. Unlike on a large field, with large goals, there is no margin for error. You place a pass millimetres wide of its mark and it is bound to be intercepted by an opponent. You crack a shot at goal that wavers just slightly from its puny target between keeper and post and you will miss.

In futsal there is no option other than to have the ball completely at your command. With the ball at your feet your only options are to make a telling pass of total accuracy, take a shot that is placed rather than just driven in hope, or dribble, wiggle your bum, and make more space and time.

You can do none of these things without utter ball skills. In futsal you simply cannot win just by being stronger, bigger and by getting stuck in. Hence the conviction, Johnny Warren’s conviction, that futsal is a seriously good medium for correcting what Australian footballers distinctly lack on world comparisons: technique.
In recent times I have taken much time out to attend futsal matches. They were glorious eye openers.

In the first instance I noted that, unlike games of the outdoor variety, they are sources of utter congenial fun for all. Players run free in a quest to express themselves, jutting about, stopping and starting, running into spaces, passing and flicking, sometimes dribbling, always in a compulsion to create.

It is a wondrous spectacle so different to the mindless biff and bang that goes on the outdoor grounds where players, especially children, are asked to chase and run, and boot the bejesus out of the ball in quest of victories, with parents bellowing down their ears in the stupid belief that they become better players for hearing them.

At futsal games, in stark comparison to what happens on the suburban grass fields, there is no bellowing. Parents sit quietly, cheering only when a goal is scored or letting out an occasional ‘aahh’ when someone plays a back heel, a nutmeg or does a swivel to make space and beat a defender.

See the full article here.