Editor's Take: Time to Build, Not Preach to the Choir

By David Knopf
Futsal World Editor

My wife forwarded me an article about Brazilian soccer in The New York Times (“Pickup Soccer in Brazil Has an Allure All its Own,” Oct. 20, 2013) that mentions that in that country of futsal royalty the ball keeps rolling.

The story discusses how obsessed Brazilians are with the game, playing at all hours, – adults, children, men and women. Since grass fields aren’t plentiful there, the games are played on every available surface, many of them hard and fast where the ball does, indeed, keep rolling.

Photo courtesy http://www.aaronandronda.com/2011/07/outreach-survival-brazilian-style/

Of course, the story refers to the many great Brazilian stars who emerged from such humble beginnings, often finding a way out of the favelas (impoverished areas) that are breeding grounds of soccer passion.

Oddly ­– at least to me – the story never mentions futsal, although it does include this quote that rings of the game’s virtues, all developmental stepping stones for both outdoor players and futsal professionals.

“I think this game is good for Brazilian players,” said Anesio Cornelo, a father watching his 12-year-old son play. “They play this way, on the court. They learn how to touch the ball, how to control the ball. It is a lot faster here than on a field. They become more skilled than if they just played on grass.”

The quote, certainly one that U.S. Youth Futsal league owners have all paraphrased to win players/coaches over to the game, stimulated this thought: In this newsletter and in other futsal media, haven’t we reached the point where we’re preaching to the choir by telling each other about the game’s benefits?

It’s nice to hear these things repeated by converts – excuse the extended religious metaphor – and new futsal pioneers (read the story about futsal developments in Sweden and Tasmania elsewhere in this edition), don’t we need to break some new ground?

That’s certainly been the case recently with USYF. Not to beat the drum for our own organization, but accomplishments include:

* A group of U.S. Youth Futsal coaches/administrators attending a coaching seminar in Spain;

* Luke Stauffer, the first youth player with a futsal background, making and playing a key role with the U.S. National Futsal Team;

*  That team, still largely made up of walled indoor and outdoor soccer players, winning the Four Nations Tournament in England;

* Keith Tozer, the longtime national-team coach, forming a partnership with USYF that includes his becoming technical director, leading coaches’ clinics and certification courses, offering Futsal I.D. camps in five U.S. regions, and working toward creating regional teams, national youth teams and a pipeline to the senior national team.

It’s an exciting time for USYF and futsal in general in the U.S., but where do we go from here?

There are improvements on the local level, as team owners build their leagues and John Sciore, USYF’s development director, assists in the creation of leagues in new areas. The numbers (of states with USYF leagues and leagues in general) keep growing, and with the vision and organizational strength of US Youth Futsal, are likely to continue.

There’s no mistaking that what Tozer, Jon Parry and USYF’s regional directors are doing will become the backbone of high-level futsal in this country. It’s not hard to foresee the day when the national team roster could exclusively be made up of players from the youth-futsal ranks.

That’s exciting.

Tozer’s done a good job as anyone could with mostly indoor players with minimal training time together. But as he and longtime assistant Vava Marques have told the newsletter, the U.S. has begun to fall behind other futsal-playing nations in CONCACAF (not to mention South America, Europe and parts of Asia) that provide opportunities for their players to compete at futsal year-round.

Now that USYF has built a solid foundation at the youth level and is working with Tozer to expand the national-team program, the logical next step is to provide year-round competitive opportunities for national team players and prospects.

As you can read in this issue, Sweden will launch a national league in 2014, after having only recently created a competitive national team. England, often a nation used here for comparison purposes to U.S. futsal progress, has a national program endorsed and sponsored by the FA. (See the article "England FA National League: How It Works" in this issue.)

The size of the U.S. makes that a more daunting prospect here, but there’s no reason it couldn’t happen on a regional basis and gradually evolve into a national league. These leagues could be comprised of professional teams, like those in Spain, Italy and Portugal, but that’s down the road in this country. 

For now, locally sponsored semi-professional or amateur teams would fulfill Tozer’s need to have his national-team youth and senior players competing at high-level futsal year-round.

Then, when those players are called to a futsal national camp in preparation for international games, they’d already to game- and futsal-fit.

Where does this newsletter fit in that equation? Rather than “preaching to the choir” each month about futsal’s virtues – that’s become league owners’ job in wooing outdoor teams/clubs to sign up for their leagues and tournaments – I see Futsal World providing models of how the game has grown and continues to grow elsewhere. 

Those examples from countries in a development stage comparable to ours can provide everything from inspiration to a roadmap for future growth.

There's no reason the U.S. can't eventually join the world’s futsal elite. It may be 10 years, 25 years or more, but with the progress made in the past year, almost anything is possible.

With the building blocks in place, our job will be to continue expanding the infrastructure – by connecting the dots between the growing youth core and a promising national-team program – and continuing to preach futsal’s virtues, not to each other but to the uninitiated. 

Have a comment or opinion? Share it with our readers at davidknopf48@gmail.com.