The Journal Gazette, the newspaper in Fort Wayne, Ind., provided permission to United States Youth Futsal to reprint a story by reporter Ben Smith and photos by Gazette Journal photographer Swikar Patel. Smith interviews Carlos Cruz, who describes how the league -- and the players on Fort Wayne Futsal teams -- have grown since Indiana's only futsal league started.
“I think the people that have played it and the parents who have seen their kids play it and what they’ve gotten out of when they’ve gone outside … they’re like ‘Oh, my gosh, this is phenomenal. This is great,’ ” Cruz told the newspaper.
Thanks again to The Journal Gazette. Here's their complete story.
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| Reid Sproat, right, shoots against Caleb Spencer, front, during a Fort Wayne Futsal match at Imagine Schools, the league's new venue. (Photos by Swikar Patel | Journal Gazette) |
By Ben Smith | The Journal Gazette
FORT WAYNE – Carlos Cruz knows what it looks like, at first blush. Think the Sunset Limited, the Cannonball Express, the same track, the same time.
“Yes, in the beginning, when the kids are trying to play it, it does look like a train wreck,” Cruz admits.
But then? “But then when they figure out their skills and their spacing off the ball, it’s really beautiful,” he adds.
And it’s at that point you begin to understand why Cruz fell in love with futsal and continues to be a passionate advocate for the game to this day.
Born in Uruguay in the 1930s and brought to full flower in Brazil – where such notables as Pele and Lionel Messi sharpened their skills playing it – futsal is essentially soccer-on-the-half-shell: a 5-on-5 game played indoors on either a flat hardwood floor or a polyurethane sport court, using a smaller, heavier ball and principles that in some ways mimic basketball.
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| Paco Castillo, left, and Carlos Cruz are directors of the Fort Wayne Futsal, a member of the U.S. Youth Futsal. |
Cruz first saw it as a kid growing up around Chicago, where a bunch of old pro soccer players from South America used to play the game. Pretty soon he was playing it, too, discovering it to be both distinct from soccer and yet absolutely perfect for developing the sort of ball-control skills essential to success on the bigger, outdoor pitches.
Now he’s the director of the Fort Wayne Futsal, an affiliate of United States Youth Futsal and the only futsal league in Indiana. Cruz and his business partner, Homestead coach Paco Castillo, started it last year by putting turf down on the Red Rink at McMillen Indoor Ice Arena; now it boasts 24 teams playing on two courts at Imagine Schools on Thursdays and Saturdays, with certified futsal referees and ages ranging from U-10 to adults.
It’s not soccer, exactly, which is why kids who’ve grown up playing soccer struggle at first with futsal.
“What happens is these kids are trying to play it like they play outside,” says Cruz, who coaches Bishop Dwenger and Citadel Football Club and six years ago started Cruzbol International, for which he incorporates principles of futsal in camps and clinics.
“But it’s a very unique game. The game is very quick; the ball has got to be moving. There are no walls, and it’s a very unforgiving game. If the ball goes out, it goes out.”
And when it doesn’t, it puts a premium, much like basketball, on constant movement and control of the ball at a much swifter pace – two skills that translate very well to the outside game.
“It forces and demands a player to control the ball and possess the ball, and also continuous movement, because if you stand around, you don’t get the ball,” Cruz says. “The added concentration it requires to control a small ball … when you take this game outside, your speed of play is enhanced, your ability to control the ball is enhanced, and it’s a phenomenal game in terms of development of technical speed.
“I think the people that have played it and the parents who have seen their kids play it and what they’ve gotten out of when they’ve gone outside … they’re like ‘Oh, my gosh, this is phenomenal. This is great.’ ”
It doesn’t hurt, of course, that so many soccer luminaries grew up playing it and that it’s the only form of indoor soccer officially endorsed by FIFA. It also doesn’t hurt that the kids learning to play in Fort Wayne have lots of company: Futsal boasts some 12 million players in 100 countries.
Until recently, though, very few of those 12 million played it in the U.S.
“It’s amazing how rapidly this phenomenon is growing,” Cruz says. “People, when they hear the history of the whole thing, they say, ‘Man, it started in 1930s?’ And here in the U.S. we’re just starting to learn what it is. In Brazil, on the other hand, until kids are 12, it’s almost all futsal.”
And here in Fort Wayne?
“I think it has huge potential,” Cruz says. “It’s just a matter of us getting people educated on how beneficial it is to their development.”
