FIFA instructor recommends Futsal as starter

FIFA instructor and Commissioner of the Professional Futsal League, American Keith Tozer, wants countries such as St Vincent and the Grenadines to introduce futsal at an early age, to aid its overall football development programme.

Tozer’s recommendation came at the end of a four-day course, which was attended by 30 local coaches.

“I will recommend futsal as a starter, as it teaches them how you manipulate the ball at an early age… This is where it all develops,” Tozer outlined.

Futsal is a five-a-side game, inclusive of a goalkeeper, normally played on a flat indoor pitch with hockey sized goals and a size four ball, with a reduced bounce.

It is played to touchlines and all players are free to enter the penalty area and play the ball over head-height. Matches are 40 minutes, split into two 20-minute halves.

Like basketball, futsal permits the stopping of the clock and time-outs as well.

Continuing the plug for futsal, Tozer explained: “It promotes tactical awareness. Think about it… a young child out here, spending an hour on a futsal court will touch the ball about 300 times; it is not so much the quantity, but the quality of the touch, the length of the pass, the control of the foot, multiply that by days, months and years and you will have a different player”.

Tozer noted that several of the modern day football stars, all grew up on a diet of futsal.

“Some of the top players in the world, Neymar, Ronaldo, Messi, have said I am who I am because of futsal … If you look at some of the biggest football powers in the world, Spain and Brazil for instance, from four years old to 12, they all play futsal,” Tozer rationalized.

The main aims of the four-day course were to teach the coaches how to instruct futsal at the grassroots level and carry out a futsal festival.

The course culminated with a futsal festival last Saturday at the Bishop’s College hard court in Kingstown, dubbed “Skills For All”.