Today, we are taking you to the other side of the world in an attempt to answer the question of why one country continuously adds a range of top football players to the "talent map."
Of course, we are heading to Brazil...
Football coach Simon Clifford, fascinated by the extraordinary skills of Brazilian footballers, decided in 1997 to discover how they develop these skills. His previous coaching experience at a Catholic primary school in Leeds pointed to an unusually ambitious undertaking.
During his stay in Brazil, he spent most of his time in São Paulo, where he saw many things he had expected: passion, tradition, highly organized training centers, and long training sessions.
However, in addition to that, he saw something he didn’t expect: an unusual game.
It resembled football, but the ball was half the size and twice as heavy. It barely bounced off the ground. It wasn’t played on a large grass field but on a court the size of a basketball court with "patches" of concrete, wooden floor, and mud. Instead of 11 players per team, there were 5 or 6. Watching the rhythm and speed of the game, it resembled more of hockey or basketball – consisting of a series of quick, controlled passes and endless actions.
The name of the game was futebol de salão, which in Portuguese means "football in the room."
It immediately became clear to Clifford that this was where Brazilian skills were born. For him, it was an important discovery. "Football in the room," or the modern term futsal, was invented in the 1930s in Uruguay as an alternative to football during rainy days. The Brazilians quickly adopted it and introduced the first rules, but more importantly – the game spread like wildfire through Brazil’s densely populated cities. While futsal was played elsewhere, Brazil became obsessed with it, partly because it could be played literally anywhere.
Brazilian children literally grew up playing futsal. Not only in informal games on playgrounds but also in Brazilian football academies, where players aged 7-12 dedicate three days a week to futsal.
Most of the moves performed by Brazilian footballers on the football field come from futsal. Not from the beaches of Copacabana.
Why futsal? Futsal players touch the ball 6 times more often per minute than football players. The smaller and heavier ball requires more precise ball control. Quick passing is key: the essence of the game is to find angles and space and make fast combinations with teammates. Ball control and game awareness are so important that when futsal players play football, they feel they have an enormous amount of space available.
In short: "Less time + less space = better skill."
Futsal puts players in a small box, within which they make mistakes and correct them, constantly generating solutions to imposed problems.
It’s clear that futsal is not the only reason why Brazilian football is so great. Other factors are often mentioned – climate, passion, poverty... But futsal is the lever through which the other factors transfer their power.
Do you have a similar lever? A lever that will allow young athletes you train to accomplish more with less effort?
We don’t offer just one lever. We offer a set of levers to effectively develop movement, thinking, and skills in young athletes aged 6-18.
Everything you need is written in the books "Formula of Sports Success 1 and 2".
-Igor Macner, author of the books "Formula for Success in Sports 1 and 2"
Literature: "The Talent Code," Daniel Coyle, published by Arrow Books 2010
