dcharlie, I think England's problems with playing the beautiful game begin at the youth level. In Spain, Brazil, etc. the kids play on small fields and courts for years; in England, AFAIK, they start playing on pretty sizable fields early on (just as it is in the U.S.). This encourages kids to hoof the ball down the field at a young age rather than develop truly creative play and it also makes stars out of kids who are tall and fast (basically whoever hits puberty early) but not necessarily talented players. In other words, Jack Charlton football.
we play 5-a-side from the age of about 8.
At least, i did.
Lol - it had the opposite effect on me actually, i struggle to get my head around playing 11-a-side positionally and tactically. Though you do get the tools you need and i'm still a decent player at 11-a-side, but nowhere near as useful as i am at 5-a-side
Then again, to add to that - i'm 5 ft 6 tall - so yeah, i was never a star at school but was always in the first team, but it wasn't until we got much older that anyone would consider me in the "good" category, but at futsal (especially in head height rules competitions, it plays to my low center of gravity)
Anyways, i agree - futsal gives you close control skills , means you can operate under constant pressure, puts your fitness through the roof, means you can make short triangle maneuvers, makes you cover so you learn to tackle, promotes 'egoless' team play etc etc...
I play futsal twice a week and i love it. I just wonder if it's not encouraged? talking to some of the south american teams we've played, yeah - they are all crazy about futsal. Absolutely nuts for it.
I'm only an inch or two taller, so I'm in the same boat as you are. 5-a-side games are definitely my preference: Aerial battles are rare in five-a-side matches, and if there's anything I pride myself on, it's field vision, passing ability, and coolness under pressure. Futsal is almost never played here in the U.S., but pickup games invariably end up five-a-side or less because you just can't ever get a good turnout -- even on a Big XII university campus with a lot of foreign exchange students. Hell, we played like mad when we were kids, usually 8-hour marathon games every day in the summer, but even then it was just one core group of eight or nine of us who consistently played. Youth participation in the sport is enormous here, but kids just aren't as crazy about it as they are elsewhere in the world. I started watching club and international matches on the TV when I was ten; no one had any idea who I was talking about when I said how creative that Zidane is or how tough that Keane is.
Speaking of the disparity between positioning and maneuvering in 5-a-side and 11-a-side matches, I sometimes think that the differences are quite small. You look at how proper teams move the ball around the pitch and, unless the players face zero pressure, the quick passing resembles the 5-a-side matches: They're always supporting each other with short triangle maneuvers. Admittedly, the players not involved in those triangles have to move much differently than in 5-a-side matches (because there's nothing wrong with playing a long ball or switching fields), but I think that sort of play badly needs encouragement in the U.S. Often when I'm playing with my close friends we feel like geniuses on the small pitches, but that quick passing never quite translated to 11-a-side matches -- when I played for my high school team, for example, I was inwardly griping about how pathetic the whole spectacle was. I mean Jesus, no one even played the ball back to the keeper, even if it was the last defender and he was being chased down. Drop passes and through balls seemed virtually nonexistent.
Ah well, I'm handpicking our team for our statewide games this summer, so I'm not worried. There's always a good show of teams there, with even some division 1 university players putting together their own groups.
