Last Sunday, Aspire hosted a Futsal Tournament supported by Helvecia, a Brazilian Futsal team that have won the UK National Futsal championships three years in a row. This gave us the opportunity to showcase the sport that we have been delivering over the last 12 weeks at Aspire through Playsport London Funding. We had over 60 12–16 year olds attend, with teams from Arsenal Development Centre, Hadley Wood & Wingate, local grass roots clubs and many individuals that made up some All Star teams. We saw some top quality individuals with unbelievable skills encouraged to dribble with the ball and get past players, as well as try things that they would normally get criticised for by their club coaches and managers.

Futsal was first played in South America and is played with a smaller, heavier ball that stays on the floor a lot of the time. It is an indoor sport and is only 5 a side in order to give players more time on the ball, helping players develop technical ability at a young age. Players only progress to 11-a-side once they develop the physical attributes to be able to run longer distances and for longer periods. For a long time, England had never used these coaching techniques and persisted in playing a physical game coupled with first time passing that has not really achieved much in International Football since 1966. Recent times have encouraged The FA to acknowledge this and they are now supporting these methods; Futsal is part of their development plan.

Some of the principles of development at Aspire ensure that all abilities are welcome and that every participant should have a ball each for most of the session in order to get a minimum of 1000 touches. Participants should be evenly matched and play in small sided games to increase participation and confidence. Rules may be changed in order to benefit the individual or the game, with the players often deciding how this will work.

Aspire will continue to run Futsal sessions at the Centre for children aged between 11-16 in the near future so if you are interested in taking part, please contact George Timotheou our Sports Development Officer.