A small, weighted soccer ball lands with a quiet thud on the gym floor. Rather than roll away in an endless game of “chase the ball,” it sits there, waiting. It will move only when a dozen pair of dancing feet tell it to. And then, only then, try to catch it if you can.
Don’t be deceived by the ball’s size and weight. Futebal de Salao — known as futsal — isn’t a duller, slower version of soccer. In fact, it puts the fancy into the footwork of the game the rest of the world knows as football.
This fall, Brazilian Soccer Schools is coming to the North Shore for the first time. The local franchise is owned by Phil English, a Handsworth Secondary alumni who played in the premier league, and Junior Mulingtapang, whose 12-year-old son Ethan is earning a reputation as one of the province’s most promising soccer players. The two men are both strength and conditioning coaches with their own personal training businesses.
“I love the quick thinking, the quick play of futsal,” English says just before he and Mulingtapang lead a co-ed group of young Brazilian Soccer Schools students through their paces at a four-day summer camp in Burnaby. “It’s a bit like chess and understanding your next two steps. It’s getting the kids to be creative and test their limits.”
Soccer’s most illustrious players credit futsal with giving them the skills they needed to excel. They grew up poor with no access to special training camps. But anything can be rolled up to become a ball and nets can be imagined out of thin air.
Emphasis is placed on intricate footwork using both the strong and weak foot. With constant practice and repetition, the goal is to be able to do the moves without looking so you can concentrate on what you want to do with the ball after you’ve deked your opponent.
“It gives you an upper hand on the technical side,” says Ethan Mulingtapang, who plays with the Coquitlam Metro-Ford SC in the B.C. Soccer Premier League. “It’s not physical — it’s more tactical and technical.”
To help the brain retain those skills, samba music — with a bit of Ricky Martin thrown in — is played in the background.
“Its heavy beat sets the mood,” says Huw Harris, director of Brazilian Soccer Sports Canada. While most parents want to tell their kids to turn off the music when they’re studying, Harris says “a lot of studies suggest that you learn and retain skills when you listen to music.”
Harris regrets he didn’t know about Brazilian soccer earlier in his coaching career. It would have kept him and his wife a lot drier as they watched their children play soccer in the rain.
But playing indoors is only one of the perks in such a wet climate. Harris says that while soccer is always attracting new players, up to 30 per cent of kids don’t want to play after their first season. They don’t have the skills to keep the ball in their possession and too much time is spent watching others run away with it. With futsal training, each player has his or her foot on the ball constantly and the repetition lends itself to confidence building.
“The kids get ten times the number of touches on the ball,” Harris says. “They discover awareness of the ball and become successful much more quickly…. They become more engaged and want to learn more. That’s the psychology for you — most humans are turned off by things that are very difficult so you go on to something else.”
Because futsal’s also a game of the mind — you plan your moves and passes — girls and boys can excel equally.
“I like the fast pace and how you have to think quicker and play quicker,” 14-year-old Adriana says after the first day of last week’s training camp in Burnaby. “You think about what you’re going to do before you do it. Futsal isn’t about how big and tall you are. It’s about how much skill you have and how fast you can think.”
The Brazilian Soccer Schools program is already very successful in Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey. English and Mulingtapang are excited about bringing it to the North Shore. They will host the first session, which starts September 3, every Friday night at Westview Elementary in North Vancouver.
There are three co-ed age groups: five- to seven-year-olds at 5:15 p.m.; seven- to nine-year-olds at 6:15 p.m.; and 10- to 14-year-olds at 7:25. Each skills session is followed by a three-on-three match. There is also a U-11 girls development group on Mondays. It is made up of academy players from the NS Fury and NS Torrent U-11 teams. You can find out more or register at BrazilianSoccerSchools.ca.
This story originally appeared in the North Shore News Fall Registration special section, which highlights local activities.
