By Randy Vogt, Director of Public Relations, Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association
January 12, 2012-Are you ready for some futsal? The Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) is very pleased to announce that its New York Futsal-Manhattan league is going strong this winter with 113 teams-–both travel teams and intramural squads. 55 boys teams, 50 girls teams and eight co-ed squads are having fun at the Tito Puente Education Complex and the James Weldon Johnson School in Manhattan. The schedule kicked off on December 10 and will conclude on March 11.
Meanwhile, New York Futsal-Long Island is kicking off in Nassau and Suffolk counties this winter. Approximately 50 teams, both boys and girls squads, will be playing in the inaugural season being organized by Nick Gordon and Rafael Morais, who are former professional athletes and current soccer trainers. Nick and Rafael are working under the direction of New York Futsal Director Jaime Arias. The schedule will start this month. Venues include Friends Academy in Locust Valley, Paul Gelinas Junior High School in Setauket, Arrowhead Elementary School and Minnesauke Elementary School in East Setauket, R.C. Murphy Junior High School in Stony Brook and Mount Sinai Elementary School in Mount Sinai. Plans include expanding New York Futsal leagues to all areas of ENYYSA in the future.
The origins of futsal can be traced to Uruguay in 1930, where, amid the euphoria that greeted that country's victory at the inaugural World Cup on home soil, there was a soccer ball seemingly being kicked on every street corner in the capital of Montevideo. Juan Carlos Ceriani, an Argentinian physical education instructor living there at the time, observed many youngsters practicing soccer on basketball courts because of the shortage of soccer fields. It was there and then that the idea for a five-a-side variation of soccer came about and futsal was born.
Futsal is the only version of indoor soccer approved by FIFA, soccer’s world governing body. FIFA hosts the Futsal World Cup every four years, similar to the four-year cycle for the World Cup and Women’s World Cup. The next Futsal World Cup will be played in Thailand in 2012 and the defending champion is Brazil.
Futsal promotes quality touches and ball control in tight spaces and players take those skills outside when they play soccer. Many of Brazil’s best players ever such as Pelé, Zico, Socrates, Bebeto, Ronaldinho and Marta all played futsal as children. The current World Cup champion nation, Spain, are former Futsal World Cup champions.
“Futsal is simply the best complement to soccer. As a club and Division 1 collegiate coach, I use futsal to develop and increase my players’ technical ability and quick thinking in preparation for our outdoor competitive seasons,” commented Jennifer Medina, the Coaching Director of New York Futsal and a former captain of the United States Women’s Futsal Team. “By splitting up our roster into two or three teams, the extra bonus was that every player got a lot of playing time and had an absolute blast, which made our entire squad better and more confident.”