Futsal is such a fast, fun and fluid sport that it’s easy to get stuck in style of play or one type of thought process, the truth is there are so many little things that we feel can really assist any player of any level get those small percentage gains that will help them become an even better player.
When I started playing futsal, I didn’t know any of this stuff so I feel it’s appropriate to share my experiences and knowledge in the hope of helping you on your journey as either a professional or amateur futsal player.
We will cover the following tips that will help you with your progression as a futsal player:
- Staying Fit and Healthy
- Staying Committed
- Training Hard
- Having The Right Equipment
- Team Work
- Using Substitutes
- Using Your Foot
- Knowing The Formations
- Movement
- Using The Goalkeeper
- Playing With The Best
- Avoiding Burnout
- Warming Up and Down
- Skill maintenance
- Keeping It Fun
There’s so much to cover, as you progress you’ll also discover areas that are more personal to yourself. Be sure to work on these and turn them from weaknesses to strengths.
Stay Fit and Healthy
When you’re competing as a futsal player, you need to maintain a high level of fitness in order to remain competitive.
You can do this by eating healthy, getting enough rest and not overloading your body and mind. Even if you’re not competing at a professional level why not stay fit and healthy for all the other benefits it’s going to bring you, right?
When you’re not at futsal training consider doing things like:
- Eating nonprocessed foods
- Reducing sugar intake
- Reducing or avoiding alcohol and drugs
Your mental health and wellbeing are just as important, you can’t play futsal at your highest level if you’re stressed or unhappy. Make sure to spend time with family and friends away from futsal so it gives you an opportunity to have a rest mentally.
Some of the things you can do to ensure you stay stress-free are:
- Schedule activities outside of futsal with family and friends
- Read books
- If something is stressing you out, talk to someone about it
Stay Committed
As with anything staying committed to your futsal is going to help you become a better player in the long run, no one who ever did anything really good got their overnight or by cutting corners, not that we know of anyway!
You need to turn up to games, training sessions and other scheduled club activities. In order to stay committed you need to understand what your long term goal is with futsal. Is it to won the league, become a pro or take out your bitter rivals?
It helps if you have a teammate or close friends that can help motivate you if your feeling tired or distracted, I’ve found it to be a major plus.
Stick to your training schedule, game times and team outings and the rest should flow from there.
Ensure you set goals with timeframes and stick to them, share these with a few close people like a parent, spouse, child or best friend.
Ask them to monitor your progress, if they feel like you aren’t doing what you should let them know it’s okay to give you a mouth full of motivation.
Don’t forget why you are doing what you are doing, to become a professional player or just to have fun you need to have a clear understanding of what that is.
Writing down your “Why?” can be a major help.
Train Hard
When you turn up to training, give it 110%. You aren’t going to get where you want to be if you don’t try your best.
You can also partake in extra training sessions, it doesn’t have to stop at team training. Do drills by yourself, go for runs and join a gym.
You need to be slick on the ball but you also need cardio and strength to help you.
Some of the things you can do to increase your cardio and strength outside of futsal training are:
- Swimming, Swim intervals of 50-100 followed by short rest periods. This will help increase your endurance.
- HIIT, High-Intensity Interval Training, is great for futsal as you’ll increase your explosive pace over short spaces which is what every futsal player should be seeking to improve upon.
- Compound movements, think squats, deadlifts etc. These exercises are great for building muscle and strength but will also increase your explosive capacity on the futsal court.
Have The Right Equipment
At a basic foundation level, you need the right type of equipment, without you don’t stand a chance.
Whether you are an outfield player, goalkeeper, referee or a manager you are going to need the right stuff.
You can’t expect to turn up to a futsal game wearing outdoor boots, they simply won’t work and they will be dangerous. Goalkeepers need things like kneepads, gloves designed for futsal and a host of other optional add ons.
Time and time again I’ve seen players turn up to match day in a pair of Dunlop Volleys only to find that they suffer when up against the best.
Sport’s evolving fast, you need the best equipment to stand a chance.
Learn How To Work As Part Of A Team
You and your team need to know each other and understand how one another operate. Things like verbal communications, hand signals and body language should are well understood and rehearsed on the training field.
Building teamwork and comradery doesn’t stop on the futsal court, there are a host of other things you can do outside of futsal that can make a major difference come match day.
Consider doing things like:
- Team dinners, have the team get together off the court at a local restaurant or even a bbq at a local park with or without family. This will help build friendships and comradery.
- Play a different sport, get together for a game of basketball or another chosen sport. It’s a good opportunity for everyone to get out of their comfort zone and have a laugh at each others expense.
- Relay games, things like long distance runs carrying heavy items as a team or up a hill. Think big heavy log carried by a few while the other group runs then switches over etc.
Don’t forget to keep training and working on tactics as a team, ultimately nothing is going to beat that when it comes to teamwork.
When the whole team knows and understands something then there will be a huge positive correlation on the court during an actual game.
Use Substitutes At The Right Time
Knowing when to use a substitute at the right time is critical for your team’s success and crucial for any player to avoid long term serious injury.
Futsal players can get burnt out easily during games and will need replacement, the manager needs to be aware of this and watch for signs such as:
- Players losing focus
- Lack of pass accuracy
- Failure to track back
- Unable to complete easy passes
- Players appearing visibly fatigued
There is also an onus on players to the right thing and put their hand up when they are feeling tired or fatigued.
Everyone loves to play every minute of every match however the reality is the longer a player stays on the court and the longer they play fatigued they will open themselves up to an injury and their team’s overall performance will also suffer.
Use Your Foot Correctly
If you are used to playing football/soccer, then it’s highly likely you’ll need some adjustment when it comes to playing futsal.
One of the biggest adjustments that you are going to be faced with is the use of your foot/boot on the futsal court.
The use of the sole of your boot is going to be crucial to your ongoing success/ongoing development as a futsal player.
You simply do not have the benefit of lots of space like soccer so it’s important that you reduce the amount of bounce or a poor first touch which will result in a turnover, something you need to avoid.
The use of your sole in futsal will allow you to:
- Trap the futsal ball
- Manipulate the ball with the whole surface of your sole, think backward, sidewards and forwards ball movement
- You’ll be able to roll the ball any way that you are able to control it which opens up a bag of tricks for anyone who can master them
The best way for you to master the use of your sole in futsal is to simply start practicing, so what are you waiting for? Grab a futsal ball and get out there and start trapping the ball.
Understand And Know The Formations
You and your teammates must know the formations of futsal in order to have any chance of being the best you can.
Far too often I’ve witnessed teams and players who have either come from soccer or never played futsal before try and play “freestyle”.
“Freestyle” futsal works at very basic amateur levels, once these players/teams come up against teams that are well prepared and understand rotations/formations they often get torn to bits even if they have more gifted players.
The formations will always reign supreme in futsal and it’s important that any team or player gets comfortable with these and uses them to their advantage.
Don’t Be A Statue
There is so much movement in futsal, you cannot afford to stand still. That being said you don’t have to run/sprint everywhere.
A lot of the time futsal can be played at a pace slightly faster than walking, that being said don’t be fooled.
Between switching formations to playing different rotations it’s important that you keep it moving in order to be in sync with your team and truly dominate.
Get The Goalkeeper Involved
You can tip the scales in any game by getting the goalkeeper involved if your playing over two legs chasing a game or trying to squeeze on in before the buzzer.
Something that’s not seen very often in outdoor soccer, the goalkeeper taking up a post as a 6th player in futsal is quite regular.
While leaving the goal empty and exposed if your team is comfortable with retaining possession you can deploy the goalkeeper to take up a post as an outfield player.
This will aid your team as the opposition will always have one player unmarked, theoretically, you should always have an advantage.
This should only be used for short periods of time until the desired objective is used, it;s advisable to substitute the goalkeeper for an outfield player during these time for maximum efficiency.
Play With The Best
Like it or not, if you want to reach your peak as a futsal player, you will need to play with the best players and team that you can find.
To do this, you need to make yourself known. You may need to get yourself known before this can happen.
Start by joining a smaller lesser known team in the same competition/league. Do your best to help your team win as many games/trophies as possible.
As your team becomes more known bigger players/teams will come to hear about your team and start to take notice of the players within, this will be your opportunity to join the best.
You can also approach the biggest teams and ask to join training sessions or partake in trials.
Even if you join the team as a mediocre player, after repeated exposure to the best players at training sessions/matches time after time your overall game will improve overall.
Don’t Over Exerete Yourself
When you play futsal either socially or at a higher level you will have a lot of opportunities to play extra games almost every day of the week.
Although it’s fun to play futsal, we recommend that you don’t over commit yourself by overtraining/playing.
Try to get at least 2-3 rest days in per week, if you just can’t resist the urge ensure you have “light” futsal days.
Warm Up and Warm Down
Probably the most important thing you can do before any physical exertion, not limited to the beautiful game of futsal.
Warming up is vital to preparing your body for the futsal that lies ahead, not only will your body be ready but your mind will be prepped as well
When you warm up blood pumps to your muscles as well as oxygen to the cells in your muscles. Warming up should put your body under a low level of pressure but not to the point of being fatigued.
Some light exercises to warm up are:
- Light Jog
- Sprints
- Lunges
- Jumping Jacks
- Squats
You will also reduce the chance of injury as muscle tension will be heavily reduced, something all futsal players will be keen to avoid.
Warming down post futsal is as important as the warm-up, make no mistake. Just because you may feel perfectly fine after your game/training session doesn’t mean that you haven’t or won’t come down injured.
To warm down simply engage in light stretching, a walk transition to a light job and some light ball work.
If you are having short breaks in between games then you really should consider an ice bath, ice baths are great for reducing bruises and any knocks you may have picked up in-game or training.Ice baths are also great for reducing pain and inflammation.
Keep Fine Tuning Your Skills
Practice, practice and more practice. Talent will only make up for a small percentage of your performance as a futsal player.
What’s more important than talent? Hard work and dedication will eventually outshine talent that doesn’t work hard.
If you are able to get a few friends or teammates together then you should, use the extra time to practice skills such as dribbling, shooting, defending and small sided games.
The more time you put in the better you’re going to get, it’s as simple as that.
If you are just starting out in futsal then take a look at our guide on some drills for beginners here.
It’s All About Fun
Life is short, anything you do outside of work/study needs to be fun. Why does it need to be fun? Because if you don’t have fun and enjoy what you do then sooner or later you will stop doing it.
It’s likely that you have some interest in soccer or futsal, so a few ways you can ensure that you keep things enjoyable are:
- Play with friends
- Don’t over exert your self
- Stay fit and healthy
- Don’t over analyze loses, focus on positives and work on weak areas
When you win games of futsal ensure you enjoy the moment but don’t get too caught up and remember that each game is a part of the process on you becoming an overall better futsal player game by game, win, lose or draw.
