Thursday, February 14, 2008

Pele never played Futsal by Carlos Mateus

Just to keep you well informed in futsal; Pelé never played organized futsal, he was raised in a small town and his father was a local soccer hero in that community. Pele played outdoors soccer in his home town youth soccer games.
The real futsal player making his way in soccer is the 18 year old Alexandre Pato, now playing in the Milan Italy, beside Kaka, who was also from futsal. Pato played Futsal from 6 years old till 15. and was spotted by a soccer scout, at 16 he turned professional soccer player. Playing for the
Internacional Soccer club, pf the Brazilian premier league, He scored a goal in the World Club
Championships , in Japan , against Barcelona, Spain, and put on a good show, and won the 2006 world club cup. Pato only played 16 month of professional soccer, and is in his way to be Fifa player of the year.
In Brazil youth players are developed in futsal, to make a change to soccer is an option. The majority stay playing futsal.
According to experts , the age to change from futsal to soccer is between 12 to 15 years old. Most of the professional soccer teams have futsal program, and those who are spotted as potential soccer players, are put on in a soccer boarding school program, with everything paid, including; house and wages for the parents. It is a system that works down here, just like youth hockey in Canada, parenting are behind to get in the money with their children.
Robinho, Kaka, Ronaldinho and Pato, never played organized youth soccer, just futsal. all of them were put in a soccer program by their adopted clubs.
Falcao, the best futsal player in the world, try to play on grass, but did not succeed , he was 26 years old, now he is getting better pay in futsal.
If you could convince the Canadian Soccer Association to have the Canadian children play futsal until they are 12 years old before change to play soccer. believe me , you would make history in Canadian Soccer, as well as we would see Canadian score goals.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm pretty sure Pele played Futsal... there is no indoor soccer in Brazil...only Futsal... almost every kid plays "indoor soccer" in school (as part of Phy.ed. in Brazil, so they futsal... Also, most people do make the switch to outdoor soccer when teenager, but still play futsal every so often.