Futsal

Futsal is a type of soccer played indoors on a wooden floor. kind of like playing soccer on a basketball court.

Rules

There are two goals on each side just like a soccer field, but the goals are a little bit smaller. There are four players on a court and a goalie. Five players in all. The ball is heavy so went it hits the wooden floor it won’t bounce that high. It’s not so heavy that you could get a serious injury but it is fairly heavy. When it goes out, there are no throw-ins like in soccer. You pass it in with your feet. When you do pass the ball in the ball has to be exactly on the line. If the ball isn’t on the line then the other team gets the ball. There are 20 minutes in each half, 40 minutes in all. The subs can also go on during the game and not when the play is stopped. If a team makes 6 fouls in one half than the opponents get a penalty. There are also yellow cards and red cards. A yellow card is if you make a rough or bad tackle which would be the first warning. A red card is two yellows or a very serious and rough tackle which would be a straight red and you would be sent off the court.

History

Futsal was founded by a man named Juan Ceriani Gravier a teacher in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1930. He wanted to create a game that was like soccer but indoors. When he was making up the sport he wanted to get rules from other sports such as basketball with the five players on the court rule and the duration of the game from water polo that is 40 minutes. Also the size of the goal and the size of the court, from handball. The game that he created slowly started to get popular in Latin America. But the rules were not uniform so two men from the YMCA modified the rules and it became a sport.

Now that I have told you about this very unique sport why don’t you try to play it. If you can’t go to a Futsal arena then try to play it on your driveway or even make up your own sport.