The first record of an organised five-a-side brand of football
dates back to 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay. The same year the pioneering
football nation hosted the first FIFA World Cup™ at its
brand-new Estadio Centenario, an Argentine-born coach by the name
of Juan Carlos Ceriani, so tired of rain-soaked pitches and cancelled
training sessions, brought the game indoors for the first time.
With an eye to making his new indoor game more accessible, but
also more organised, he put together a set of rules strikingly
similar to those that govern futsal today. The children of Montevideo
took to the small-sided game with aplomb, and it was played in
YMCA houses throughout the capital. The hybrid version was perfectly
suited to either outdoor or indoor venues, as all that was needed
was a small, basketball-size court.
Hazy origins
While Ceriani was fostering the game Uruguay, a similar small-sided
game was being played on the streets of Sao Paolo, Brazil.
The game quickly spread throughout South America as 'futbol sala'
(room football, or indoor football) or 'futebol de salao' in Brazil
- where the first local leagues sprang up like weeds.
Going global
It didn't take long for the game to spread to every corner of
Latin America, and the first international futsal competition
kicked off in 1965. And in a bit of a shock it was Paraguay that
got off the blocks best, taking home the first South American
honours. Brazil won the next six Championships between 1965 and
1979. The yellow-clad pioneers of the five-a-side art then went
on to extend their dominance with victories in the 1980 and 1984
Pan American games.
With a lesser number of players, a smaller field and a weighted
ball, futsal demanded the emergence of new strategies. Quick feet
and a quick mind were imperative, as was the use of the toes and
the bottom of the foot.
The International Federation for Futebol de Sala (FIFUSA) was
officially founded in Brazil in 1971 and the first Futsal
World Championship (though not yet affiliated to FIFA) took place
in 1982 in the five-a-side hotbed of Sao Paolo. Continuing their
stranglehold on the game, Brazil again took the honours with a
team studded with stars from the outdoor game. They then went
on to repeat their winning ways in Spain three years later in
1985, before losing their crown in Australia to rivals Paraguay.
1989 FIFA World Championship in Holland
1992 FIFAWorld Championship in Hong Kong
1996 FIFA World Championship in Spain
2000 FIFA World Championship in Guatemala
2004 FIFA World Championship in Chinese Taipei
2008 FIFA World Championship in Brazil
Records and team lists of Futsalroos games from 1989
FUTSAL IN AUSTRALIA
Futsal was introduced to Australia in 1972 by Dawn Gilligan, then
working at the Revesby YMCA. The year before was a wet soccer
season and Dawn had heard about Futsal ‘indoor soccer’
and introduced it to the centre. The sport slowly spread to the
other states. Australia has staged a National Futsal League in
the past. Plans are well on the way for a revamped National Futsal
League governed by Football Federation Australia.
FUTSAL IN QUEENSLAND
Futsal first started at Murgon, in the South Burnett in 1981 and
started in Brisbane at MacGregor in 1984.
