Futsal (indoor soccer) scores big in winter

By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor

Remy Champt, a Belgian-born soccer player, artist and merchant marine living in Traverse City, sparked local interest in indoor soccer over a decade ago, long before the sport was recognized by most in the region. One summer, Champt and his son Tyler met up with a group of people who had started gathering informally at F and M Park each Tuesday to play small-sided soccer with pop-up nets. When autumn rolled around, with its inevitable early darkness and colder weather, he proposed renting the gym at Northwestern Michigan College. He would teach them a fun game that was a true companion to outdoor soccer, and which could be played during the long, snow-laden winters. “Futsal” had an intriguing name as well as a colorful history.

Futsal, while a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States (only three years ago, futsal balls were practically unheard of in Traverse City’s sporting goods stores, and had to be purchased online), has been a well-established sport for over eight decades in the rest of the world. According to the website of the English Football Association (the group was established in 1863), “futsal fever … owes a great deal of its success and all of its appeal to the streets and playgrounds of South America where the game was first conceived.”

In 1930, Uruguay hosted soccer’s first-ever World Cup, and won the championship, much to its citizens’ delight. According to lore, everywhere in the capital of Montevideo people were joyfully kicking soccer balls. Juan Carlos Ceriani, a YMCA physical education instructor from Argentina, noticed some players using a basketball court as a modified pitch (or field). He then created a “small soccer” game that used five players per side instead of the outdoor version’s 11, with the walls being out of bounds. The smaller, heavier ball was developed to discourage big bouncy moves, and to instill smaller, more frequent touches and rapid passes between teammates.

The name of this new game, variously “futebol de salao” in Portuguese or “futbol de sala” in Spanish (both loosely meaning “hall football”) was eventually shortened to “futsal.” It grew quickly in popularity, and soon appeared in the streets of Brazil, which dominated the sport in South America for several decades. Today’s Brazilian soccer superstars such as Pele and Ronaldo attribute their skills to the time they spent playing futsal in their youth. Another star athlete, Zico, states, “Everything I had as a Brazilian soccer player I owed to the game of futsal.” Today futsal is played all over the world by both professionals and amateurs, and is regulated, like outdoor soccer, by the Federation Internationale de Football (FIFA).

Marshall Collins, Jr., has witnessed firsthand the evolution of soccer and futsal in northern Michigan. The son of migrant workers attended high school in Northport, when his father accepted a year-round position as a minister at the Methodist Northport Indian Mission Church near Gills Pier. The school had one of the county’s few soccer programs in 1990, along with Leland and the Leelanau School. Although he’d enjoyed American football more as a youth in Florida, “there was no football in Northport, so it was situational,” he laughed. “During lunchtime or breaks, we would kick the ball.”

He played goalkeeper while attending Concordia College in Ann Arbor, earning a teaching degree. “In the winter, we would play indoor; it was one of the best experiences I ever had. You have your faster reaction times, watch your angles. I had to think everything through in all situations. With indoor, it’s so fast, it really increased my intensity,” in the game.

Collins returned to Northport as a newly-minted social sciences and physical education teacher. He also assisted his former coach, Brian Kimmerley, with the boys’ soccer team, and in time succeeded him. Although he now works as a teaching consultant through the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District, he looks forward to his 15th year guiding young players at Northport in the fall.

Meanwhile, winters up north can be long, dark and cold. After playing in the summer Hispanic League for several years, he found out about their recently established competitive indoor league, which runs from January to April.

“I’m not a real outdoorsy person,” he admitted, “I don’t ski or anything, so for people like me, it’s something to do when it’s cold outside.”

He also plays weekly in a non-competitive indoor soccer team through TBAYS in Traverse City. It’s not futsal, technically, which follows FIFA rules. But, he said, “It’s pretty fun. There’s all different levels of players there: women and men, ages from about 20s to 50s. All good, clean fun!”

The Soccer Buds are another non-competitive group playing a key role in spreading the word about futsal. That ragtag group in F and M Park, which resembled a wandering tribe of soccer nomads, eventually formed an email list in order to alert each other to drop-in soccer play dates at various fields: “Cherry Bend Park on Thursday at 7 p.m.? What about TC West Junior High?”

This email list would often have a person’s name followed by the words “Soccer Bud” to distinguish them in the moderator’s mind from the other contacts in her list; eventually the name for the group stuck. The group is open to anyone who wants to play, often includes several family members, and averages 60 to 70 people at a time.

Each year, as summer diminishes into fall and winter, the moderator makes a series of phone calls and emails to various gyms and organizations, looking to rent space for weekly scrimmages. Whoever shows up pays a small fee to contribute to the gym rental; teams form up spontaneously each time, and everyone eventually plays everyone else. Here too is where various threads of the soccer and futsal community weave in and out: new people in town rub elbows with seasoned referees; former club players kick off against soccer moms; amazing Hispanic Leaguers score against college standouts; and preteens strategize with 40- and 50-somethings to pass the ball.

Jeff Ross of Cedar is a longtime soccer referee who has been involved in the sport for 28 years in northern Michigan. Several years ago, he organized the indoor Hispanic Futsal League, ”with the help of some other referees and other interested parties. We found the indoor sport of futsal to be a natural way of continuing to play in the winter months. There are teams from several counties — Leelanau, Grand Traverse, Benzie, and some from the Cadillac area.”

Not everyone in the league is Hispanic, especially in recent years with the changes in immigration laws that have affected agricultural workers. Locals of varying ages and walks of life can participate, as well as people who have moved to northern Michigan from all over the world, including Morocco, the Netherlands, Brazil, Uganda, Argentina, the United Kingdom and the Caribbean. “It’s really an international league; people don’t realize how many foreign-born people are here,” he explained.

Several generations of family also play futsal together, both in the league and in weekly informal drop-ins, Ross noted. “The Mosqueda family out of Leland: there’s Grandpa Noel in goal, at midfield are his sons Noe and Tony, and then a couple grandkids up top.” He credits high school junior Tony’s outstanding footwork and ability to deliver goals for Leland’s high school team — the school advanced to the regional semifinals this year in their division — in part to his long involvement in the Hispanic League from a young age.

Another group of players fueling the futsal fire are students at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC). Those who grew up in the region may have played a different version of indoor soccer at a facility south of Traverse City that resembled a hockey rink with artificial turf. They would kick the ball against the walls, which is not part of either soccer or futsal rules. However, with several players from the Hispanic League and community drop-in games attending NMC, it was a natural step for them to create a new club team (the school’s first sports team, as a matter of fact) in the winter of 2013. Additionally, the club team now plays in the futsal league, which will help them prepare for the outdoor soccer season next fall.

“So it’s a nice mix … It grows our community,” Ross said. “And there’s always food,” he joked. “I would not put this league together but for the food. Again, that’s an outgrowth of the Hispanic tradition at the outdoor league. Sunday’s a day dedicated to futbol or futsal or soccer. But it doesn’t just include the ball and the players. It includes the entire family: small taquerias set up and a variety of [authentic Mexican] foods offered. And so it gives the whole family an opportunity to come out, watch, participate in different ways.”

For more information about the many futsal and soccer opportunities in northwest lower Michigan, please visit the Traverse Area Soccer Community on Facebook.