Our U16 group stretched themselves with some adult futsal, in Watford @ the new FA Futsal 5’s League,
with a friendly v St Albans Futsal. Great game based experience for the boys, who played with pace and determination from start to finish. A good balance of player ownership in rotating positions, as well as match challenges set by Mavericks Coaches Flavio Damasio and Joe Hutton. The squad worked on set-piece play, two-touch passing and one-touch finishing at the back post.
The team played a high full-court press to put the opponent under constant pressure, winning and recycling the ball well, but highlighting frailties in their own defensive recovery. Great match experience v adults and learning points to improve on. Feedback from the players was around maintaining positional discipline and quick recovery of shape when out of possession. Excellent to see the boys creating opportunities and completing attacks with goals!
The next stage of development, along with the rest of the country, is to push the players into regular age-appropriate competitive fixtures, in order to facilitate player development and ensure the game continues to grow with healthy sustainable competition. Well played!