Entry I: The First Session

This journal is dedicated to futsal. I wanted to take this on for emotional, recreational, and — above all — physical reasons. But there is another purpose behind it: instead of watching from the sideline, I want to be inside every activity myself. First, this way I get far richer results and "hidden" details that an outside observer would never see. Second, I can share these observations with coaches so we understand children better and apply things more effectively on court. I believe I can do this well, because I am an athlete with the physical condition it demands and enough grounding in sport science to design the work around futsal itself.

The first question was how to join a team — or whether to train alone. Training alone would give me no match experience at all, so the solution was clear: find a team, and supplement it with practical sessions at home, which I'll describe below. I found one — AEK (Athletic Union of the Deaf, Cyprus). I am deaf myself, so it was a natural fit. I got the June training dates: every Friday, one and a half hours.

Preparation at home

Before Friday arrived, I inflated a volleyball. I did have a proper football, but my thinking was this: learn first with the lighter ball, because it is harder for touch and ball control. Remember the principle — learn with the difficult tool first, then move to the standard one. It's the same idea as the famous Pelé story: his father had him juggling with fruit — an orange, I believe. The catch was that the fruit broke easily, so he had to juggle without destroying it. That constraint changed Pelé's level. Sadly, you don't see fruit drills anymore — and fair enough, it's a waste of good fruit — but there's always an alternative, like a balloon filled with water. What I'm describing is extremely difficult, and anyone who manages it has excellent touch.

Back to the volleyball: I did simple passing drills against a wall, then progressed to two walls, then something more complex — striking the ball in the air against the wall. After that, dribbling moves. I'll need those when I face an opponent — don't imagine I'll be doing anything like Messi, but I want to learn how to move away from a defender and set myself up for the next pass. I did this for three days. Nothing spectacularly hard — and that was deliberate.

The day before the session, I went to an empty futsal court. Nobody around, 11:00 in the midday heat — and note that this time I brought the football, not the volleyball. I came for shooting, which I would certainly need, and sprints with the ball. I placed the ball stationary at a spot and worked through different shot types: knuckle, curve, slice, power shots and so on. In the end, my most reliable finish turned out to be the slice shot.

If you asked me why I kept the training so simple, I'd give you two reasons. First, you have to give the body time to find the basics — if I loaded it with complex, heavy work, the body wouldn't absorb even the fundamentals I was trying to learn. Second, I wanted to save the real learning for the team session itself: to see where I actually make mistakes and where I fail easily.

Training day

The day came. I was there at 6:30 in the evening; training was at 7:00. Remember this: arrive early — not only out of respect, but because you must never skip the warm-up. When I got there, I saw a few people signing and understood this must be the team, so I joined them. I met the coach and the captain, and we talked until the rest of the players arrived — okay, some people are always late.

At 7:00 we were all ready to go on — every one of us deaf — but the courts were full and nobody was coming off. I saw the coach struggling to communicate with a facility employee who couldn't understand him, so I stepped in. I explained that we had a 7:00 booking. The answer: there had been some changes and we'd go on at 7:30. I asked whether that meant we'd only get one hour instead of one and a half; he said no, we'd get the full session, so that settled it. Still — it was poor handling on their part to move us like that. Take note: if you want loyal, steady customers, your service handling has to be excellent. While I was still talking to him, I saw the team heading off to warm up on their own — it was 7:20 — so I left him and joined them. A good sign, actually: clearly this has happened to them many times before, and they've built their own solution around it.

At 7:30 we were on court. The coach ran us through a warm-up to get us moving — but the exercises were different from what I know from tennis. If you want the detail: jumps, jump-and-sprint, side runs, run-stop-backpedal, and other football-style patterns. Then we took balls and did shooting drills — pass and shoot and so on — until 8:00.

The match

Then came the friendly game, with one rule from the coach: three touches maximum, then pass. So the whole game was built on passing and learning to play key passes. Everything I had done at home against the wall paid off immediately. Above all, when I had the ball it felt glued to my foot — exactly the effect I told you the volleyball training would produce — and I handled it comfortably on court.

We conceded first. We had built up for a shot, failed, and the opponents took the ball — and here's the bad part: all of us were in their half, with two of their players in ours. I sprinted back like Bolt but couldn't save it. Fine — only 0–1, plenty of time to equalize.

Then I noticed something a few minutes later: I had touched the ball very few times. And then I understood why — the opponents were keeping possession for long stretches. I tried to win the ball, but they exchanged a hundred passes, and with that they were playing with our minds. We lost concentration, chased their rhythm, and conceded again. 0–2.

We needed a solution, and nothing came to me at first — I was inexperienced in futsal — until an idea arrived. When they passed the ball around, I would consistently press the man in possession; two teammates tracked their defenders, and we kept one man back in case of a lob pass. They kept exchanging passes until I found their rhythm — now it was effectively 2 v 1. A teammate rotated onto the other opponent, covering my position, while I shifted into the middle to cut the pass to the free man. We let them play it backwards, I followed the ball back, and it was 2 v 1 again. We pressed until he tried to pass to his goalkeeper — I intercepted and scored into an open goal. 1–2.

They switched to lob passes, but we were prepared. I abandoned my position and sprinted back toward our defence, dragging my opponent with me — which meant our defender could win the ball cleanly (remember, three touches: the receiver couldn't do much with it). He passed to me, I carried it forward and released it to our players — one defender against three of us in attack. Pass after pass until we were close to goal; I shot and we scored. 2–2. Those two goals were built from patience and pressure on the ball.

Time passed, and by 8:50 the score was 4–4. By the end we were just playing normal futsal, without heavy tactics. Then came one final phase: we had a corner, and I was positioned around the second penalty spot, waiting to defend in case the ball came out to our side. Instead, my teammate exchanged passes and pulled everyone — including all our players — into the box. He shot, the goalkeeper blocked it, and the rebound came to me. I took my chance — the problem being that I had to shoot with my weak foot, my right. So I decided to place it as a controlled shot: the keeper couldn't see me through the wall of players in front of him, and from that distance I put the ball into the corner of the net. 5–4.

We played as if it were a final, we won, and we celebrated like we'd lifted the World Cup — fair enough, we'd sweated for it, it was a good session, and it deserved to be enjoyed. The strange thing is that nobody managed to kick me in the legs all evening. Lucky, I suppose. That was the end of the session, and I felt good. Let's see next week whether it gets harder.

Summary & takeaways

My first futsal session confirmed the approach I set out with. Preparation with constraints works: three days of wall passes with a lighter volleyball translated directly into first-touch quality and confidence in a three-touch game — the harder tool made the standard one feel easy. Simple before complex: keeping home training basic gave my body the fundamentals, and I saved the real diagnostics for the match itself, where mistakes actually show. Tactical problems have observable solutions: we went 0–2 down because the opponents controlled possession and our concentration; the comeback came from reading their passing rhythm and building a coordinated press, not from individual effort. Reading the game matters more than raw speed: every goal I was involved in came from patience, positioning, and pressure — including a weak-foot finish that relied on the goalkeeper's blocked sightline rather than power. Finally, off-court details count too: arriving early, warming up properly, and even how a facility handles a booking change are all part of the sporting experience. Next entry: whether any of this survives week two.

— G.S.