Futsal is a variant of soccer that is played indoors on a smaller hard court. It originated in 1930 in Uruguay when children played soccer indoors using rules adapted from other sports. Key aspects of futsal include shorter game periods of 20 minutes each, a smaller ball, cumulative fouls, and the ability of the goalkeeper to handle the ball in certain areas. The local futsal club in Palenciana, Spain, called A.J. Palenciana, was created in 1988 and organizes an annual marathon tournament that attracts many teams.

1. What is Futsal?
By Elena Velasco Serrano, Juan Velasco Arjona and Manuel Gámez Vílchez
The main objective of futsal is to poke the ball into the opponent's goal to score a
goal. The futsal is played with the feet, except the goalkeeper, who can use his
hands in your area. This sport is very similar to football, but in some ways
adapted to the rules of other sports. For example, there are two types of penalties and
fouls are cumulative.
Each team has twelve players, five ones in the field and seven ones on the bench,
including goalkeeper and one of them shall act as the captain.
The length of the match is 40 minutes, divided in 2 two periods of 20 minutes
and 10 minutes of resting time.
Origins
The origin of futsal dates
back to 1930 in Uruguay.
Due to the lack of free fields,
children in Montevideo
started playing soccer at
basketball camps taught by
the professor Juan Carlos
Ceriani.
He drew with chalk the
goalposts on the walls, but
later he started using the
water-polo's goals. He use the rules of football, handball, basketball and even
water-polo to create this new sport. The futsal caused a sensation in Uruguay and
later it become famous in the rest of South America and was gradually extended
to several parts of the world.
Futsal arrived to Spain in the 70's, but there are different versions about the exact

2. year, some people says it arrived in 1971 to A Coruña. Others says this sport was
introduced in 1972 in the YMCA Club of Madrid.
At the institutional level the CSD decided that this new sport belonged to the
Amateur Football National Committee of the Spanish football federation. They
give a set of guidelines to his territorial federations to organized official futsal
competitions.
The first competition was celebrated in 1979, It was
won by “Time Interviú-XXV”.
Currently futsal is the sport with more players in
Spain. There are local, regional and national
leagues.
Our national team is, close to Brasil, the best team
of the world, Spain has won twice the futsal
wordlcup and six times the futsal Eurocup.
DID YOU KNOW?
Brazil are the current FIFA FUTSAL World
Champions and have won both the FIFA Football
World Cup and FUTSAL World Cup more times
than any other country.
Many of the world’s greatest footballers did not play
11 aside football until well into their teenage years.
FUTSAL is how many of the giants of world
football were introduced to the beautiful game,
particularly in South America and Europe.
There are over 30 million registered FUTSAL
players worldwide. In Italy alone, it is estimated
that there are four million registered FUTSAL players compared to one million
registered 11 aside players.

3. The track of Futsal
By Cristian Orellana Ariza, Óscar Velasco Muñoz and Cristóbal Espadas Balmiza
The track consists of two lines of band and two goal lines. These form a rectangle.
The length must be between 25 meters and 42 meters maximum. Width must be
between 16 meters and 25 meters. When the match is international, the measures
range is reduced. The length must be between 38 and 42 meters and the width
between 20 and 25 meters.
Anyway, the track tend to have measures of 40x20 meters. On each side there is a
penalty area, which has a dimension of six meters from the goal line. This area is
where the goalkeeper can use his hands.
The double penalty is at four meters from the penalty area.

4. FUTSAL EQUIPMENT
By Patric Espadas Jiménez, Carmen Arjona Gámez and Patricia Chamizo Valdivia
The playing kit is made up of a football style jersey, shorts, socks, and
shinguards.
For footwear, non-marking court shoes
or specialist indoor football/FUTSAL
shoes are used.
They must have a plain and a non-
skid sole.

5. The goalkeeper must wear a different
coloured shirt to the rest of the team and
can wear long trousers to protect the legs
when diving. The goalkeeper will often
wear knee and/or elbow pads and
goalkeeper gloves either the standard
football variety or specialist FUTSAL
gloves that leave the finger tips exposed
(for easy ball handling).
The ball of Futsal is smaller than the
football’s one. It also has a heavier
weight than a regulation football.
The resulting restricted bounce of the
futsal ball makes it easier for young
or inexperienced players to master their
ball control skills and assists players
greatly with their dribbling, passing
and close control.

6. Main Rules
By Inés Orellana Hurtado, Alba Pinto Orellana and Silvia Gabriel Velasco
The way of playing futsal is really similar to football, but there are some main
rules you have to know:
Loan deal: There are two different ways of committing this infraction.
When the goalkeeper receives a voluntary pass from a companion and he
catches the ball with the hand
When the goalkeeper, after he has done a clearance or puts the ball in game, he
receives a pass from a companion before the ball has passed the midline or an
opponent has touched the ball.
Throw in: As the ball crosses
the lines side, for the soil or for
el air and his return the court
shall be by a pitch withn the
foot froom the places where out
the ball, for a player of team
contrary a who touched for last
time.

7. Cumulative Fouls: This rules
says that when a team have
commited five fouls, the next
one gives the opponent the
chance of kicking a double
penalty where there is no barrer.
The opponent can also decides
to kick the ball from the site
where the foul where commited
(without barrer)
Goalkeeper:
He can’t pass
the midline.
To do that he
has to change
his t-shirt.
This way, his
team plays
without
goalkeeper.
Substitutions: futsal has no limit of substitutions. You can do as many as you
want and whenever you want.

8. Technical-tactical skills
By Raul Soria Ariza, Samuel Luque Vílchez and Carla Gámez Raya
Many of the skills used in outdoor football come into play on the futsal court.
There are however, some notable technical skills frequently used in FUTSAL
which are directly influenced by the smaller, weighted ball and the smaller court
surface.
Two such skills are:
• trapping with the sole. As the ball
tends
to stay on the floor, the sole of the foot
is
often used to bring the ball under
control.
It is also used to protect possession and
in
moves to beat opposing players;
• the use of the toe to propel the ball.
Players
tend to be closed down very quickly in
futsal and the time the player has to
make a pass or to shoot can be limited to a split second. Therefore, the toe is often
used to play the ball. Even with a small backlift, the point of the toe connecting
with a futsal ball can produce a very powerful shot!

9. Finally, rotation is the most important collective skill in futsal. It consist in the
way how Players tend to rotate positions often and find they can be defending one
moment and attacking the next. FUTSAL encourages players to play in all
positions on the court, close to the lack of transition phase between attack and
defence, ask players for the necessity of adjust their positions quickly.

10. Futsal in Palenciana
By Rosario Antequera Ramirez, Marcos Arjona Muñoz, Rafa Gámez Montes, Carmen
Hurtado Vela and José Manuel Melero Espinosa.
The futsal club in Palenciana is “A.J.
Palenciana”. It was created in 1988 with a
crystal clear pursue, allow children play sports
and visit different cities and towns.
A.J. Palenciana is more than futsal. It
encompasses futsal, handball and basketball.
Many chidren go to do sport to most part of
Andalusia every weekend.
Currently, A.J. Palenciana plays in a
competition calls “Provincial Cordobesa”.
Maybe the most important futsal
competition we organized in Palenciana is
the “marathon”, when many teams from
other villages come to join in a competition
during 24 hours and teams play match all
the day and night long.

11. A.J. Palenciana won the
marathon in 2011.
The marathon of Palenciana
is well known in most part of
Andalusia.
The best retired player is
Antonio Cabello Plasencia. He
played as goalkeeper and
full-back and he was a coach
in the benjamin team.
Nowadays, some of our best players are Manuel Aguilar (15 years), Rafael
Gámez (14 years), Miguel Ramírez (11 years) and Juan Manuel Muñoz (9
years).
WE HOPE YOU ENJOY PLAYING FUTSAL!