José Gerardo Futsal Coach

Interview - José Gerardo - Globally Famed Portuguese Futsal Coach

By Chris KL Lau

In the world of Futsal, José Gerardo, is globally respected as one of the most renowned Futsal coaches in the world. Gerardo is a disciple of futsal which some say is one of the purest forms of football and which is growing in global popularity.

Hailing from his native Portugal and armed with both his Futsal UEFA B license and Football UEFA C license and with over thirty two years of experience training and coaching in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Azerbaijan, Sweden and China, Gerado is still looking for new challenges to help spread the joy of Futsal to even more players from all corners of the globe.

Success has followed Gerardo everywhere he has gone and his most recent titles include being the Champion of the Azores and Cup Winner with Sport Clube Barbarense of Portugal in the 2021-2022 season and becoming a Champion of Nanning City (U10) with Football Club Hongxu.

In an exclusive interview, José Gerardo, discussed why Futsal is developing so fast and becoming even more popular globally.

How important is Futsal in the development of football players? What are some key skills that can be learnt?

"I believe that the relationship between futsal and formative football has been explored a little, perhaps due to the difficulty of the coaches' relationship between the two modalities or due to their low procedural understanding. However, many football players have their training initiated in futsal due to the ease of access and this can help us understand that the court has positive influences.

The crucial point favorable to the use of futsal is the frequent participation of the player in the game, whether due to the number of actions related to the ball or the cognitive aspects in decision-making, since the reduced space requires a lot of intentional movements in search of positioning, since the smaller number of participants requires a greater amount of searching for spaces with and without the ball and close marking reduces the time for interactions between players. All this results in a very fast reading process, accelerating the tactical reasoning process of the game.

The most striking aspect of this relationship is that in each area of the football field, there are many, many futsal matches that can take place and come to life. The problem lies in the misunderstanding of eight vital laws, clearer in futsal, but which are also present in soccer, and sometimes neglected because we believe that the glamor of the soccer game and ancillary things are more important than the basic essence: quality of football. players, game intelligence, time, space, deception, pause, speed and accuracy."

Is Futsal a good pathway to professional football?

"Futsal is the modality of the future for men and women. It is just strange that the African continent doesn't embrace futsal as much, it has so many players with an enormous technical quality, lacking only the tactical component (knowledge of the game)."

You have had many experiences in different countries as a coach - What are your favourite memories?

"Thank God I was always well treated and respected in all countries! I loved China for its culture, people, and traditions."

How Young Should a Child Be When They Start to Play Futsal?

"Children up to 10 years old should play futsal. Why? Because if you take an hour of futsal training and compare it to soccer, they touch the ball 40 times more. Tight spaces, they make decisions, score goals, provide assists. The child interacts more, enjoys more."

In futsal there is no attack or defense, everything is the same thing. The principle of everything is not to lose the ball, finishing on goal is not always the best option, rather you have to unbalance your opponent so that the finish is unstoppable.

Undoubtedly, futsal is very important in football in several aspects, and one of the important aspects is training, the base. However, football clubs are still unable to visualize and work with futsal as an opportunity and approximation."

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