Indoor Soccer -Pros and Cons

My BB loves to play soccer in general, but he gets especially excited when he gets to play indoor soccer. I like it because I think it teaches you to think a little faster and keeps you ready with continued touches on the ball.  Just wondering what the rest of the 02 community thought.  Any additional pros? Any potential cons? (Based on other posts that I have seen, when I say cons, I am not looking for names. )

Beast_04 wrote:My BB loves to play soccer in general, but he gets especially excited when he gets to play indoor soccer. I like it because I think it teaches you to think a little faster and keeps you ready with continued touches on the ball.  Just wondering what the rest of the 02 community thought.  Any additional pros? Any potential cons? (Based on other posts that I have seen, when I say cons, I am not looking for names. )

Personally, I have found that indoor soccer tends to create more injuries. Less forgiving turf and walls, make for some pretty hard surfaces to be running into.

When the boys were younger, it seemed that it took a few weeks to "unwind" the indoor play and get them used to a bigger field. I think if you have a coach who does not allow them to use walls and focuses on fast passing in small areas, it translates much better to the outdoor game.

As a coach, I'm a much bigger fan of futsal than indoor soccer (wall ball). Both are fast game, however futsal put an emphasis on touch and control.

In indoor, you can simply blast the ball anywhere without any real consequences as it will simply bounce off a wall. Players get especially lazy with their shooting because if they miss they can just get the rebound and keep shooting. Miss a pass, no problem as it will also find a wall.

Futsal translates much better to the outdoor game. It is a better developmental game for ball skills, passing and general control. There also tends to be less emphasis on winning in futsal, meaning more experimentation and creativity.

For my players who play indoor, they always need to be retrained at the start of outdoor. For those that play futsal, they are light years ahead of the other boys.

Futsal's better. More effort needed to control the ball.

My son played indoor for many years but changed to futsal the last 2 years. Both are fast and fun but indoor encourages poor play and is dangerous at high speeds colliding with the walls. Futsal emphasizes skilled movement, passing and dribbling that translates very nicely to outdoor. The hard floor is not very forgiving and there are a few tumbles but it is the far better choice for player development. With the smaller court and only 5v5 the players get more touches too, including the keeper.

Not to mention with the smaller size of the futsal ball, the player gets many many more touches as it rotates more frequently. More touches = more development. We also spend a lot of time @ City Futsal

I agree with the thread that, generally speaking futsal is a superior development tool...is more fun to play, and encourages behavior that translates well to the outdoor full-sided game. A great indoor player often becomes a limited outdoor player...ergo many coaches avoid indoor.

Indoor, futsal, sand-soccer, bare-footed, 4v4, 3v3, guest play, etc, etc, etc.....used properly all have benefits.....overused all have drawbacks as well....I would offer that you need to determine the development need(s) of your player(s) and then chose the outcome that allows you to most quickly address the performance gap. The more you can change it up, the better (quicker) the development will be. Good luck, just remember, if your player is having fun you are on the right track. Indoor is fun when its new, so is futal, so is whatever we come up with next. (personally I like Futsal over Indoor....but thats just me....and what my kid needs...he still plays indoor as well and loves it....)

I don't know about the more effort to control a futsal ball thing.  Somebody drills a futsal ball and you and its pretty easy to control.   Going to be +/- foot level with low coefficient of restitution.  Dies on your foot.  Somebody drills a regulation ball at you and you better have your act together or it will jump off your foot/body/whatever to somebody else.  

Futsal is faster.  You can't play kickball.  And you really learn to put some pace on your passes and shots.   You won't hit a wall but you might hit a pretty hard court.  It seems like about a wash versus regular indoors.

Personally indoor seems like much better soccer (then outdoors), but you might just get killed into the wall which seems like a problem as they get into their teens.   ymmv

Beast_04 wrote:My BB loves to play soccer in general, but he gets especially excited when he gets to play indoor soccer. I like it because I think it teaches you to think a little faster and keeps you ready with continued touches on the ball.  Just wondering what the rest of the 02 community thought.  Any additional pros? Any potential cons? (Based on other posts that I have seen, when I say cons, I am not looking for names. )

if your son got "especially excited" when he gets to play futsal, i could go on and on about the pro's of futsal. BECAUSE!! he gets excited about indoor AND that was your question, I will respond to that. AWESOME. more touches does equal better touches REGARDLESS of where they come from. why choose? if he wants it, you can do futsal as well lol

wulfgar07 wrote:Futsal's better. More effort needed to control the ball.

Agree w/ #13 on this one.  The heavier bladder actually causes the ball to sort of die when it hits the receiving players foot. While I think futsal is great for development, several coaches are firm believers that it kills a players first touch, given the ball does not bounce or ricochet off a foot.  As with any indoor to outdoor soccer related activity, there is always some unwinding to do when you get back on the large field.