Second up in our staff blogging feature we have Darren Gaffney head coach for our u8 academy squad. ‘Daz’ joined the Club in 2013 after bringing his son along to our first ever academy training session. He has progressed from assistant to academy team head coach, developing his Futsal knowledge and coaching experience from a position of complete novice. His dedication to learning and love for the game make him a vital part of Carlisle Futsal Club.
Ive been involved now with Carlisle Futsal club for 4 years. I have achieved my FA football level 1 and also my FA futsal level 1 in that time. I have always wanted to get involved in coaching football so when the opportunity to coach Futsal came along I jumped at the chance.
As a child my heroes were the likes of Zidane, Xavi, Ronaldo (Brazil), Ronaldinho etc, I loved the way they played the game they had so much confidence on the ball and made the game look easy, it is no surprise as kids they all played Futsal. Futsal is a very technical game so these type of players stand out a mile when they transfer their Futsal abilities to the Football pitch. Even now players i enjoy watching like Messi, Ronaldo, Coutinho – they all grew up playing Futsal. They have had the techniques instilled in them as children and are now the best in the world! Its a shame Football academies in this country prefer pace and power over technical ability, I believe their focus on this is why the English Football National Team have under achieved over the last few years.I believe Futsal should be introduced at an early stage to give young players the technical base needed to develop further, this is exactly what we are aiming to achieve at Carlisle Futsal club. I believe this is the way forward and this is why we start players in our academy as young as possible. As kids grow they develop pace and power, it can be trained into a player over a relatively short period but technical ability is trained over many years. It is interesting for us to see which of our players have been caught the attention of big football academies. What they are looking for and what we are looking for are not always the same.
