The sport of soccer is followed and practiced by millions of people throughout the world – it is estimated that more than 270 million – and is passionate by people from all continents, surely being the most popular sport that exists. Since its reinvention in England in 1863 -since there is evidence that it was played between teams and with something similar to a ball in the Middle Ages and in pre-Columbian civilizations- it has had a spectacular expansion, to which its professionalization and its broadcast on television.
In the 19th century it was when the various regulations and styles of football that were played at that time were unified in the United Kingdom, and from there emerged both the football that is known as such in Europe, in Spain and in Latin America, as well as rugby. Other variants would later arise, such as American football, so famous in the United States that there is soccer or football, although it resembles rugby, while the football we know is called soccer, or Australian, which is played in an oval field.
But within the world or planet, as sports commentators like to say, from soccer played with the feet, as its English name indicates (foot = foot, ball = ball), modalities such as fast soccer, or snowball, which we are going to talk about next, futsal and others, with a different number of players, different game time minutes and different rules for each of them.
These ways of playing are fundamentally developed indoors, either in sports halls or other closed areas where they do not suffer from bad weather, especially in winter, or uncomfortable temperatures, or places specially prepared for the game in the cities. Where there is no excess of open land and free of circulation of cars and other vehicles. Here’s how to play fast soccer.
What is fast soccer
It is a football modality that combines characteristics of eleven-a-side football, traditional football, and futsal, although it is played on a much smaller field than a typical football stadium, with measurements based on hockey fields, which were the ones that were used at the beginning of this sport. It is generally played indoors, on synthetic turf, with a fence made of resistant plastic material or a wall, or a wooden fence, enclosing the entire contour of the field of play, so that this wall is used to bounce the ball off it and perform all kinds of combinatorial plays when advancing towards the opposite goal. That’s why there are no throw-ins.
It is played in two halves of thirty minutes each, with a fifteen-minute break, and teams of seven players participate in each of them, including the goalkeeper, and players can be changed unlimitedly, and not just three as in football eleven players. Its name -also known as snowball in Central and South America- refers to the fact that the game is very fast due to the use made of the wall that surrounds the perimeter of the field, which produces a very showy and dynamic show.
The rules
To play fast soccer you obviously need to know the rules of the game. It’s soccer, but there are a few differences from classic grass stadium soccer. Starting with the ball, which is a little less heavy than the eleven-player football.
Each team can make as many player substitutions as it wants, but it must be done in a specific way, between the scorers’ table and the bench, and the substituted player leaving the field of play first, and then the one who is going to play entering.
No serve, such as a corner kick, or a free kick, or from the goal, can be delayed for more than five seconds. If this time is exceeded, the referee will signal a fault from that same place. On the other hand, the goalkeeper’s own goals will not be valid. When this serve from his goal, the ball must take a rebound before it is touched by a player.
An important difference is that there is no offside and fouls are cumulative, so when one team reaches the sixth, the opponent is entitled to a direct kick. As for the cards, a yellow card means that the penalized player has to leave the field for two minutes, although another can enter, and a red card means that the team plays without a player for two minutes, without being able to be replaced, although later another can enter.
The tactics
The most common tactics of the game involve three types of player lineups. The 1-3-3, based on defense and attack, without midlines, is the best for learning to play fast football. Also widely used is the one that forms lineups of 1-3-1-2 players, which combines a wide defense with a fast counterattack system, and the 1-3-2-1, which prioritizes defensive strategy.
Origins
Fast soccer was invented by fans, in the sixties of the twentieth century, in the center of the European continent -with the name of “five a side”, soccer five, and spreading rapidly in American countries such as Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina or Chile, and above all, in the United States. However, in 1986 FIFA, the International Federation of Football Association eliminated fundamental rules of this type of football, such as synthetic grass and the fence that surrounded the field, creating futsal, with rules taken from handball and basketball.
Fast soccer continued to be played but its organizations distanced themselves from FIFA and created their own international organization, the International Federation of Fast Soccer (FIFRA), founded in 1992 in Mexico. In the United States, in the 1970s, the first professional league emerged, the MISL, the Major Indoor Soccer League, or Great Indoor Soccer League (as is known, eleven-a-side football is called soccer in the United States). This league disappeared a few years later, being created another one, the Continental Indoor Soccer League (CISL), or Continental Indoor Soccer League.
Famous players
Fast-paced soccer has spread too many Spanish-speaking countries in America thanks to its practice and promotion by famous players such as Ivan Zamora no, Diego Mara Dona, Alejandro Mancuso and others who play it after retiring.
Right now there are professional leagues in many countries: in Spain, the United States, Mexico. Holland, United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia and Guyana, and it are played in others such as Chile, Argentina, and Hungary…
