IYSA Host's First State Futsal Championship

Futsal is one of the biggest new sports trends in the country the last couple years. As the only indoor game sanctioned by FIFA, Futsal is growing at all levels from recreation to professional. It is a fast paced, skillful game that helps players with their touch and creativity on the ball. 

We caught up with Chris Jamrozy, with Illinois Youth Soccer for a Q&A to see how Futsal has developed in the state at the recreation level. 

This must have been a first for IYSA how did you come to this decision to host a State Futsal Championship? 

Ultimately it was because of demand from our membership.  We had thought about hosting one for a few years but the demand wasn’t there yet, but as the participation in Futsal grew in Illinois, more and more clubs reached out to us about futsal opportunities so we felt it was something we should provide for them. Another factor that helped push us to finally  do a Futsal event was US Youth Soccer was looking to host a National Futsal event and we wanted to provide our teams a pathway to qualify for that.  Unfortunately the National event isn’t happening in 2018 like we hoped but despite that disappointment, the teams that participated in our event had a positive experience and most importantly the kids had fun.

What set this event apart from others you have hosted? 

On the field, stylistically it is a much more fast past game. I would compare it to our Beach Soccer Tournament.  Quick pace with lots of scoring.  Also, there are some really dedicated futsal-specific teams so you really see their love and dedication to this style.

Can you give me some of the logistics of the event, team count, total hours played? 

The decision to actually have a tournament was finalized in December with the event being held in late February so we were under a major time crunch. Whenever you launch a new competition you want to make sure it actually happens so for a brand new tournament in a specific style that not everyone plays, we were very happy to get over 20 teams and run divisions for 5 age groups. With that number the event was held on one day in the beautifully redesigned UW Health Sports Factory in Rockford.

What made IYSA start a futsal league in the first place and how did you grow so quickly? 

Our involvement right now is solely on the Futsal State Cup.  We do have a couple Futsal Leagues that are members and we hope that we can continue to grow that portion of our membership to provide players and teams in Illinois a variety of playing opportunities including on grass, turf, sand and now the futsal court.

How has Futsal grown in Illinois what does IYSA see for the future? 

Just by being able to host a Futsal State Cup show that futsal is growing not only in the state but the country. We actually had teams from 2 neighboring states reach out to us about playing in our event.  With the time crunch we were under for our event this year, there were some teams that couldn’t participate due to other commitments. We held our event over Presidents Day weekend which caused some conflicts with other events.   We have already planned accordingly for that for 2019 and have heard from lots of teams that didn’t play this year that they are excited to participate in 2019 so we expect big growth for this event going forward. 

How did the Bownet Goals perform? 

Great!  In addition to using Bownet goals for the Futsal State Cup we also used them for our Beach Soccer Tournament and our Spring Soccer Festival, which is an event for 8U-10U teams.  The set-up with them is quick and easy and most importantly they provide a level of safety when playing at places like the beach or a basketball court.