daniel chigunweTadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
RESPECTED England-based Zimbabwean Futsal expert, Philip Zulu, is engaging authorities with the aim of bringing Futsal football instructors to conduct coaching courses in the country this month.
Zulu has built a name for himself coaching grassroots football in Leeds, England, and he has since forged ties with the Seychelles Football Federation whom he works as a consultant for.
And, touched by the plight of football development in this country, he has decided to bring highly-qualified experts to dish out lessons to Zimbabwean coaches based on the Futsal philosophy.
Futsal is an association football-based game, variation of mini-football played on a hard court, smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players each, one of whom is the goalkeeper.
And Zulu intends to bring Brazilian Junior Roberti to conduct the Futsal coaching course in Zimbabwe.
“Yes, we want to put structures of the national programs of grassroots development. Super Eagles Futsal (Zulu’s team in England) intends to bring an instructor, who is a top coach educator and also a coach with good experience and exposure in top world Futsal leagues, to help with mentoring of coaches and training referees who will run those instituted leagues,” said Zulu.
“This new development is meant to raise a high degree of awareness in showcasing the huge differences that exist in our traditional way of coaching football, which to a greater extent is lagging behind in terms of robust and comprehensive coaching of players to master competitive skills, technique and creative thought processes.
“We will approach the relevant authorities in the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation to try and engage them in trying to share, dialogue and agree on the intended Futsal Coaching Curriculum and its wider implications for the smooth, swift and strategic development trends on offer.
“Our youngsters have been poorly prepared and poorly coached hence the development has been negligible. Our main concern is to foster a high degree of a robust coaching philosophy that brings forth intelligence, critical thinking in terms of the early learning outcomes (Early Child Development) and progression in development of these young children into youth football where we have multitudes of problems that have decimated our game.
“We lack that gravitas in designing modules, activities and syllabus that gives our youngsters opportunities to learn, train and adapt within their natural strides of growth as they grow in their tender ages of 6-9 and 10-13 during their formative years as they progress into their youthful growth patterns. “We are cognisant of the Covid-19 viral escalation of the new variants hence we have taken a wait and see approach in trying to locate the right time frame but we are planning for this March.”
Online Reporter