Asia's world futsal mission on

The 14 instructors from 11 nations, whose job is not only to empower futsal coaches in their countries but also in the whole vast Asian continent, finished their course in the Malaysian capital on Wednesday.

They learned and refreshed on the whole spectrum of futsal coaching, from warming up to lob tactics to transition between defending and attacking to set plays, apart from discussing psychology skills that would be covered in futsal coaching courses in the future.

Shahabeddin Sofalmanesh of Iran spoke on behalf of all the participants and spelt out their intentions to go out to the continent and build a stronger coaching foundation for Asia.

“I’d like to express our thanks to the AFC for this opportunity to learn new things and to discuss our work and basically to get ready for our mission to empower futsal coaches this year,” he said. “We will try our best to take Asian futsal to the next level by producing high-calibre coaches for the continent.”

FIFA instructor Victor Hermans from Holland who led the course, said: “I didn’t come here to this course to be the instructor really, but I was more or less a student like you. Our main objective is to share and learn from each other so that we can do better the job that we are doing in training new and existing futsal coaches in the continent.”

AFC Futsal and Beach Soccer Development Director Ali Targholizade said: “We are sharing a common goal here that is to see an Asian winner at the FIFA Futsal World Cup someday. Therefore, we need you continue the hard work that you’re doing.

“We are the only confederation doing such a continental educational programme for coaches. Some 800 participants took part in the AFC Technical Education Seminar last year including 65 futsal coaching proponents. I’m sure our effort at producing a world champion will bear its fruits.”