Chief Guest Editor

Dr Daniel Berdejo-del-Fresno
The Football Association (England)
Email: daniberdejo@gmail.com

Guest Editor

Dr Amador J. Lara-Sánchez
University of Jaén (Spain)
Email: alara@ujaen.es

Dr Antonio Tessitore
University of Rome “Foro Italico” (Italy)
Email: antonio.tessitore@uniroma4.it

Futsal is the format of Small Sided Football that is recognised and supported by FIFA and UEFA with World and African, Asian, American (North and Central and South), Oceanian and European Championships for Club and National Teams.

The name “Futsal” simply combines the Spanish words for “Hall” – Sala and “Football” – Fútbol into futsal. It is a five-a-side game, played with hockey sized goals and a smaller ball with a reduced bounce.

Futsal is also the World’s fastest growing indoor sport. In fact, the IOC are in talks deciding if Futsal becomes an Olympic Sport or not for the next Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) or in 2020. Futsal was developed in Brasil and Uruguay in the 1930s and 1940s as a solution to the lack of available football fields. Since the beginnings Futsal has been very popular in South America, Portugal, Spain and Italy. In the last decade, Futsal has increased a lot in Asian countries such as Iran, Japan, Kuwait...

However, there is a lack of scientific papers about futsal in English language. Only a couple of authors (one Spanish and one Italian) have published some futsal articles in English. On the contrary, there are hundreds of papers, articles and documents about futsal written in Portuguese, Spanish or Italian. This fact is not helping to develop futsal in the right way, as many international coaches, S&C coaches, physiotherapists, doctors cannot understand those language. Therefore, if we want to develop futsal as a professional sport, we need to be able to increase the level in futsal in all the fields. The only way to get that objective is trying to get as many as possible articles in English, since that language is the international one.

About the issue

The topics of this special issue include, but are not limited to:

• Body Composition in Futsal Players;
• S&C Coaching in Futsal;
• Futsal Physiology;
• Futsal Injuries;
• Futsal Medicine;
• Monitoring Training in Futsal;
• Monitoring Fatigue and Recovery in Futsal;
• Match Analysis in Futsal;
• Futsal Motion Analysis.