Thailand. Thai Students Playing Footsal.

Here in Thailand Thai people, especially boys love to play a game called footsal. It’s played on a smaller version of a football field but doesn’t take place on grass but usually on concrete.

There is always a good crowd to watch the boys play and cheer them on. There are always big cheers for body clashes and near misses on goal. The last few days there have been games taking place every senior lunch hour.



Some of the boys are incrediably talented and the skills they have with the way they can control the ball in really memorizing to watch. It takes many hours of training and just playing around to develop skills like this.

The boys are very physical on the court and use there bodies well. The good thing is I have never seen a player lose it on the court and a push or shove ever happen. Someone falls over or is tripped they are picked up and they get on with the game.





When there is a penalty kick in the goal area the ball is placed at the top of the arc or semi circle where the keeper can pick the ball up from. The team then huddles in front of the goal about 5 metres away.


The person taking the penalty kick takes a really good run up and lets loose with all he has and all I can say is that I am happy I don’t have to stand there and face up to a fairly hard ball coming at you from such a short distance and at speed. The people defending the line don’t know if they should face forward and risk being hit in the groin or face or turn their back to the penalty kicker and risk a ball in the middle of the back or back of the head. Somehow they kept this penalty kick out.


After the boys had finished it was the girls turn and I had never seen the girls play footsal before. They needed 5 girls to make a team and the girls in the black shirts were keen to get into it and start playing.

The white team however where very unsure and girls were shaking their heads and waving their hands when asked to play. After a good 5 minutes they finally conjured up a team to take on the black team.


So the girls lined up and got ready to face off against each other. There were a few girls who obviously didn’t know what to do and seemed a little lost.


The referee got into position and the girls waited for the whistle to be blown and then they were underway.


Now the girl’s skill level was pretty low but they really got into it and they were really rough. These girls didn’t have too much fear. They would just focus on the ball and charge and if someone was in the way people were knocked out o the way or fell over.

This was bringing huge cheers from the crowd and mostly the boys as they really enjoyed watching the girls bash each other about a bit. There wasn’t any goals scored but it was very entertaining to watch.

Brunty.