Futsal research and challenges for sport development

Abstract

Futsal is an indoor team sport that is played worldwide by men and women, boys and girls, in both professional and amateur leagues but also in schools and most of futsal academies as a strategy to improve players’ development (Barbero-Alvarez et al., 2008). Over the last 15 years its popularity increased a lot, which may be confirmed by the rising number of male and female participants, and it is being promoted and recognized by FIFA and UEFA, with the organization of new youth and senior female European Competitions (Lago-Fuentes et al., 2020). Although futsal is one of the sports with the greatest increase in the number of practitioners and social recognition worldwide, both recreationally and competitively, in recent years, such development has not been accompanied by a similar number of investigations that support the intervention of the coach. Thus, in this Research Topic we invited the submission of manuscripts that promoted the transfer of theoretical research and contribute with practical implications for the development of futsal. From the overall of the twenty-six manuscripts submitted and twenty-two accepted, nine (40%) were led by Spanish authors, and seven (32%) by Brazilian authors. The other submissions came from Portugal and Taiwan (9% each), and from Croatia and Japan (4.5% each). Of the total of twenty-two accepted manuscripts, fourteen were focused on the physical and physiological futsal demands, in addition to 1 systematic review that includes common aspects; another 2 aimed to technical-tactical aspects, 2 regarding different aspects of performance in female futsal players, and another 3 related to psychological and biomechanical aspects.