Courtesy: The Westerner


Brendale futsal player on the ball

Thursday, 26 July 2012

Yet another young international sports representative has emerged from a small piece of suburbia at Brendale.

A four-block pocket of housing just off South Pine Road has been home to some of the rising stars of Australian sport.

Josh McClelland (cricket), Mitchell Frei (rugby league), Adam McClelland (indoor hockey) and Cam and Chris Boyce (indoor cricket) have all played for their country or competed overseas.

Now their neighbour Sarah Nisbet is set to represent her country in futsal.

The 18-year-old will fly out to Brazil next week to learn the tricks of the trade of a sport that football legends Pele, Ronaldo, Zico and Ronaldinho used to develop their skills.

Part of a 17-member touring party all aged 18 years or younger, Nisbet and the Vikings Australia team will play matches against local Brazilian teams as well as competing in school tournaments.

“The other days we have a training camp where we will be trained by some of the best professional futsal coaches over there,” Nisbet said.

“We’ll be going to the same place where some of the legends like Ronaldinho have been to… which is really exciting.

“I hope to learn more skills and develop the ones that I have now and improve my ball skills and ball control.

“I also want to have a good time and enjoy the experience and hopefully learn lots of new things that will help to improve my game.”

As well as playing futsal indoors at the South Pine Sports Complex, just near her home, Nisbet also plays as a defender for Annerley in the South East Queensland Diamond League, the state’s top club soccer competition for women.

She said playing futsal, an abridged form of soccer played on smaller fields, had helped her to develop her attacking skills.

“Outdoor football players use futsal to develop their skills, because it’s a smaller field and it’s a lot faster game and you need to have better ball control,” she said.

“With outdoor you have a more specific position whereas in futsal you rotate a lot, so you don’t really get assigned a certain position.

“You change a lot and rotate, and depending on how the game goes you can end up at the front or you can end up at the back.”

Nisbet predicts non-sporting highlights of her first overseas trip will include visiting tourist attractions in Rio de Janeiro and shopping in Belo Horizonte.




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com