Soul of Futsal

Courtesy Futsal Japan

by Steve Harris

Japan has an extraordinarily vibrant print media: four of the five biggest newspapers in the world are Japanese, bookstores still flourish here, magazines and comic books are everywhere, and reading is a pretty common hobby. Now that futsal has worked its way into the national consciousness (with the start of the F.League in 2007, two consecutive titles by the national team in the Asian Futsal Championship, and consecutive appearances in the Futsal World Cup), maybe it was inevitable that the sport would make its debut in the world of novels.

"Soul of Futsal" - "Soul of Fut" in the original Japanese for a reason I will mention below – was published in 2010 by Takeshi Matsuki, a native of Shizuoka prefecture who debuted with a novel about a horse racing jockey in 2001 and has since written about other subjects such as basketball and flying. It is no coincidence that he chose to write about futsal, as Shizuoka has always been a hotbed of soccer and futsal: the unofficial futsal national championship was held there in the pre-FIFA days and the prefecture has a team in the F.League (Agleymina Hamamatsu).

Nishio Kashi, the protagonist of the tale, grew up somewhere in Shizuoka and impressed those around him with his football skills. Encouraged by his father and brother, he moves to Brazil after high school in order to raise his game but ends up hating the sport due to the hardships he faces: teammates who refuse to pass the ball to him and do almost anything to win. The only solace for him in Brazil is provided by futsal, a sport that he finds democratic and enlivened by the magic of "ginga."

Fast-forward to the future in Japan. At the end of his professional career after his contract with a second division football club is not renewed, Nishio is contacted out of the blue by Miyabi Tomizuka, the owner of a chain of fitness clubs in Shizuoka. Tomizuka's dream is to fund Gambarusu, the local futsal club, so that it can join the F.League. She had heard through the grapevine that Nishio has a background in futsal and decides that he is the key to the team's future. She offers him the job of player-manager.

Nishio is bewildered at first because futsal had not been a career choice. Upon seeing the team play, however, he becomes convinced that there is potential. Most of the book is a sequence of hurdles that Nishio has to clear in order to not just develop Gambarusu but also guarantee its survival.

Consisting of many difficult and awkward conversations, "Soul of Futsal" is not very captivating storytelling but it does manage to educate the reader about futsal by way of football - and maybe this is why the Japanese title refers to both FUTsal and FUTebol with "Soul of Fut." Gambarusu uses the futsal pitch to destroy football-playing opponents with paralelas, segundo palos and power plays; Nishio demonstrates a "Falcao feint" when first playing with the team in order to prove his futsal credentials; the goalkeeper is asked to play the role of Jesus in an important match (in homage to Spanish legend Jesus Claveria); and in the climactic game at the end of the novel a key character sets up a goal with a "Neto style ruleta."

As possibly the first ever novel about futsal, "Soul of Futsal" shoulders a heavy burden because the sport has a very passionate global community behind it – all the more so because of the title. But Matsuki does indeed succeed in injecting enough expertise on the sport to satisfy those who know the game. Let’s hope that there are others who care enough about futsal to try to convey the soul of the game.






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