Soccer is a game that was invented or introduced to the world 2000 years ago in China. Some other countries like Central America, Greece, and Rome assert that this game was first introduced in their respective countries.
Soccer and association football (popularly known as football), if seen closely, are the same game. However, soccer is often used interchangeably with American football because of their similarities. Soccer and American football are entirely different games played with different balls (one rounded and one slightly flattened, just like a rugby ball).
Soccer has evolved and emerged as an incredibly famous game all over the world. Soccer players during winter found it difficult to go out and practice the sport. These conditions gave rise to indoor soccer.
Indoor soccer is remarkably similar to what we call a ‘five–side match.’ It is placed in an enclosed area that requires lesser space than soccer. Over the years, indoor soccer has got different names from various people all around the world.
Some of the famous names given to indoor soccer are futsal, futbol, and showbol. It is often played on artificial turf. As mentioned earlier, indoor soccer is mainly played in the winter season and is referred to as a winter sport.
Indoor soccer is a game that has a faster pace than regular soccer. This is due to the enclosed and limited space where this game is generally played. This game also needs a calmer mindset and reduced aggressiveness than regular soccer so that you do not hurt anyone while playing in the enclosed area.
When we play a team sport, we always play it against a competitor. Our competitor is the most crucial part of the sport we are playing, for, without them, the game would not have been possible. In indoor soccer, the competitor helps you win your game. There are several things that you learn from your competitors.
1. Observation
Whenever you play indoor soccer with an opponent team, the most important skill that you learn is the skill of observation. While playing a skill-based game like indoor soccer, you understand the strategies that your rival team is using. You begin analyzing what their strengths and weaknesses are and how they deal with different situations in the game.
Once you are done with the observation and analysis in detail, you understand how to help your team win the game. You can either do something about their weakness and use it as your team’s strength or simply learn what their strengths are and plan the remaining part of the game in a way that your team players become strong enough to stand their strengths.
Indoor soccer is a game where you can observe the game even more closely because of the limited space, and so, you get to observe the opponent’s foot. By observing the opponent’s foot, you learn new skills and even want to know them after the game.
Another important reason for observing your opponent and the game is that you analyze your mistakes after the game. This analysis of your errors will make your practice more on the parts that you lack in the game and will make you a better player before your next match.
Thus, observation is a critical skill that you build while playing indoor soccer with a competitor.
2. Dealing with Conflicts
When you play a team game, it is evident that you will have several conflicts. These conflicts can either be between your team and your rival team or within your team, between your teammates. Your competitors continuously teach you how to deal with these conflicts in indoor soccer.
When there is an argument between your team, you learn how to maintain discipline and not do something that spoils your team’s name. Your competitor’s presence is enough to make you conscious about your behavior with your team. You learn how to be less aggressive and talk to your squad correctly so that the opponents understand your aggression as your weakness.
On the other hand, when you have conflicts with the opposite team, you again learn to keep calm because there are crucial rules and restrictions in the game that need to be followed. These restrictions include behaving yourself while playing the game.
Hence, your indoor soccer opponents teach you how to deal with conflicts with a calm mind without losing your temper.
3. Respect
Respect is the first thing that a game should start with. When you go for the toss, you shake hands with the captain of the rival team. This particular gesture teaches you how to respect your opponents. Respect is an incredibly important aspect of any team sport.
When you play a game like indoor soccer, you also learn how to respect your team. When you respect your team players, your coach, and your referee, you have already taken one step towards success.
When you play with your competitor, you learn the aspect of respect in two ways; either you see the competitor respecting the people on the field and try to take inspiration from the team, or you see them disrespecting people on the field and automatically feel that they are crossing their line and that you must never do that.
The concept of respect on the field is synonymous with the idea of team spirit. When you play a game like indoor soccer, you often find people not respecting the decisions taken by the referees and saying things like the decision was wrong or not fair.
The other category of competitors that you see on the field is the ones who respect the decisions of the referee and have the quality of team spirit and accept their loss and decide to come back with more hard work and determination next time. This is the part where you need to understand which trait you want to learn from your opponents.
4. Socializing
You find people who possess different qualities on an indoor soccer field. Despite so many differences, you tend to become friends with many of your opponents and hang out with them after the match. This is another essential thing that you learn from your competitor team- socializing with people.
When you start making friends in a place where more than half of the people are your rivals, who you will play against, you indeed learn how to socialize even in the most challenging situations in your lives.
It is often noticed that indoor soccer players often become friends even after fighting each other in a match merely because their interests match, and they vibe together. They generally leave all the rivalry on the field while leaving it. When you play with a competitor, you also learn how to bond well with your team.
When you see an opponent before you on the team, you begin to motivate your team and build an emotional connection with them even if it’s just for winning the game. These connections with your indoor soccer team will help you make a more real bond with the people you already know and cherish forever.
Some very well-known bonds in soccer are Ronaldo and Marcelo, Sergio and Mesut, Xabi and Steven, and several others. Indoor soccer opponents help you build strong bonds with several other people.
5. Management and Focus
Management is another vital aspect that your competitors in indoor soccer teach you. You learn how to manage time and how to manage your team efficiently while focusing on the game. Management is a crucial task and is vital in everyday life. Still, it is specifically sports like indoor soccer that need unique management and multi-tasking skills as you have to perform multiple tasks together on the field.
There are instances in indoor soccer where you cannot manage time and concentration in the game together and lose. These things teach you how to train yourself better to be a better manger in the game next time. You always learn from your mistakes. Thus, your competitor teaches you how to improve your management and shift your focus from one aspect to another while playing indoor soccer.
6. Patience
When you play a game like indoor soccer, you tend to have competitors who are over smart and try to slow you down. In such cases, you become impatient and start making impulsive decisions that you may regret later. This is another important thing that your indoor soccer opponent teaches you- patience.
After playing 4-5 matches, you will surely realize that your competitors will always try to make you feel down and will have a bad attitude towards you. With this, you will also recognize that in such cases, being impatient and making impulsive decisions like injuring the strongest player of the opponent team will only harm you because you will be the one facing the red card and the referee.
There have also been instances while playing indoor soccer, where teams forget the ethic of futsal and start using rude and abusive language for each other.
An important question arises here- what to do when your opponent is harsh to you? When you see a competitor being abusive, you must be patient for some time and ignore them. If the competitor does not stop behaving disrespectfully even then, then you must approach the referee and tell him about your problems. The referee will surely notice the actions and behavior of that particular opponent in the other part of the game.
7. Not Giving Up
A tough competition in a team game like indoor soccer makes your team more challenging. This is because when you face a team that is way more powerful than you, you develop the will to defeat that team at any cost. This is another thing you learn from a team that is your rival- how to keep working on yourself and not to give up at any cost.
When you see a team winning against you repeatedly, it starts hurting the ego inside you. Ego is not always a bad thing. In fact, in cases like this one, the wounds of your ego help you grow. You become more determined to win the match.
You might lose several times in front of a mighty and skilled team, but you will have that confidence in you that someday you will defeat them and go ahead. This quality of never giving up is particularly important in team games and generally holds great significance in life.
There might be several hardships in your life, but once you know how to stick to what you want to do and stop giving up on the things you want to achieve, nobody can ever stop you from achieving it.
8. Teamwork
As stated earlier, team games teach you how to create emotional relationships with your team members to show your power in front of your opponent team. However, teamwork is directed more towards leadership. Every member of the team learns how to be a leader while playing with a competitor team.
Moreover, playing with a team and against a team simultaneously teaches a lot of coordination, and the team members learn how to adjust with each other in every situation.
9. Keeping Your Feet on the Ground
Whenever you play a team sport like indoor soccer against an opponent and win against the rival team, you learn how to keep your feet on the ground. Short celebrations and being happy about winning a match is fair but, going in front of the other team and showing them down is not something right.
Thus, when you play with opponents, you must learn to go and talk to the opponent team members after the match and appreciate them for their efforts too. This is not something that you will know immediately, but you will only pick up this quality of being grounded when you see other teams appreciating the efforts that your team put in.
10. It is Okay to Lose
When we talk about learning things from a competitor in a team sport, there is one very general thing that should be known by every player- you cannot always win the game; losing is okay.
It is only when you lose several games against several opponent teams, you learn how to cope up with the losses and move ahead in your life to achieve something incredible!
Last Updated on by Himani Rawat