www.reechhee.com
What Can You Learn From A Dominating Futsal Team In Cambodia? Unique Soccer Training Approaches.
Created By: Reechhee 2nd April, 2019
You can share and use this ebook freely!
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve and Excel at the Beautiful Game. Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources.
Table Of Content
Introducing The Best Futsal Team In Cambodia 2 Training Approaches 3 Volley Football: 3 Playing Against Kids: 5 No Talking Policy: 6 Random Friendly Matches: 8 Conclusion 9
Do you want 7 Tests You Can Do To Estimate Your Fitness?
Grab The Free EBook Here!
What else would you like me to create for you next?
Write Me A Message Here!
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 1 Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources.
Introducing The Best Futsal Team In Cambodia
I would like to introduce a team called ‘Ov Mal FC’. Founded back in 2012, just 7 years ago, Ov Mal FC quickly becomes a dominating Futsal team in the country. The team has won more than 20 local tournaments and also competes in CLEAR’s National Futsal League 2017 and 2018.
A little information about the team first. ‘Ov Mal’ is a Khmer word meaning ‘Wasp’. So, the team name is literally Wasp Football Team. The head coach, who’s also the founder of the team, has many capabilities, one of which is to develop offensive players. Therefore, the team is well-known for having great attacking players and really good at ‘Stinging’ (referring to scoring goals) the opposing team. Hence, ‘Ov Mal FC’. You can check out the team’s facebook page by clicking on the team name or click here. On the facebook page, you can also follow up with the team to see upcoming games. However, only big games have live matches. Most often, you can only check to see upcoming games that the team will participate in and the results.
Being part of the team since the beginning in 2012, I am going to share with you some unique training approaches that the team has been using to develop their players and team performance as a whole.
I hope you can find ways to incorporate these approaches into your team training to improve yourself as a player.
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 2 Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources.
Training Approaches
Volley Football:
Like the name suggests, Volley Football is a hybrid between a volleyball and football. The players job is to not let the ball touch the ground, just like in Volleyball. Ov Mal FC built a simple Volley Football court in its training ground. The court is similar to a Sepak Takraw (Kick Volleyball) court.
The details doesn’t really matter that much. Depending on the space available, you can have the court made a little smaller. The height of the net should be quite low, about 1 meter or less is good. The court above is a little too high.
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 3 Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources.
Instead of playing with a small Sepak Takraw Ball, which is a wooden, Woven ball, we use a standard size 5 ball.
The Head coach of Ov Mal FC has a really strong appreciate for Volley Football. All players love playing Volley Football 1 v 1 or 2 v 2. What’s great about this game is the intensity and the techniques that the game can develop in players. Spacial awareness, creativity, touches on the ball are some of the special techniques that this game can teach players.
I love playing volley football as part of training sessions. I think that one crucial benefit of the game is the safety aspect of the game. The coach allows players to bet a small amount against each other when playing if they would like to. Because one game takes so long to win or lose, and the players only have so much energy to play, betting doesn’t have a lot of negative impact. In fact, players are more motivated and they give their all if there’s some money on the table. Of course, at the end of two-three hour of Volley Football, you lose a couple bucks the most. Because player don’t have physical contact with each other, it’s very safe and even if one side is a little aggressive, no intentional injuries are created.
The rules of the game are up to the players or the Coach. Special rules like, only 2 touches, rather than 3 touches, or only left foot allowed, or heading only, there are many possibilities and variations. As long as both sides agree on the rules before playing, then the sky’s the limit.
Volley Football works on balls in the air, quick change of direction, heading, fitness. It’s just a wonderful exercise for soccer players. Ov Mal players see a lot of improvement from incorporating this into their training sessions.
It’s not a complimentary exercise to training sessions. Some sessions are dedicated to just Volley Football, that’s how strongly the coach feels about this exercise.
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 4 Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources.
Playing Against Kids:
This is where things get interesting. The majority of training sessions are small-sided games against, you guessed it, Kids.
This might seem ridiculous but hear me out.
At Ov Mal FC, players train together in the form of games. However, for small sided games, we rarely play against each other. That’s because the Head Coach believes in team chemistry and because players play together (not against their own players) during actual tournament games, they should also play together during training as well. That leaves one problem: Where to find the opponent if players don’t play against each other?
In the neighborhood, there are kids living and also an orphanage. The training ground is opened daily, all day, for kids to come in and play soccer. They love playing and players need opponents to practice with. It’s not as bad as you think, keep on reading!
Safety always come first. When playing with kids, we wear indoor shoes to minimize to impact if we accidentally step on one of their feet. No power shooting allowed either. And these kids aren’t bad. Their ages range from 10-15 and they are improving all the time. We also try to make the game as competitive as possible for the development of the players. Depending on the kids, we might play 5 vs 8, or 5 (no goalkeeper) vs 7, and so on to make the game fair for both teams. We also added extra challenges like one 50 meter sprint everytime the kids score a goal (happens a lot). Almost half the time we ended up losing, because there are just so many kids and after 2 hours of playing, it’s impossible to keep up with them.
Usually the same kids show up to the training ground every single day and we welcome them. Often, the Head Coach would prepare hard-boil eggs.
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 5 Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources.
Right after they play, each of them get an egg or 2 depending on the available eggs, the number of kids, and so on. If one kid is skinnier than the others, he or she (some female kids come to play soccer as well) will get additional eggs. The only requirement is that they eat the eggs before leaving the training ground.
Why you might ask?
Cambodia is still a developing country. Ov Mal FC training ground is on the outskirt of the capital city. Many kids around the neighborhood are living in ‘not-optimal’ conditions. The orphanage also house many underprivileged kids and they need our help sometimes.
Eating eggs before they leave the training ground is a good idea, because some of them don’t have enough to eat, some will bully others for the eggs, some simply do not want to eat a lot of food, etc. There’re so many situations where some of the kids might not get their share of protein. So, eat before leaving the training ground is a good idea!
Of course, the team cannot afford to provide every single day. But we try to do it as often as we can. No Talking Policy:
This is also something that the Head Coach wants to integrate as part of the team’s playing style as well.
Unlike big, 11 aside soccer, Futsal is a 5 v 5 game (generally) playing in a small enough area that everybody can see everybody else and the whole court easily. During training and matches, the players aren’t allowed to shout at each other asking for the ball, telling teammates to pass, shoot, etc. This might also seem strange but Ov Mal FC is dominating Futsal team in the country. This is partly the reason as well. Let me explain.
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 6 Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources.
A good team is one that has many many good players. A great team is one that has many many good players plus players’ chemistry, confidence, vision, etc. The no talking policy, the Head Coach explains, is used to allow players complete control over their own decisions (to shoot, to dribble, to pass, etc). Shouting asking for the ball, for example, creates the tendency for the player with the ball to focus solely on that ‘recommended’ option. Because, Futsal is play at such high intensity, the ‘word recommendations’ from your teammates aren’t always useful because you simply don’t have the time to decide between options. Every decision you make is very instinctive. That’s what the Head Coach is trying to develop in players.
The no talking policy encourages players to keep their heads up, be aware of where everybody is on the pitch without constantly having to rely on ‘words’ to do so. This develops players’ vision and confidence. Also, players learn to trust their teammates. Players doesn’t have to bombard their teammates with suggestions.
During games, the no talking policy is especially advantageous because Ov Mal FC literally have no verbal communication. It’s silent. If you’re used to shouting in 11 aside games, then you will be surprised if you see Ov Mal FC plays. Opponents cannot pick up verbal cues which can be frightening as the team defends some times.
Talking is allowed when deciding free kick variations, goalkeeper communicating during opponent’s free kick, and words of encouragement from teammates, etc. Criticism from teammates is not allowed even though that happens from time to time.
Overall, the no talking policy of Ov Mal FC is a unique and interesting approach to the playing style of the team. It is certainly beneficial for Futsal
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 7 Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources. teams playing small sided games if implemented strictly. However, for 11 aside soccer games, it’s hard to tell if this is a positive approach to try. Random Friendly Matches:
Ov Mal FC has some of the most experienced players. I would say around 90% of all training consist of Volley Football, Games with Kids, and random friendly matches. So, the players get to play actual games almost every day every single week. It’s a lot of playing experience for the players.
Random friendly matches are the most dangerous out of the different training types that Ov Mal FC focuses on. There are usually no referees in these random matches, and the match is a straight 2-hour match with no breaks. Players can substitute in and out all they want.
Basically, there are rentable, artificial grass pitches (5 v 5 or 6 v 6) throughout the city. The owner of these places have contacts of various different teams (mostly amateur) that are regular customers. In order to rent out their pitches on a daily basis, they call up all teams and organize matches between them. We can also call up a few places, to see if they can arrange a match for us. Or usually, they just call saying they have an available game from, say, 6-8pm we can play with a random team.
Ov Mal FC uses this as opportunities to train the players. Having come here to Hungary and played in Hungarian’s 4th Division, I have to say that the players at Ov Mal FC have so much more playing experiences that any of the Division 4 players here in Hungary. I, personally, really miss all the friendly match training back home.
Bruises are part of the training. Futsal is played on a very small pitch. Shielding and using the body to hold off opponents is a big part of the game. When we’re trying to prepare for a tournament, we play lots of games with kids because they literally cannot injure you by kicking you. If the team
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 8 Visit www.reechhee.com for more content and resources. does not have competitions coming up, we will play more friendly matches with random teams. Like I said, bruises is part of the training.
Some times, friendly matches lead to heated arguments and aggressiveness. The team is always trying to be as safe as they can be but accidents and injuries do happen during these games sometimes. If you decide to use this approach of training to improve yourself, be prepared for some possible danger.
Conclusion
To sum up, Ov Mal FC, one of the leading Futsal teams in the country, incorporate these 4 unique training approaches to their training:
● Volley Football ● Playing Against Kids ● No Talking Policy ● Random Friendly Matches
If your team, or you want to improve yourself as a soccer player, consider implementing these approaches to your training regime. Good luck!
Do you want 7 Tests You Can Do To Estimate Your Fitness?
Grab The Free EBook Here!
What else would you like me to create for you next?
Write Me A Message Here! Enjoy The Beautiful Game!
Helping Soccer Players Start, Improve, and Excel at the Beautiful Game 9