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College Plus
Indoor soccer tournament set for Jan 29-30 at NSU
Northern State University will become a hotbed of indoor soccer
later this month.
The fifth annual NSU Futsal Tournament will be Jan. 29-30 at the
Barnett Center (two courts) and Dacotah Hall (one court).
"Hosting the tourney is a great opportunity to provide our players
with not only a chance to play, but also the chance to
administrate," said NSU women's soccer coach Steve Kehm. "The
players are responsible for everything that comes with hosting a
tournament. They literally do everything with the exception of
officiating the games. Among other things, they handle check in,
scorekeeping, timekeeping, housekeeping, running the concession
stand, and if they are not too tired, they will even occasionally
DJ and provide commentary during the games."
There will be 54 games, with the prelims from 10 a.m. to midnight
Jan. 29, and the playoffs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jan. 30.
There will be 32 teams, 16 men's teams and 16 women's. They will
consist of mostly college teams, a few high-level amateur teams,
as well as a handful of very competitive under-19 club squads.
The tourney started with 12 teams and grew to 28 teams last year.
Kehm said 32 teams is probably the maximum that the NSU tourney
can handle. This year, NSU will have three teams of current
players and one alumni team entered.
"This tourney originally started as a simple opportunity to get
some games in against outside competition, but has become a great
annual event as well as a fund-raiser for the soccer program,"
said Kehm. "The players here at NSU really enjoy it and we have
always received great compliments about the quality of play, the
organization and the facility. We feel this is the obvious reason
for the growth of the tournament. It is a major responsibility,
but our current players, as well as former players, do an
incredible job of taking on the responsibility that comes with
hosting an event of this magnitude."
Kehm added that the tourney is great for Aberdeen soccer in
general.
"It provides an opportunity for local players to play in their
hometown," he said. "It is also nice to have the PC teams over as
they, along with the local high school teams, have always been
great supporters of the tournament. It provides a great
opportunity for fans to see the game being played at a very high
level as well. It also exposes some local coaches to futsal which
is, in my opinion, the best training tool there is in the
off-season."
Kehm offered an explanation of futsal:
• Five players: four field players and one goalkeeper.
• It forces everyone to play both offense and defense.
• It creates such a realistic game-like situation. In the real
game of soccer, you are always playing 4 vs. 4 in one area of the
field, so learning to solve problems in the 4 vs. 4 atmosphere is
critical to the development of soccer intelligence.
"It is just such a great game and it provides the opportunity for
so many touches as the game moves so quick and is played in such a
small area," Kehm continued. "I believe that players can get six
times as many touches on the ball compared to the number of
touches they would get in a full-field game. I also really like
the game of futsal because there are no walls like in traditional
indoor soccer. I believe that traditional, indoor soccer is bad
for player development as the walls allow for bad passes and poor
touches. In futsal, you have to play the ball to a player's feet
or it is out of bounds, which correlates better with the real game
of soccer."
- Sports editor John Papendick
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01/22/2005: Fifth Annual
NSU Futsal Tournament
