Marcia Taffarel remembers her mid-teen self with a chuckle. \u201cI wanted to fight everybody!\u201d she told FIFA, laughing. \u201cI fought a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
People at school, randoms on the street, shot-callers in suits\u2026 it mattered not to Marcia. What did is that female football had been outlawed in Brazil, and she wasn\u2019t standing for it. Her round-the-clock crusade \u2013 one on which she was compassed by comrades \u2013 resulted in Brazil abolishing the ban in 1979 and women\u2019s football finally being regulated there four years later. The gladiatorial Ga\u00facha was just 15. Eight years later she would represent her nation at the inaugural FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup\u2122.<\/p>\n
Taffarel always looks back on her pathfinding era with pride. It was, decades later, firmly in the past. Or so she thought.<\/p>\n
Then the former midfielder answered a friend\u2019s phone call. Before she knew it, she was pulling her pioneering cape from the wardrobe and off to work \u2013 with a different ball sport and a different national team.<\/p>\n
It’s one that has long had a special place in her heart. Marcia idolised Americans Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers at China 1991. She watched her cousin, penalty-repelling royalty Taffarel, inspire Brazil to FIFA World Cup\u2122 glory in California there years later. She was in awe of those exceptional \u2018\u06f9\u06f9ers. Then she made the USA her home in 2004 and has happily lived there ever since.<\/p>\n
So when the opportunity to become the first coach of the US women\u2019s national futsal team emerged, she jumped at it. Another first is on Marcia\u2019s mind: the inaugural FIFA Futsal Women\u2019s World Cup\u2122, which will take place in the Philippines in 2025.<\/p>\n
Can you tell us how you became USA first women\u2019s futsal coach?
\nMarcia Taffarel: A friend of mine told me about the job ad. I said, \u2018Are you going to apply?\u2019 He said, \u2018I may but I think you should. You\u2019ve played at a high level, you\u2019ve coached, you have all the credentials.\u2019 When I first started coaching, it was with futsal. Then I came to the US and started coaching youth soccer. My friend was encouraging me to apply. I thought, \u2018Why not?\u2019 I had a meeting with Jim Moorehouse and Stuart Sharp. They explained to me that it was a brand new programme, that the person they chose would be the US women\u2019s futsal\u2019s first coach. I was like, \u2018Wow, I could be a pioneer again\u2019 (laughs). They had prohibited women from playing soccer in Brazil. When they changed that law, I was one of the first players able to compete at a high level. I was only 15 years old. So when I found out it would be the first US women\u2019s futsal team, I knew I could be a pioneer again. I\u2019d overcome a lot of hurdles to become a soccer player in Brazil. When I was a teenager, I wanted to fight everybody! I fought a lot. Now I have the maturity to understand that you need to be diplomatic (laughs). So the opportunity to become a pioneer again, to make an impact, to help women\u2019s futsal grow in the US was a big source of motivation. Jim and Stuart decided that I would be the head coach and Sascha [Filippi] the assistant. We\u2019re really motivated to make a difference.<\/p>\n
What have been your first impressions of the US players?
\nMy first impression is that we have the talent, the athleticism, the physicality, but that we\u2019re still behind the well-established countries who\u2019ve played futsal for many years. What we lack compared to countries like Brazil, Spain, Portugal is the futsal mind. Those countries have professional leagues, youth leagues, youth national teams. Most of our players were developed on a soccer field. In Brazil, I actually played more futsal than soccer because it was easier to play, it required less space and fewer people. In the US it\u2019s the opposite. You have soccer fields everywhere. Futsal is considered a winter sport. So we have talented players with soccer minds trying to solve problems in small spaces. That\u2019s what we have to work on \u2013 turning soccer brains into futsal brains. We do have some players who play indoor soccer in the US. That\u2019s closer to futsal, so they were more advanced, but overall we still have a long way to go.<\/p>\n
How did you feel when the launch of the FIFA Futsal World Cup was announced?
\nI thought it was awesome. We still don\u2019t know how the Concacaf qualifiers will work, but we have to be ready for them. There are still questions marks, but to know we will have a World Cup is very exciting for the players, the coaches, the whole sport. It\u2019s something for everyone to aim for.<\/p>\n
You played in the first FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup in 1991. What was that experience like?
\nChina hosted an international tournament a few years earlier to see if there\u2019d be enough interest for a World Cup. I was selected for that, but I didn\u2019t end up going because of my job. I wanted to go, but I needed my job, the money. But when FIFA announced the first World Cup, I knew I had to be a part of it. I had to make the decision to leave my job, which was a risk. We were at the training centre in Urca for 10 months. We didn\u2019t receive much money at all. We trained really hard. Now and again we\u2019d get a weekend off. Some of the players were from Rio and would go home, but I stayed there for pretty much the whole 10 months, because to go home I had to pay for it out of my own pocket and I wasn\u2019t receiving a lot. It was definitely worth the sacrifice. I can still feel the excitement of being at the first World Cup. The Chinese people, when they saw us in the canary-yellow jersey, they all wanted to talk to us. It was the first time I was in a five-star hotel. Guangzhou was amazing. I was crossing paths with Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers. We knew we were going to face them, but you treat them like idols. Everything was exciting \u2013 the banners, the lights of the World Cup, the soccer.<\/p>\n
USA won that World Cup, but who will win the first Futsal Women\u2019s World Cup?
\nI think we have a couple of contenders. The most established teams are Brazil, Spain and Portugal. The US is going to fight. You cannot discount the US in any way. We have the talent and athleticism, and we\u2019re going to find a way to compete at the highest level. Japan have been progressing a lot. Iran has such a good men\u2019s team and I believe they will have a really good women\u2019s team. I think there will be surprises, but I think Brazil, Spain and Portugal are the favourites.<\/p>\n
Who do you rate as the best players in the world right now?
\nI watched a game between Brazil and Spain a couple of months ago. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love Amandinha \u2013 she\u2019s been voted the best player in the world eight times, she\u2019s still amazing \u2013 but the player that impressed me the most was Emilly. She has finesse and aggression. She\u2019s a killer. Her finishing is really good. I think one day she\u2019s going to be named the best player in the world.<\/p>\n
Do you plan on teaching the US players with footage of players like Emilly?
\nYeah. The first video I saved to show to them was Spain versus Brazil. It was a really high-quality game. I\u2019m meeting with the videographer so I can show them transitions, set-pieces, movement. It will also be good for them to see the quality of players they could face. One thing I have noticed is that because the American players have the athleticism, they always want to attack at speed. That\u2019s ok on the counter-attack, but you need to be more strategic in some situations. You have to have the rotations, use futsal brains to break the lines. I think futsal has changed. Players need to be able to play in all positions these days. Sometimes the pivot has to defend; sometimes the fixo has to attack. Brazil, Spain and Portugal, they all know how to play. Their transitions from defence to attack, and how they transition into defence when they lose the ball, are on another level. These are things I want to work on with the US players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marcia Taffarel remembers her mid-teen self with a chuckle. \u201cI wanted to fight everybody!\u201d she told FIFA, laughing. \u201cI fought a lot.\u201d People at school, randoms on the street, shot-callers in suits\u2026 it mattered not to Marcia. What did is that female football had been outlawed in Brazil, and she wasn\u2019t standing for it. Her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1010073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-1010071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1010071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1010073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1010071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1010071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1010071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}