ABSTRACT
From football pitches up and down the country, there are calls and screams of “offside”, “press”, “intercept” and “overlap”, amongst others, all aimed at young people in the race for 11 vs 11 football. With adult coaches and parents' views of understanding the game often coming from – Match of the day or World Cup finals – when they last played themselves or even going to professional games and sitting in the stands shouting what they want for the price of the ticket. When considering playing formats for grassroots football in children and youth, it is useful to consider what other countries adopt as playing formats. A thought to process also is that most of the countries outside of the United Kingdom also have a funded Futsal programme in line with their main game development pathway, which is an integral part of the cultural infrastructure of football in their respective countries.
