Monday, August 11, 2008

City of People: Futsal Players

Fultsal Players

Text and picture by Eki Qushay Akhwan

Back to my City of People series.

While Bandung and the Province of West Java in general are well-known for their world class badminton players, e.g. Susi Susanti (1992 Barcelona Olympic Games Gold Medalist), Rexy Mainaky & Ricky Subagja (1996 Atlanta Olympic Games Gold Medalists), Taufik Hidayat (2004 Athens Olympic Games Gold Medalist), it doesn't mean that Bandung people are not as passionate about other kinds sports as they are with badminton. In addition to Badminton, football (US: soccer), and basketball; futsal is a kind of sport that is increasingly becoming more popular in the city. A lot of young people play this sport nowadays. New fields and clubs are significantly growing in numbers as are competitions and championships.

Not being an aficionado of soccer, I did not know much about fulsal. All I know is that it is an indoor version of football/soccer. Unlike football/soccer, however, each team only has five players, one of whom is the goal keeper, and it is played with smaller ball than the ordinary football/soccer. The name fultsal itself comes from Portuguese word futebol de salao or Spanish word fulbol de salon (indoor football).

The young people in the photo above were playing fultsal at an exhebition competition recently held at Jalan Braga (Braga Street), Bandung.

10 comments:

Meg said...

Lovely photo of one moment in these kids' lives. At first I thought they were on a bouncy castle.

Petrea Burchard said...

I like your capture of movement in this photo. And the use of black and white focuses me on the action. Nice.

Anonymous said...

i hope that the more competition of futsal recently held will produce the positive results for the development of Indonesian football association by producing new talent.

Virginia said...

Eki,
Do they always play this sport in one of those blow up things? My grandson calls them a "jumpy jump".
Inquiring minds want to know. :)

Unknown said...

Sure looks like a lot of fun, must of been fun just to watch these young people play even.

Very pretty picture of the Tea Plantation.

Wow that is sure a lot of motocycles in one place, at first I thought the picture was some motorcycle sale lot.

Anonymous said...

What an interesting game.

ft. lauderdale daily photo said...

What a great moment to capture, and the black and white makes it so much more dramatic. I also had never heard of the game, so thanks for providing so much information.

Rambling Woods said...

Badminton..the one athletic pursuit that I enjoyed and did pretty well at when I was young..and I had never heard of futsal.. And the photo could be here in the states or anywhere where people get together for some fun..Nice Eki!

magiceye said...

an outdoor sport brought indoors ..sigh..
a beautiful capture though!

Good Morning

Anonymous said...

Hello!
I like this picture, it is reeally good! Great capture!
Julian.
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