Mini-football national team of Russia – vice-champion of Europe

The national mini-football team of Russia, “a fusion of youth and experience,” became the vice-champion of Europe. Preparation of the team was intensive – the team had a series of warm-up matches with Slovenia, Croatia, Iran and other teams, participated in a major contest in Hungary, and took second place in the Grand Prix tournament in Brazil. In the finale of the European Cup the national team of Russia met the strongest team of the world, Spain.

Emil Aliyev, President, Russian Association of Mini-football, told VK about the development of mini-football in Russia.

- Could you please tell us about the prospects for the development of mini-football in the Caucasus?

- Today we can speak only about the initial stage. To develop professional mini-football, we need to cover the masses. We have two unique projects – one for schools and the other for universities where pupils and students are participating. At the moment the Caucasian republics are participating very actively. We have many teams from Dagestan and Chechnya, mini-football in Ingushetia is also actively developing. It all of course is based on activists, on the people who organize these events. We expect that the professional teams will revive in the nearest future. The professional teams do not require that much money, the budgets are incomparable to football. But we have one small contradiction – from a geographical and climatic point of view the Caucasus is a warmer region. And historically there is a tradition to play big football. And it is our task to change this. That we need to develop mini-football parallel to big football. There are a lot of gifted kids in good shape, this is what our competitions show
when our teams beat teams from other regions due to their better fitness. I am sure that they would suit mini-football very well.

- How popular is mini-football among young-people now?

Mini-football is quite popular among young people at the moment. Why? Because in our country we have about 55,000 schools and 10,000 of them are registered on our web-site, so about 20% participate in our project. About a million pupils are participating in the project “Mini-football to the schools”. These are very high numbers. There is no other mass project like it for team sports, so that children can train mini-football systematically from September to May. Our project also covers more than 500 universities in our country. Both guys and girls take part in this sport. Last season 832 teams participated. Just imagine that. 832 university teams.  From Kalinigrad to Sakhalin. The students know each other, they follow… And now we changed this project into a Gold and Silver league, allowed in people who play mini-football professionally. And in the Silver League the amateurs play.

- How emotional are the fans of mini-football during a game or after it?

The mini-football fans are always emotional, because this sport allows us to see many of the missed or scored goals. In big football you can see one or two goals during a game, sometimes none, as they say, one goal in football is already a lot and sometimes you need to wait for it for 90 minutes. In mini-football, games rarely end up 0-0. On average there are between 3 and 8 goals. And each ball means emotions. Emotion for pupils, students or even professionals. Mini-football per se is a very dynamic and fast sport.

- Please tell us about the upcoming meeting with the Azerbaijani team

Our national team is taking part in qualifiers for the world championship of 2012 in Thailand and should play two games with Azerbaijan. The first one will be in Baku, between March 25 and 28, it will be known soon. The next game will take place in Tyumen, where the Russian team will receive the team of Azerbaijan. It will not be an easy game, the Azeri team is quite strong, they have some Brazilian players with Azeri citizenship, they have a Brazilian coach, but I am sure that we will resist and I hope that we will win, although it will not be easy.