How to Defend in Futsal? The Different Types of Defense.

The purpose of the defensive marking in Futsal is to prevent an opponent from making successful offensive plays, without, committing many fouls. The rules of Futsal punish excessive fouls, or more than 5 fouls per half, with direct free kick, so the defensive marking must be efficient without being overly aggressive. But after all, what are the types of defensive marking in Futsal?..The defensive system in Futsal consists of, the types of marking, or, in other words, how to mark, and, the defensive lines of marking, or, where to mark. Within the HOW-TO-MARK, A Futsal team can defend with either individual marking, or man-to-man, by zone or mixed. On the other side, the DEFENSIVE LINES of MARKING, depending on where you are from or your beliefs, can be divided into 3, 4 or 5 lines, but this is a topic for another video where we'll discuss only the lines of marking. In this video we'll just focus on the Types of marking.

In the man-to-man or individual marking, the player is marked, not the ball. the defender individually marks a specific player throughout the court, anywhere that player might go. This system can be divided into pressure and half pressure marking. Pressure marking requires the scorer to engage in direct combat with the opponent in any sector of the court, seeking to prevent the opponent from receiving the ball. And half pressure means that the pressure, on the offensive half, is only on the player who receives or is in possession of the ball, without the need to pressure the player who is without the ball.

By imposing a man-to-man marking, the defensive team makes long-distance shooting difficult; decreases passing options; forces opponent's mistakes; generates a greater physical wear and tear on opponents due to the need for constant movement to get out of marking; decreases the opponent's possession and reaction time to think about which move to make. On the other side, this type of marking also has its disadvantages. As it does on the opposing team, it also promotes a great physical wear on defenders, trying to follow the movement of attackers; it leaves the middle of the court open, because of the distance between players, facilitating infiltrations and through “balls in the back”; and also the opposing team may have a numerical advantage if one of the defensive players gets dribbled.

The second type of marking, the Zone defense, consists of assigning each player of the team a defined zone of defense, with the task of occupying and defending that specific area. In this system the ball is marked, not the player. The combat is applied on the opposing player, more directly, when that player enters the defender's zone, without, however, the defender being obliged to follow the player outside it. The zone marking system is very advantageous because it facilitates coverage and recovery in the case of dribbling; there's less physical wear and tear on defenders; provides good possibilities for counterattacks; and decreases "balls on the back" and the space in the middle of the court. The negative points of marking by zone are that it enables long-distance shooting; increases the time of possession of the opposing team; and can partially block a goalkeeper’s vision.

The last one, mixed marking, uses zone marking combined with individual marking. basically it comes down to marking an opponent individually, at the same time that the other players are marked by zone. There are 2 ways this system can be applied. A team can be positioned on the zone marking but a player can follow its opponent, switching positions with a teammate and covering their zones. However it requires a lot of communication and chemistry between players in order to make it work. The other option, which is very unlikely to happen, is one that a specific defender will strictly follow a single player anywhere on the courts regardless of anything, while the other teammates will remain defending by zone. This one is more common in youth matches where there might be a player who alone can make a difference in the game result, so a coach would try to prevent that from happening by putting, possibly, the best defender, to follow that player throughout the court