Leading Members within the Futsal World
- Daniel Quina Brito
- Dec 16, 2024
- 3 min read
After its origins in Montevideo, futsal has grown to a sport that now has continental and global competitions with the main tournament being the FIFA World Cup.
Across all sports, the World Cup is known as the biggest achievement a country can earn. It is often a tournament of surprise as in most competitions there is a dark horse, a country that performs better than expected.
Whilst it is obvious to state that Brazil is the best futsal nation of all time, there are a plethora of countries across the world who have stapled their name into the history books for achieving success in these prestigious competitions.
When looking at World Cups, the first ever tournament was held in 1989 hosted by the Netherlands and was the first non-olympic FIFA tournament to ever be held in the country.
Amongst all the countries that have competed within these competitions, Brazil currently hold the most World Cups with six having won the tournament in 1989, 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012 and most recently 2024 where they won their record extending title against rivals Argentina 2-1 in Uzbekistan.
Following them is Spain with two World Cups where they won back to back tournaments in 2000 and 2004 where they beat defending champions Brazil and debut finalists Italy respectively.
In 2016, we saw Argentina win their first ever tournament hosted by Colombia against Russia in a tournament where Spain and Brazil were both knocked out before the Semi-finals. Whilst the two major nations were knocked out, Argentina still had to defeat Portugal in the Semi-finals and Ukraine in the round of 16 in a 1-0 extra time win.
The final new winner of the competition is Portugal who found success in 2021after finishing fourth in the tournament before. In order to claim victory, Portugal had to defeat Spain, Kazakhstan and finalists Argentina which was by no means an easy feat.
Whilst it is obvious to state that Brazil, Spain, Argentina and Portugal are leading the way in terms of international success, lesser footballing countries like Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia are also highly respected in the futsal community.
Due to this success in the competition, in the late summer of 2014, Brazil’s friendly with Argentina at the Mane Garrincha stadium became the most attended match in history with 56,483 spectators.
As well as this, the match generated $1.2M in sponsorships and $250K in ticket sales as it reached 15 million people on TV and created history by being the first ever regulated futsal game to be hosted outdoors.
When looking into the countries that have succeeded in these competitions, you can see that continentally, their teams tend to perform the best. When looking in Europe, Inter FS of Spain currently hold the most Champions Leagues with five followed by Barcelona with four and Portugals Sporting with two.
In South America, there is a monopoly when it comes to continental success by Brazil. In the Copa Libertadores, out of the 22 tournaments that have taken place, 20 were won by teams from Brazil with Jaragua and Carlos Barbosa leading the way with six competitions.
With this information, it is fair to say that the success by a nation in these major tournaments trickles down to those teams competing in continental competitions. Which is one of the reasons why we are yet to see success on an English front.
Yes futsal in England is lacking in a number of areas from funding to coverage, but would we see the same trickle down effect in England should there be success on a national front. Manchester have performed above and beyond by winning a game in the Champions League and hopefully this is a feat that England can carry forward and hopefully bring more success to the country for future years to come.
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