Developing youth categories is essential to bring the futsal back!

Today’s story will be about the futsal national team of Montenegro, a small European country with around 600 thousand inhabitants situated in the Balkan region on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Just like other former Yugoslav republics, Montenegrins have a long tradition in playing futsal or, how would they call it in that part of Europe, some variation of „small football“.

During the Futsal Week Winter Cup 2020 in Poreč, we seized the opportunity and talked with Montenegrin futsal legend Sveto Ljesar, a former footballer and long-lived futsal coach of the national team.

Just like other former Yugoslav countries, Montenegrins are physically strong and tall and they play technically profound futsal. However, Ljesar told us that in the past, Montenegrins were one of the best futsal players in the region. Nowadays, the other countries (Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia) have surpassed them…

„In the former Yugoslavia, we were one of the best futsal nations. Then, when we were a part of the country called Serbia and Montenegro (last Yugoslavia) Montenegro was much better than Serbia, but after the breakup of the state we have sunk into complete amateurism…“, told us Ljesar in the beginning.

Montenegro's national futsal team was established in 2006, and they still have not qualified for any big competition. In the Qualifying round for the Euro 2022 in the Netherlands, Montenegro defeated Scotland 9:2 but lost against Armenia (1:3) and Belgium (1:5). They secured play-offs for the next round that should be played in mid-April but due to coronavirus outbreak, it was postponed like almost every other sports competition in the world….

Read the full story on FutsalFeed, CLICK HERE.