Former European Soccer Coach Opens A ‘Futsal’ Academy For Moncton Youth
DIEPPE – Soccer made Geoffroy de Maeyer a healthier teenager and eventually led to a career as a coach and scout for major teams in his native Belgium. Now, he wants to bring organized futsal – a similar sport to soccer that’s played indoors with five people in one team – to Greater Moncton’s youth.
East Coast Futsal League opened this month with an academy for children. Twenty kids aged 7-to-15 have signed up. At least one female student is already in the roster, though de Maeyer hopes to see more girls in the future.
“Everywhere a kid can show up and be a champion,” he said. “I want to give the opportunity for them to go further than other programs. We can go to Belgium and let them test in big clubs because I know a lot of managers, I know a lot of clubs in first, second, third division and national teams – but that’s later.”
He wants to use his knowledge and network to build a professional environment around the region’s young futsal and soccer players.
“If you have a professional environment, you have more chance to be a professional,” he said.
De Maeyer built his network in international soccer when he coached kids at R.S.C. Anderlecht, Royal Union Saint-Gilloise, AFC Tubize, and scouted for Standard de Liège. Many of the players he coached have become players at top clubs.
One of them is Charly Musonda Junior, now playing in the Netherlands for SBV Vitesse, on loan from the English Premier League’s Chelsea FC. At Tubize, de Maeyer worked under the father of Belgian national team Eden Hazard, and coached Kylian Hazard, who now plays at Cercle Brugge.
He was also involved in a few futsal clubs in Belgium before moving to Canada and is well-connected in the first division league there.
He came to New Brunswick in 2014 with his family to become Soccer Edmundston’s technical director. He also coached at Soccer New Brunswick for a year.
“I traveled around the world [for work]….but [Canada] is one part of the world I haven’t gone to and I had one opportunity to go as a technical director of Soccer Edmundston. So I wasn’t afraid to go for it. It’s a big experience,” he said.
De Maeyer had wanted to open an academy in Thailand, his wife Nichapha’s native country, in 2004. But there was a language barrier and he felt he wasn’t ready at the time.
Now he is, and he says he’s already in touch with a club in Manchester, the U.K., for the possibility of a student-exchange program.
By next spring, De Maeyer aims to have a group of his students attend the Brussels Football European Cup, a championship where the U8-to-U10 teams of European soccer’s largest clubs – Ajax, Arsenal, Barcelona – gather.
De Maeyer used to scout for players there and says it’s a good place for young players to see their peers in action and learn.
In New Brunswick, he’s working to organize a futsal tournament that he hopes will grow across Atlantic Canada.
Because it’s the academy’s first year, de Maeyer says pricing is still a bit higher. It costs $350 per child for the season (October to mid-March), including the uniform.
Adults can also play and start their own teams, but for now, it’s only for fun and no coaching is provided. It costs $200 for the season.
For now, de Maeyer is the only coach. He rents school gyms for practice space – Carrefour de L’Acadie in Dieppe on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Lewisville middle school on Fridays.
The children train twice a week, though a session can be added if space becomes available. Adults can play on any of the four days. De Maeyer says there’s also an opportunity to start a tournament one weekend a month.
Futsal is not new in the Maritimes, but it’s not as popular as soccer. There are futsal teams in Riverview, Sackville and Amherst, de Maeyer said. Soccer NB also has a futsal cup for U13-U18 teams and “encourages futsal programs that are affiliated with a soccer club in good standing,” its website says.
Besides the size of the team and the smaller, indoor floor field, futsal also uses a smaller ball with less bounce, a smaller goal, and players require different shoes than turf-soccer.
De Maeyer says he decided on futsal because the summer is short in Canada. Plus, in a heated gym with locker rooms and seats for a small audience, players and parents don’t have to worry about weather changes.
He says in his experience, it takes about three weeks for a player to transition from futsal to soccer, but knowing the technique for both turf-soccer and futsal would help a player become better.
“We teach them how to look, how to think, how to make an action before they have the ball,” he said. “If you know this, you can use it for work, school, relationships. Because life is like that. When you have a problem you have to look, analyze and find a solution.”
Soccer has always been an important part of de Maeyer’s life. Growing up, he said many of his childhood friends “go the wrong way in life” because of drug use. He said playing soccer helped him stay focused.
He believes team-sports like soccer and futsal could provide a comforting space for youth who need it.
“It’s important because it makes you organized, work in a team,” he said.