One year ago, Kyt Selaidopoulos came to Yellowknife from his home in Montreal and gave everyone he came in contact with a true futsal education, one which some said was needed for a territory still learning the soccer variant.
Fast-forward to now and he likes what's happened since then.
James McCarthy/NNSL photo
Selaidopoulos, the head coach of Canada's men's national futsal team, was in town from Oct. 19 to 21 for a full weekend that included a coaching workshop, an identification camp for the city's men's players and helping with NWT Soccer's regional futsal development camp at St. Pat's Gymnasium.
He said the sport seems to be growing in the city.
“People behind the scenes are putting in a lot of work to make futsal work,” he said. “Lyric Sandhals (NWT Soccer executive director) has done a fantastic job in getting things off the ground with the resources she has and it's always exciting to come up here and nice to see everyone engaged in trying to make the sport better.”
One of the things Selaidopoulos did last year was put coaches through their paces as part of a workshop to get them better acquainted with the sport and he pulled no punches, running the workshop like one of his practices.
This year, he got a good look at what the city has to offer in terms of potential national team talent and he said it was a good group to work with.
“We had 18 players come out,” he said. “The first day, we went through the systems and how we play and do things at the national level. We did an intrasquad game the next day, which started slow but finished a lot better than I was expecting. I'm happy with that.”
There were some players who stood out, he added, and those players are on the verge of being at the national team level in the future.
“With all the territories playing the game now, it's going to get better,” he said. “We'll have more players fighting to get on the national team. We had our team camp last month and we had two players from the territories – one from Nunavut and one from Yukon – and from what I saw here, there are players who belong on a long roster of future invited players to our national team camp.”
He keeps in contact with those players who he thinks could be part of a future camp and he also uses the Futsal Canada Nationals as a way to scout players for camps, he said.
“You never know where you're going to find the next good player,” he said.
Because this isn't an Arctic Winter Games year, the regional development camp was simply for young players to learn more about futsal and work on their skills and Selaidopoulos got to work with those players as well.
He said working with younger players is different than what he does with the senior side.
“We give more instruction and we demonstrate more,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we have to be hard and push them to their limit. Sometimes, we say they're just kids and we won't push them but we have to see how far they can take it all in a positive way.”
This was the second year in a row Selaidopoulos has visited the capital and it's a visit he would like to see become an annual one as it's well-organized.
“I think it's important to keep visiting the territories, especially here where the weather makes it the perfect sport,” he said. “You do play soccer but I think it's important to come and visit and continue to build a relationship and see how far we can bring it. If everyone in the NWT works together, we'll become better as a country and that's how we can succeed in futsal in Canada.”