Northeast Schools Girls’ Futsal Championship: Rules for Teams

Each team may register up to 12 players, all of must be students at the same school. Players must bring their student cards to every match.

Matches consist of two halves of 20 minutes. If the score is level at the end of a knockout match, the game will go to a penalty shoot-out. There is no extra time.

Teams must arrive at the venue at least 30 minutes before kick-off. A team that more than 15 minutes late will lose the match 3–0.

Every team must have a qualified first-aid volunteer present. Players who receive a blow to the head must stop playing immediately and may not return to the match, they feel fine.

The organisers strongly recommend that all teams complete a 15-minute injury-prevention warm-up before each game. Research shows that such routines can reduce serious knee injuries in young female players up to half.

Fair play is at the heart of this championship. Any player insults an opponent or a referee will be sent off. The Fair Play Award, given to the team with the best behaviour, is highly valued as the trophy itself.

We Lost. Here’s Why I’m Still Proud. · by Jane Somboon

On Saturday our team lost the regional futsal final on penalties. After forty minutes of play, the score 2–2. Their goalkeeper saved two of our kicks, and that was the end of our season.

I cried on the bus home. But by the time we reached Buriram, I to feel something different: pride.

Three weeks ago, our best player, Noon, tore a ligament in her knee. Many people thought we would collapse without her. , we changed the way we played. Instead of relying on one star, we passed more, ran more and trusted each other more. Noon sat on the bench for every match, us advice at half-time.

We also started doing a proper warm-up before every session, Noon’s physiotherapist recommended. Not one of us has been injured since.

I have learned that a team is not just a group of talented players. It is people who are willing to cover for each other something goes wrong. That lesson matters far beyond sport.

Next season, Noon will be back, and we will be than ever. And this time, we are going to practise penalties until we can take them in our sleep. Whatever happens, I would not trade this team for any trophy in the .

Northeast Schools Girls’ Futsal Championship · Finals Day · Chang Arena Indoor Hall, Buriram

09:00 Semi-final 1: Buriram Hillside School vs. Surin Lotus School 10:30 Semi-final 2: Khon Kaen Garden School vs. Ubon Riverside Academy 12:00 Lunch break · Futsal skills clinic for primary school children (free, no registration needed) 13:30 Third-place match: losers of semi-finals 1 and 2 15:00 Final: winners of semi-finals 1 and 2 16:30 Awards ceremony, including the Fair Play Award

Admission is free. Spectators must not bring glass bottles or loudspeakers into the hall. Parking is available behind the main stadium. A medical team will be on site all day.

Fifteen Minutes That Protect Young Knees

Knee injuries are among the most feared in sport. A torn anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, can keep a player off the field for six months to a year, and some never return to their previous level. Studies have found that teenage girls who play sports involving sudden stops, turns and jumps, such as football, futsal and basketball, are several times more likely to suffer this injury than boys playing the same sports.

Scientists believe the difference is partly explained by how girls’ bodies change during puberty, and partly by how players move. Many ACL injuries happen without any contact at all: a player lands from a jump with her knee bending inwards, or twists sharply while her foot stays on the ground.

The encouraging news is that many of these injuries can be prevented. Short warm-up programmes that combine running, balance exercises, strength training and practice in landing safely have been tested in large studies. Teams that used such programmes regularly had significantly fewer serious knee injuries, in some studies around half as many, compared with teams that did ordinary warm-ups.

The programmes require no special equipment and take about fifteen to twenty minutes. Their main weakness is human: coaches and players often stop doing them once the season becomes busy, or when no one has been injured for a while.

Experts therefore recommend that the warm-up should become as normal a part of training as tying your shoes. Prevention, they point out, is far less painful than recovery.

Back on the Court: Noon’s Long Road

Nine months after tearing a ligament in her knee, Noon Rattanapan stepped back onto the court last week for her first full training session. Her teammates stopped and applauded. “I tried not to cry,” she said. “I failed.”

Noon’s recovery was not easy. For the first six weeks, she could barely bend her knee. Every morning before school, she did forty minutes of exercises set by her physiotherapist, and every evening she did them again. “Some days it felt like nothing was improving,” she said. “That was the hardest part, not the pain.”

What kept her going, she says, was the team. Although she could not play, she attended every match and helped the coach analyse opponents. She also persuaded the team to adopt an injury-prevention warm-up. Since then, the team has had no serious injuries.

Her coach, Kru Pong, believes the experience has changed her. “Before, Noon was our most talented player. Now she understands the game from the outside as well as the inside. She sees things other players don’t.”

Noon plans to study physiotherapy at university. “I want to help other athletes the way Khun Ploy helped me,” she said. “And I want to help them avoid getting hurt in the first place.”