Cougars set to kick off MCAC futsal season

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/01/2020 (2076 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While winter is in full force in Westman, Brazilian Juliana Vannucci finally feels right at home on a soccer pitch.

Her Assiniboine Community College Cougars have moved indoors for the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference women’s futsal season, opening Saturday at 1 p.m., against the Providence University College Pilots.

Coming from a country regarded as one of the biggest soccer countries, Vannucci noted she, like most Brazilian athletes, played more futsal than soccer.

“I like it better than soccer and was really excited at the beginning of the soccer season just to know I’m playing futsal,” Vannucci said after practice on Tuesday.

Vannucci is still in her first year with the Cougars, who went 0-9-1 in outdoor and finished last in the six-team conference. The five-foot-four rookie noted that her group improved quite a bit during the campaign, however, going from a 7-0 defeat early on to a 0-0 draw and pair of one-goal decisions to close out the season.

She’s hoping it translates to the five-on-five game, played on gymnasium floors with smaller nets and a lot more speed.

“We know our team better. We know how each other play and it’s even easier for us to play together,” Vannucci said. “Futsal is way faster than soccer. When you play soccer you have time to take a breath and think about what you’re going to do next. Here you don’t have that time so it’s just go in with your gut, just do it. It’s more doing than thinking.”

Like the outdoor game, styles of play can vary significantly. Teams in the MCAC have shown offensive systems with defenders and forwards in a square or diamond, others play fluidly with no specialization outside of the goalkeeper.

Vannucci said her group looks more like the diamond with stronger players like Katie Brown able to lock down the defensive spot at the back.

Brown, also in her first year, was primarily a basketball player and is enjoying the parallels on her new hardcourt game.

“It’s a lot more fast-paced. I play basketball and it’s very similar with the plays. I enjoy that it’s like soccer but there’s another sport I like that compares,” Brown said.

The Cougars struggled offensively in the outdoor season, with only one multi-goal game. And all-conference forward Kendra Mansoff isn’t back for futsal.

Assistant coach Gerry Rocan expects the scoring to be more spread out.

“It’s starting to develop as a team. The girls are starting to gel. It’s a tight-knit group, so they look out for each other,” he said. “Playing-wise, the ability compared to last year is a little more balanced. We depended before on players like Jerra (Green) and Kendra (Mansoff).”

From Vannucci’s experience, the mindset when opponents inevitably score in fustal has to shift.

“A lot of knowing what’s going on in the game. In soccer if someone scores and it’s 1-0, it’s kind of a bummer. Here, it’s just one goal. We can score another goal in a minute: It’s just so fast,” Vannucci said.

“You can be in any spot on the court and if you shoot, you might score.”

No team will benefit more from the five-a-side game more than the Cougars men’s team, which kicks off the busy Saturday against Providence at 11:15 a.m.

After ACC was unable to field a full starting 11 at any point in the outdoor season — they sometimes had more than the seven-player minimum but used ineligible players to round out the lineup — Diego Rodriguez’s club has a chance to compete.

“Right now I have seven, eight players, but we will see what happens,” Rodriguez said. “I think it should be OK.”

The Cougars managed a 1-8-1 record last indoor season, earning an 8-5 victory over the Red River College Rebels and 9-9 draw against the previous league champion Université de Saint Boniface Les Rouges.

It’s an uphill battle, however, as ACC lost goalie Theo Bosc — the school’s male athlete of the year for 2018-19 — and leading scorer Enrique Hernandez.

Hernandez tied Brandon University striker Kevin Lopez for a league-leading 17 regular season goals: The next Cougars on the list were Diego Nomesque, John Kennedy Unaegbuna and Edwin Urquilla with four apiece.

He plans to lean heavily on outdoor captain Thomas Negiru, and a shifty duo in Nomesque and Santiago Quintero.

“So far they’re mixing well so we can do something with that,” Rodriguez said. “Futsal is a really fast game so everybody needs to keep in shape.

“We need to have a really nice touch. Even if you have a nice player who is running fast but doesn’t have a nice touch, it’s tougher.”

ACC also plays host to the Canadian Mennonite University Blazers on Saturday with the men at 4:15 p.m, and women at 6 o’clock.

The Cougars then visit the Brandon University Bobcats on Jan. 17, and won’t play another game in the Wheat City after that until February.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @thomasmfriesen