As the Youth Futsal Championships planning from Auckland City and East Coast Bays starts to ramp up. We sit down with Auckland City Futsal Director, Dylan Manickum to learn a little more about what a player could expect by being involved in a Youth Futsal Championship team. 

Dylan has recently returned from China where he played for the Futsal Whites (New Zealand's National Men's Futsal Team), coming home with two victories!

What are you looking forward to at the Youth Futsal Championships in December?

We are looking forward to the tournament this year. We are very excited to be delivering the program this year and looking to build on what we have done over the last three years. This tournament provides a great opportunity for young players to develop and test themselves against some of the best futsal players in the country. So for us seeing the development of players is what I would say we are looking forward to the most.

What will this tournament mean in terms of the development of your club's ambition to grow the game and how will this fit in with the ACFC Academy programmes?

This tournament is always first and foremost about the development of young players for us and growing the sport. This tournament always generates excitement and for us, this provides an opportunity to generate engagement in futsal programs. We saw a big increase in the youth futsal numbers across term 3 due to the tournament and this is something we aim to continue building on through term 4 and into next year. 

We have had a number of players who have played in the Youth Futsal Championships under ACFC step into the men's and women's first teams and a few who have made the Futsal Whites and Futsal Ferns. With the aim of developing players who are capable of playing for these teams, we believe the program so far has been hugely successful. We will continue working towards developing players who can compete at this level and the Youth Futsal Championships will provide the best opportunity for players to put into practice what they have learned through our programs.

Interested in playing for Auckland City, learn more below. 

Youth Futsal Championships

The Youth Futsal Championships will take place in Wellington from 14-17 December 2023, it is an excellent opportunity for young players to experience a national competition. There will be twelve teams travelling, with six mixed and six girls teams from the under 15, under 17 and under 19 age groups.

This opportunity is open to all young futsal players, no existing association with Auckland City or East Coast Bays is required - to get involved, get in touch with our partner clubs directly:  

East Coast Bays - register your interest 

Auckland City FC - register your interest 

Image: phototek.co.nz

Article added: Saturday 23 September 2023