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Blind football is an emblematic discipline of the Paralympic Games. A cousin of football, a popular sport par excellence, it guarantees spectators a thrilling experience. On the pitch, the players shine with their technical ease, thanks to their extraordinary ability to listen and analyse. And to achieve this level of mastery, training and experience are essential.
A 40 x 20 metres pitch, bells inside the ball, walls on the sides to keep the game flowing, 4 outfield players and a goalkeeper. These are the broad outlines of blind football. As far as the sporting results are concerned, they can be summed up as follows: "Blind football is a sport played 5 against 5, and in the end, Brazil wins". Yes, the country of Pele, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho has won the first five editions of the tournament since the sport took part of the Paralympic programme in 2004. In the land of football, blind football has made a place for itself in the sun.
Let's get back to the field. The first thing to note, and not the least, is that this discipline brings together athletes with and without impairment. The goalkeeper may not be visually impaired, but his four partners are. To ensure total equality, they wear masks over their eyes. From then on, all their senses are alerted to the need to be ever more reactive and to put the ball into the opponent's net.
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Another special feature of blind football is the noise. But not just any noise! There's silence in the stands and action on the pitch.
The first thing that will strike you is the tireless repetition of the word "voy". Originating in Spain, this term is used by each player to signal their desire to attack the ball and to find their bearings in space in order to avoid head-on collisions.
And then there are the guides! Each team has 3 of them (the goalkeeper, the central coach and the coach behind the goal). They give valuable instructions to their players, adding their decibels to an already hectic pitch. The playing surface is divided into 3 equal parts and each guide is authorised to speak to the players in his team's zone. The goalkeeper passes on information in the defensive zone, the coach gives instructions on the halfway line and the guide behind the opposing goal gives indications when his team is on the offensive. Less physical than being a player, the guide's role is just as important. They have to communicate clear and concise information to their players, to lead them straight to the goal.
As you can see, a blind football pitch is not the quietest place to be, despite the silence in the stands (the public must remain silent when the ball is in play to not interfere with the exchanges between players and guides). And don't forget the sound of the ball! Fitted with bells at its heart, it sets the tempo for the match. The louder the noise, the greater the power of the players.
Finally, there is the noise caused by the players themselves. From the collisions between them (blind football is rougher than football) or on the walls, the exclamations ("I've got it!", "Voy!") or their breathlessness due to sustained effort.
It's all about one thing: getting the ball into the net. Flat-footed, pointed, curled, poked, the touch of the ball takes on many facets when it comes to turning a match on its head.
Picture by 2021 Getty Images
A blind football pitch is a noisy, lively place! That's why sorting out the sound information that reaches the players' ears is vital to separate the good from the bad and set up the best move, which, if everything goes well, will result in a goal. And it is here, in this mastery of information, that the quality of the best blind football players lies, and that certain teams take the lead over others.
At the end of a training session, three of the French blind football team take the time to talk to us about this science of communication in this Para sport.
Picture by Haruo Wanibe
Beyond the physical dimension, blind football requires almost incessant work in gathering and analysing information. And the only way to be good at it is to train as hard as you can. Especially as the standard of world blind football has improved!
For pitch communication, there's one very important point: automatisms. In this French team, we've been lucky enough to know each other for many years, so that's a real advantage we have, and it's felt on the pitch. Today, we've reached the point where we can pass the ball to each other without talking. Of course, at the end of some games, you leave the pitch completely exhausted, both physically and, above all, psychologically, because it demands maximum concentration. Fortunately, that ability has improved over the years. We're undeniably better in this area today than we were 10 years ago. Perhaps it's also because our disability requires us to concentrate all day long, so we work on it every day without really wanting to. In blind football, we sharpen that concentration by stimulating it to the maximum. So it's a win-win situation: on the pitch, we learn to work fast and outside, we feel much more at ease.
This kind of training session allows us to work on the little things we do automatically. Even though we've been playing together for many years, we're still sharpening our understanding of our partners' movements and how they react to different situations. In this aspect, the technical work is not negligible at all. It's an alchemy that has to be found between all the informations we perceive (hearing, gestures, physicality...).
When it comes to communicating during a match, we rely on the use of key words. With the ambient noise, it's impossible to speak in long sentences. So the brain has to be ready to hear and analyse these key words that are repeated at high frequency. This vocabulary remains very natural with very short words that stand out from the hubbub. There is, of course, the "voy!" which, if uttered too late or not at all, can result in a penalty from the referee. The most basic is the "Have it!" as soon as a player takes the ball. This word allows us to validate possession of the ball and therefore to project ourselves towards the attack. However, there's no real specific training for communication. Instead, we focus on finding the right words, avoiding those that sound too similar to avoid getting lost on the pitch.
The Games are the grail in our discipline, so our opponents are just as motivated as we are. We know we're not favourites for this competition. The steps are a bit high, but if we manage to get out of the group stages, we know that in one match we can go on to achieve something great.
In terms of training, we do it every day. We switch between the centre in Meudon and our club in Bondy. As well as technique, the physical aspect is vital. It's all about short, intense efforts, just like in futsal. And unlike traditional football, there's more contact and impact here. So you have to be prepared for that, which is why you have to train every day.
In terms of communication during the game, managing to sort out information is one of the major challenges of our sport. But in reality there is no real technique. Some people have the intrinsic quality of being more at ease. They seem to have more time than us. That's probably what we call talent. The challenge is to be able to manage the whole process, from receiving one piece of information out of several, to processing it and taking the resulting action, all in a fraction of a second under pressure from an opponent. It's a bit like choreography. The more you rehearse, the less waste you have. If we want to be coordinated, we have to repeat the circuits over and over again.
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