The book The Talent Code, written by Daniel Coyle explores why certain areas of the world are talent hotspots for certain activities. Simon Clifford, a soccer coach, was blown away by the supernatural skills of the Brazilian soccer players. After extensively studying the Brazilians, he determined that there was a misconception that the Brazilians got their skills from playing soccer at the beach. The cause for such talent came out of futsal.
Clifford writes:
One reason lies in the math. Futsal players touch the ball far more often than soccer players—six times more often per minute, according to a Liverpool University study. The smaller, heavier ball demands and rewards more precise handling—as coaches point out, you can’t get out of a tight spot simply by booting the ball downfield.
Sharp passing is paramount: the game is all about looking for angles and spaces and working quick combinations with other players. Ball control and vision are crucial, so that when futsal players play the full-size game, they feel as if they have acres of free space in which to operate. When I watched professional outdoor games in Sao Paolo sitting with Dr. Miranda (Professor at soccer from the University of Sao Paolo), he would point out players who had played futsal: he could tell by the way they held the ball. They didn’t care how close their opponent came.
As Dr. Miranda summed up, “No time plus no space equals better skills. Futsal is our national laboratory of improvisation.” In other words, Brazilian soccer is different from the rest of the world’s because Brazil employs the sporting equivalent of a Link trainer.
Futsal compresses soccer’s essential skills into a small box; it places players inside the deep practice zone, making and correcting errors, constantly generating solutions to vivid problems. Players touching the ball 600 percent more often learn far faster, without realizing it, than they would in the vast, bouncy expanse of the outdoor game
You only need to view the link https://youtu.be/_qKHQX3dmRQ for further evidence if you are still not convinced
How does this translate back to the outdoor pitch to make it more effective for soccer development than soccer?! Easy. Because futsal creates the optimum environment for deep practice, a rewiring of the mind, which exponentially increases their development.