Rose City Futsal
My love for football has never been in question through my life, but before moving to Portland I definitely had a few hesitations as to whether portland would be a place that I could get my fix but thankfully due to the Timbers and Thorns live football is alive and well, and then watching the Swans on TV is now like a dream thanks to NBC Sports who are doing a better job than Sky Sports these days. Playing football at work has also been pretty amazing, but when I got asked to play Futsal I was interested to learn more. After all a game played skillfully, fast, on the floor didn't sound like something my central defensive skills would be suitable for.]
Since playing though it has been the best thing ever, amazing community kind of style, with hundreds of teams, all full of committed amazing players. We have a mens team consisting of legend after legend including Wille Yli Louma, Ami Voutilainen, Bobby Meeks, Bryan Fox, Chris, Sam and Sven we have got the team turning out. We try our best week in week out and whilst the results aren't always the best we give our all.
The great thing is that its a place you can go 7 nights a week to meet people, play football, and just have a good time. Its an amazing facility they have, which is an idea they could and should spread to other parts of the country because there is so much interest in football these days, it could work really well especially in other hotbeds like seattle, vancouver, new york, salt lake and LA. Thankfully though we have one for the time being, and so twice a week we get out and have a good game. This mens team is called Heart breakers after the coffee shop owned by Wille.
As I say…. we play on two teams. The other is "cramp vibes" run under the watchful eye of head coach Colleen Quigley who takes time out of her schedule managing one of the heaviest snowboard teams around, to look after a Division 4 portland Futsal team. The Coed team is amazing fun, we have some great players, and intact the girls are so good that last week, we played just with 4 girls on the pitch for a while when all the fellas took a rest. They scored some screamers! Above Colleen gives Ami coaching whilst he runs for goal.
Mareike also played again in her 3rd or 4th turn out and scored her first goal too. Hot on the heels of germany winning the world cup she is doing her best at a german women's team push here at rose city.
Ami, the manager, head coach, physio, tactician, referee diplomat and also "finisher" on our team. Ami has been playing for a couple of years and the ways he plays these days you think if he had been playing football back in the day he might have done that instead of being a pro snowboarder.
The other great thing to see at Rose City is that they have so many kids playing, and the great thing is all the kids are focused on keeping the ball down, passing, shooting, skills and just enjoying football. I think any kids who play futsal at a young age would have such an advantage on older kids because it teaches such great close control. Donovan Ricketts the timbers keeper came to watch a game too, yes those kids are small but Ricketts probably stands at 12 foot 3 here…. Complete with wood saw. 
Seriously if this kind of facility could be rolls out around the country and even the world it would be amazing. It gives such a fantastic opportunity for people to play enjoyable, skillful, honest football all year long in a safe amazing environment. Thank you guys who built this place, its amazing!