Made in Brazil: Futsal coaching education at a large-scale perspective

Abstract

Coaching education programs can be perceived as a fundamental cornerstone to certify and further develop sports coaches across domestic and continental territories. Particularly in Brazil, futsal coaches have been benefiting from a large-scale perspective that allows the sport to keep evolving nationwide. To better understand its educational structure and benefits, this study explored a futsal coaching education program that provides state-level certification in the Brazilian territory. Our mixed-methods research design included a qualitative analysis of official documents, a questionnaire collecting data from 67 futsal coaches, semi-structured interviews with the program's coordinator, five coach developers and five coaches, in addition to a participant's observation performed by the lead researcher. Our findings highlight five themes: (1) program's definition, (2) educational model, (3) program's identity and coaching awareness, (4) pedagogical approach, as well as (5) evaluation and impact. More intriguingly, however, this Brazilian futsal coach education program revealed low levels of interaction and practical reflection among its participants, while futsal coaches also reported a lack of feedback on most of the activities they performed. Overall, the present study suggests a switch from the program's traditional assessment into a rather procedural and contextualized evaluation to enhance learning and development in futsal coaching practice.