Local exercise physiologist Alexandre Argolo has been appointed the Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Australian Senior Men's Futsal Team heading to Colombia to play in the VIII FIFUSA Senior Men's World Championship next month.

Alex utilises the training he received at SCU, his experience playing Futsal around the world, and his sports business, Innova Performance, on the bank of the Wilsons River to improve the capabilities of professional teams in Australia, the Solomon Islands, and Brazil.

“I will be the training and conditioning coach to the Australian National Team,” says Alex, “At this moment, I feel a lot of pressure because we need to organise a lot. But when the game starts, oh yeah! It's a very exciting time.”

Futsal is a globally popular sport, with fierce competition on the world circuit. With 5 players on each team, it is a very fast indoor sport. There is an estimated 12 million people playing around the world.

Australia is in Group D of the World Cup and will be playing alongside some powerhouse footballing nations.  

“Our draw is quite hard. Our first game is against Brazil,” says Alex. Originally from Brazil, he lets slip one of his tactics, “I can understand everything that they say. I’ll try to use that against them.”

In reality, the first match will be more than just a tough game.  

“It will be very emotional, because at the beginning of the game, we have a national song, and I will listen to my national song, and I'll be on the Australian side. 

“But now this is my life, I actually feel more Australian than Brazilian. I choose to be here. I was born in Brazil, but I choose to live my life here. So it's a decision.”

(Alex showing some ball control moves in front of the high tech performance measuring equipment he uses at Innova)

The reason to come to Lismore was, “because of the connections between Southern Cross and Liverpool Academy - soccer. I came here because of that. The goal was to stay here until I finish my masters, and then find another big location to work. We fell in love with Lismore and will stay here.”

Vinicius Leiter runs the Futsal leagues in the Northern Rivers. Alex began working with “Vinny”. That led to assisting the Solomon Island team and developing the sport there.

“Vinny invites me to be part of the National Futsal team in the Solomon Islands. He has been working with them for two or three years developing Futsal.”

That led to getting involved with the Australian Federation of Football. 

Then a top team in Brazil managed to get his attention, and he is finalising a contract with them.

These global connections are all involved with Alex’s business, Innova Performance. Alex assesses bodily movements to overcome injury or fine tune motion in action.

“We look to see how your body works, how your movements are developed. And then we design a program relating to functional movement. So the functional movement is just the way that the kids develop the movement. 

“We step back and reorganise the way you move to have a bit more range of movement, and then we work on the performance.

Adults are the same, but usually there is an injury to overcome as part of the criteria."

Specialised equipment is designed to monitor over 140 metrics, “We can decide what exercise needs to be put in place, what kind of movement. This is the same structure that professional clubs use. 

“That's why I can work with clubs in Brazil. I assess the players over there, I can receive their information here, analyse the results and send my thoughts back to the courts over there.”

Two Lismore Futsal payers will join him on the tour as part of the Australian team, Clay Skinner and Hunter Hotko.

Futsal has not been picked up by mainstream media in Australia, but it is a very popular sport overseas.

“Sometimes there's more than 5000 people watching the match and that's what we want to give to our players, to experience that, to have a huge crowd around them.”

(This is the trophy that will be handed over on September 22 to the national team that will be awarded the title of the VIII World Men's FIFUSA Futsal Team)

The competition will be held in Bucaramanga, Colombia from September 12th to 23rd. Follow the Futsal World Cup on the official FIFUSA Facebook page

If you are interested in the sport, there are three leagues in the Northern Rivers.

Here you can learn more about Futsal and Alex’s work - FIFA made a documentary on his efforts in the Solomon Islands.