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MY BEACH SOCCER 
A FIFA seminar was held in Montevideo with more than 300 participants, aiming at both theoretical and technical aspects
The blossoming of Female Beach Soccer is one of the priorities for the sport, and many steps have been done to boost it. If different courses were held during last 2011 to empower the engagement of women with Beach Soccer, this 2012 has begun with a strong determination to steadily make this happen, with the first example happening this month in Montevideo (Uruguay). On the Uruguayan capital, FIFA organized an extremely successful Seminar, conducted by FIFA instructors Héctor Petrasso and César Figueredo, in which more than 300 athletes took part. Together with them, Physical Education teachers joined the course, so as to get to know the main guidelines in the sportsmen and sportswomen preparation for the Beach Soccer Competition, as well as to enrich the conversations with their own experience and knowledge.
The course was divided in mainly two blocks: in the morning, the participants were lectured on key theoretical aspects in Beach Soccer practice, and during the afternoon, the practical exercises took place on the sand. After that, the athletes put all what they had learnt into practice in the matches organized to simulate real competition environment. During the 5 days of the Course and the Festival (the name taken by the match carrousel), up to 60 matches happened, with the athletes split into 30 different teams in three different age-categories.
The experience proved a wonderful memory to everyone involved, as Daniel Bañales, Uruguayan Football Association Director of Development, pointed: “There are no words to describe the fabulous experience the course and the festival have meant. The instructors , their explanations and the exercises were excellent and the athletes ended up really satisfied. I am sure that we have created a great amount of Beach Soccer ambassadors.” Some of them, he remembered “come from cities all over the country, such as Trinidad, Toledo, San José, Colonia, Canelones, etc, what clearly points the interest women have in Beach Soccer”.
