The Australian Soccer Association is pleased to announce the appointment of a Brazilian Technical Advisor to the Futsal Men’s Team to work alongside National Coach Scott Gilligan.
The Australian Soccer Association is pleased to announce the appointment of a Brazilian Technical Advisor to the Futsal Men-s Team to work alongside National Coach Scott Gilligan.
Mr Mauricio Pimenta Marques (more commonly known as Choppe) has been appointed to the position until the completion of the Futsal FIFA World Championship, which is being held in December in Chinese Taipei.
The 36-year-old comes to the country with a very wide background and experience in Futsal. As a ten year old he was identified as a Futsal player of the future and was given a scholarship to the reputable Futsal School Colegio Santo Antonio. It was here he came under the tutelage of Takao, the well-known Futsal coach who went on to coach the Brazil national team for many years. He played national league Futsal with Belo Horizonte Arsenal while at the same time completing a degree at Belo Horizonte University in Human Movements majoring in Futsal.
A knee injury finished his career at 23 and he immediately became an assistant coach to Takao both at Arsenal and the Brazil national team. After the Arsenal club folded in 1998, rather then leave Belo Horizonte for another coaching position, he came to Australia and took up the position of Director of Coaching for Queensland Futsal. While with Queensland Futsal he wrote the first Futsal specific Coaching Manual in the English language and produced a coaching video on defensive systems in the sport.
On his return to Brazil in 2000, he took up a position both at Colegio Santo Antonio and Belo Horizonte University teaching Futsal. In 2002, he was also appointed by CBF to act as team supervisor of the Brazil Futsal Team on a number of their overseas tours and get the Futsal GOAL project underway in Brazil. He is also half way through a Master-s degree in Futsal at the Belo Horizonte University.
Mauricio-s task is to assist in preparing the Australian team for both the Oceania World Championship qualifiers in July and, should the team qualify, the FIFA Futsal World Championship in December. He will come to Australia up to four times this year for training camps with the Australian men-s team and will be working closely with National Men-s Coach Scott Gilligan. His first visit to Australia since being appointed will be for the 2004 National Futsal Championships in Canberra next week. Following the Championship a squad will be selected to attend a training camp from Friday 16th January to Sunday 18th January at the Australian Institute of Sport.
