A variation of soccer is coming to Sparrows Point

In a former shoe store at Eastpoint Mall, a couple of kids run through a series of drills. They are training in futsal, a version of soccer played five on five with a smaller, heavier ball, on an indoor court the size of a basketball court.

The kids are trying to improve their technique: every possible way to dribble, pass, receive and shoot. All play soccer competitively, but they credit what they learn at Find Your Finesse for their ability to distinguish themselves from their club teammates.

“We really want the kids to start playing futsal because we want to get them to have the responsibility of being on the ball,” said their coach, 32-year-old Hendrik de Wit. “That way, they’re looking at soccer as this problem-solving kind of game where they’re constantly involved in the action.”

He would tell you that the biggest problem with club soccer in the United States is the focus is almost always on winning.

“The issue with that is it completely sacrifices the individual technical development of the player,” he said. “You’ve got to love the ball first.”

That’s what he teaches at Find Your Finesse, an indoor futsal training program for kids set to reopen in a new facility on Sparrows Point Road next month.

Futsal is fast-paced and encourages players to be more deliberate. They can then bring these technical skills to soccer.

In soccer, played on a grass field about 120 yards long, players kick the ball toward the other team’s goalposts and hope a teammate will pick it up and dribble past opponents.

In futsal, De Wit said, “The court’s too small. There’s too many people nearby. So it forces players to change their positions and play in a more fluid role and to be more technical.”

Edward Sroka, 11, of Edgemere, recently practiced his moves before training began. He has been coming to Find Your Finesse for training since it opened in 2023 and has played club soccer even longer.

“I really like the quick moves like that,” he said as he simulated sliding the ball back with his foot and kicking it to the side, as if to pass it to a teammate. “I love to swipe, stuff like that, to get me out. You need moves to get out of tight spaces.”

Growing up in Sparrows Point, de Wit dreamed of becoming varsity captain of the high school team and playing college soccer. He played in indoor recreational leagues but knew he needed to join a club to reach the next level.

Club soccer was, and still is, expensive. Maryland is one of the “densest youth soccer markets,” according to ClubScout, an online directory of competitive soccer leagues. Annual costs, including club registration, tournament fees, gear and travel, can range from $2,500 to $4,000 for competitive leagues and up to $11,000 for top-tier clubs.

Sebastian Bujanda, 9, has been playing club soccer since he was 4. His dad, Andres Bujanda, said he should have waited until his son was older to let him join those teams.

“Keep the kids out of club until they’re ready to play,” Bujanda said. He thinks kids learn the essentials of soccer while playing futsal.

“Hendrik teaches a lot of these speed kind of things that you don’t get in club soccer or rec soccer,” Bujanda said. “It’s just really given Sebastian a fundamental skill set of how to make fast decisions, how to be confident in his close-quarters game.”

Sebastian plays left wing-back for his club soccer team and said he has improved “a lot” since he started training with de Wit. During futsal training, he’s practiced his rainbow flip — a flashy move on which he rolls the ball up his opposite leg before kicking it with his heel into the air and over his head. He uses it when others come at him on the soccer field.

“I get [the ball] over them,” he said. “They’re impressed.”

As a teenager, de Wit joined a program run by Denison Cabral, a legend in the indoor soccer world who played for the Baltimore Blast, a professional team. “I was just thrown to the wolves [with] kids who were in a much higher echelon, compared to what I was dealing with in Dundalk, Sparrows Point, Essex,” he said. Many of his teammates at the Denison Cabral Futsal Academy had been scouted by private schools or recruited for college teams.

“A lot of people are at a disadvantage financially. There are scholarship opportunities for these clubs, but they’re not really hunting for that person who’s going to play for free,” de Wit said.

That stayed with him when he started coaching. He wanted to offer opportunities to kids who wanted to play competitively but could not afford the cost of a club.

Find Your Finesse offers year-round, small-group training every day of the week for nearly every age group, capped at around 12 kids. One group training session a week is $105 per month. For $149 per month, a player gets unlimited group training, drop-in games and inclusion in organized tournaments.

The new facility in Sparrows Point, in an old furniture store, is 4,000 square feet, larger than the existing spot in the soon-to-be-shuttered Eastpoint Mall. De Wit said the new space will let him expand his offerings, including adult games, and potentially set up courts for other sports such as pickleball and basketball.

Mia Borkowicz, 9, plays defender in her club soccer league and uses techniques she learned from Find Your Finesse. Most of her teammates know the moves, “unless they’re noobs,” she said, but she says she’s much better at them than they are.

She’s been running through these drills for more than a year with de Wit, in a way that she finds missing in the soccer leagues. “He’s more serious with it,” she said of his coaching.

It’s an intense hour of training, but she looks forward to it. The club soccer season just started, but she said there’s no way she’d miss her futsal sessions.