Are you ready for Cesafi women’s futsal?

My daughter, a senior high school student, plays for one of the school varsity teams in Cebu City. And while there was no dearth of competitive matches among the girls and women’s teams — 11-a-side, 7-a-side or futsal — there wasn’t any inter-school competition similar to what the boys’ and mens’ teams have enjoyed over the years.

So it came as a surprise when my daughter showed me yesterday the schedule for a collegiate tournament that everyone had always hoped for but no one thought would be realized in a million years: the Cesafi futsal tournament.

The catch is that the threeday tournament starts today, and us parents indeed were caught off guard. But I’m not complaining, though. This development is the best thing that happened to the girls’ and womens’ teams since futsal was introduced in the Palarong Pambansa in 2013. Whatever the results, this is a commendable move from the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc.

Featuring senior high school and college players, the inaugural Cesafi futsal tournament has eight participating teams divided into two brackets.

The first of today’s eight matches will be between USC A and USJ-R A and starts at 8 a.m. The round-robin games and the semifinal matches will continue March 4, while the championship and fight for third place will be played on March 18. All games will be held at the USC Gym.

As a football slash futsal parent, I have borne witness to how the futsal community, girls’ and women’s futsal in particular, has grown rapidly in the last couple of years, along with the level of competition. While the rivalries were limited to two school-based teams five years ago, several futsal clubs have emerged as serious competitors in recent tournaments, which means more excitement and technical merit with every game. As the knowledge and skills of coaches who go through accredited trainings increase, so do the skills and techniques of the players.

For those who wonder what futsal is, the indoor sport is a variant of football that has produced talents such as Pele, Ronaldinho, and Neymar. FIFA, the world’s governing body of football, supports the development of futsal, not to mention it holds the quadrennial FIFA Futsal World Cup.

And while futsal is a widely popular sport in itself, football teams in advanced footballing nations include futsal training as an essential activity for skills and technique development. Those playing both futsal and football surely have a better chance at improving their game.

We may not see an inter-school 11-a-side tournament for women in the near future, but we hope the Cesafi futsal tournament would pave the way to more competitions for our women and girls, as their numbers are increasing by the day.

For now, let us congratulate Cesafi and the futsal stakeholders, and wish the participating teams all the best in the tournament. Today, Cebu futsal won.