Futsal world cup: Max Bellarte opens up on life, coaching and Uzbekistan 2024
Max Bellarte, the former Italy men's and under-19s coach, offers his thoughts as an obsessively curious futsal talent whisperer Photograph: Max Bellarte
• World Cup 2024 game-changers series:
4) The thinker
“MY STORY is a little bit complicated,” admits Massimiliano Bellarte.
He's not wrong, of course.
The renowned talent whisperer from Italy, who studied sociology at university in Rome before tuning his mind into the philosophy and art of coaching, recently graduated from a four-year stint as the head coach of Gli Azzurri men's and under-19s teams to start a new chapter in Latvia.
Bellarte, who also imparts his wisdom as a Uefa Technical Observer, will go one step further than he did in Italy.
As well as coaching both senior and under-19s men's teams, he will also lead the Latvia women's national team.
While Bellarte’s Italy failed to make the 2024 World Cup finals, the erudite tactician drew praise and admiration for his part in overseeing a cultural change from the days of the controversial Brazzurri era in what he calls a “process of renewal and rejuvenation” that is hoped will put Italy’s men’s team on a more sustainable path back towards elite status.
With a CV adorned by club titles in Italy and Belgium in both the men's and women's game – and his success in leading Italy’s next generation to the last two Uefa under-19s finals – Bellarte is ideally situated to turn his curious and philosophical gaze to the drama about to unfold in Uzbekistan.
In the interview below – the fourth in the futsalstreetspot.com Game-changers series – Bellarte’s astute insights include thoughts on:
His life and brush with death that led to coaching
Basketball roots and the purpose of coaching
When tragedy puts sport in perspective
Missing out on the 2024 World Cup with Italy
The stars to watch out for in Uzbekistan
The fly-keeper question – and how to solve it
How futsal and football can live together
MAx Bellarte’s Story
My coaching journey
As I say, my story is a little bit complicated. Most recently I coached the Italian national team for four years, of course.
But I arrived at that role not having been a good player. I never played in the national team or in the first division because I stopped playing age 26 after a car accident left me in a coma. Thankfully, I recovered. But this is when I started coaching aged 26.
I started in the 4th division in Italy and won titles and promotions at three clubs before arriving as coach in the first division with Acqua & Sapone Futsal. Then I left Italy for Belgium to coach in Anderlecht and from there to the Italy role.
It's important to say that before playing futsal I had a short experience with football but my biggest experience is in basketball.
I’m certain this has helped me have a different vision of the game.
Above all, it has led me to a different approach to conducting training sessions, with a strong belief in the power of the training. I'm thirsty for everything that can improve me, the players and the game, always searching for knowledge that can help a person as a coach and a leader.
This restless quest and curiosity has allowed me to thrive even when changing my environment quite often, reinventing myself and switching from one stage to another easily.
Goals, family and motivation
Lots of people count trophies. For me, the trophies I have won are not important.
I started coaching because I felt the passion to do it and wanted to make my mum proud. In many ways, I started coaching for her, because she pushed me in an era when the thought of trying to be a futsal coach for life was a crazy idea.
And so I did my best to make her proud. For this reason life has been a bit difficult recently because my beloved mum passed away a few weeks ago. But I still have my father, my wife and my child to make proud.
Max Bellarte says he is a coach ‘at the service of the game and the player’ Photograph: Max Bellarte
My coaching philosophy
I always accept challenges
Just like I did when I came to coach Salinis Margherita women’s team in Italy and we won the title, or the Anderlecht team when it was Halle-Gooik, at a time that could be called their Year Zero – the real starting point for the reality of what they are now.
I have always felt like a coach at the service of the game and the player, therefore, ensuring educational and learning opportunities, and an inspiration coming from the experiences of building the meaning of the game. I have always tried to transform the relationship between player and game, in a meaningful relationship, without which no learning is possible.
I love the training process and all the possibilities it gives us to improve.
“Coaching is about stimulating the ability to get excited while progressing, feeling like you can teach while still learning”
The purpose of coaching
I see the purpose of coaching as trying to convey to young people that in reality when we talk about a “purpose in life”, we do not mean everyone is born for a higher purpose; nor do we mean that there is a myth of “reaching a destination”, a victory, a success.
For me, coaching is about stimulating the ability to get excited while progressing, feeling like you can teach while still learning, feeling like you can lead while still looking for your own way.
All this will foster an awareness that your purpose should always feed on where we are, in every moment, with those people around us.
The game teaches us that this purpose is plural; it does not represent a singular destination, but a non-linear way of leading the journey in a meaningful direction.
Developing a useful game is training a moment-by-moment awareness of the things that touch our emotions, and around these, bringing out those behaviours of impact in the game, decisive for its interpretation.
When tragedy puts sport in perspective
Gianluca Salvetti and his father, Rafael, who died tragically in 2024 Photograph: Facebook
I loved coaching Italy’s under-19s. One of our young stars, Gianluca Salvetti, died tragically in a car crash in Brazil in the summer along with his father Rafael, a revered futsal coach known as Tonhãu. I'd like to pay tribute. Gianluca was the youngest one in his first experience in the U19 Italian national team, then he became the happiest one in his journey with the other age group he belonged to.
I loved coaching him because he was the typical guy who wouldn't have cared about game systems and numbers of set-plays.
He cared about filling his training bag with the relationships he had with his teammates, with his coaches. He already had everything about futsal, he just had to let him express it.
I usually end all the lectures I give with a video of him, a video in which he scores an amazing goal in training and with a phrase I wrote, which seems to have been created for him: finding your talent is an act of passion, expressing it is an act of rebellion.
Unfortunately life can be so cruel. RIP.
From Italy to Latvia
I am very happy to be in Latvia taking on this great project, which has its final first step in Euro 2026 organized in Latvia and Lithuania.
Being already qualified allows the possibility of having a wider focus on all the things that could help Latvian futsal in general, and trying to build stable structure even for female futsal and above all for the youth and U19 team. I will coach all three: the men's seniors, the under-19s and the women’s seniors. And this is the way I like it.
I have the chance here of working with excellent people and professionals who care about futsal and collaborating even with the football national team for many reasons: the president of the FA Vadims Ļašenko was the captain of the futsal national team, the general secretary was in the futsal national team too, and several of Latvian football men's team staff are italian (the coach Paolo Nicolato, assistant Massimo Paganin and fitness coach Vincenzo Pincolini).
So I think that many things can be done.
Bellarte conducting a timeout with Italy’s under-19s, including No 14 Gianluca Salvetti, at the Euros finals in Croatia in 2023
Italy and the world cup
My favourite memory
As an Italian fan, I remember vividly the match against Portugal in Thailand in 2012, the excitement of facing the great Ricardinho and the amazing Italian comeback using the powerplay, with Gabriel Lima as the fly-keeper. It was a very exciting moment, with Italy going on to reach third place in that World Cup.
Missing out in 2024 – but looking forward
Unfortunately, the Italy team I coached didn't make it. We were in a process of renewal and rejuvenation and we played a competition in the qualifiers that reflected what we were: a strong team under construction.
We were therefore able to play great games like the one in Spain, and other less good ones, losing points away from home. We still finished second in the group behind Spain, but not among the four best second-placed teams to go and play the playoffs.
The fruits of this work done, also with the U19 teams, that qualified for two consecutive times to the final phase of the UEFA Futsal Euro, will be seen in the coming years.
Uzbekistan 2024
Which teams am I looking forward to watching?
I will follow Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Argentina maybe because they are the best ones, but above all because I want to see my friends Marquinhos [Xavier], Fede [Vidal], Jorge [Braz] and Mati [Lucuix] having a lot of fun competing.
Morocco taking on Brazil in Lithuania in the 2021 World Cup quarter-final. Bellarte is curious to see how the Moroccans fare in Uzbekistan Photograph: Jamie Fahey
I will keep an eye on the Moroccan team too because they seem very strong and powerful. We played against them in Morocco, we enjoyed the competition and we admired the way in which they built this World Cup participation: focusing in training the team constantly, all the months, building an interesting way of playing.
I am very curious to see how they will react to the emotional stress of the competition, now that they are considered among the leading teams.
And a few other things to look out for…
I am curious to see a few more things: what level of performance the Spain winger Catela can produce on this big stage, whether Pito will confirm his immense talent, whether Portugal will show yet again that the goal is plural, if France can stay strong "containing" sometimes the power of the talent of the individuals, and whether Venezuela can demonstrate how hard it is to deal with their power and talent.
There are a lot of fascinating points and unanswered questions that will keep people glued to their sofa watching the matches.
The fly-keeper conundrum: law changes or tactical solutions?
I truly hope everyone in the World Cup can react defensively to the certain prominent use of the goalkeeper in the collective build-up play, by attacking him, taking risks and provoking risks in the opponent.
This is the way forward.
All too often, we in futsal think about changing rules as the easiest way to react to a problem, instead of thinking about working out a way to counter it in the game. The style and quality of the offence can always can be attractive if the defence is attractive too.
And we need to focus on that quality because our united overall goal should be to create a great product to attract people, spectators and interest to the sport.
As I said above, viewers will be happy and stable on the sofa watching the games if the quality of the product is good.
And this does not depend on whether a team uses the keeper in 5v4 or not.
The way to see it is that if one team uses it with the ultimate aim of scoring and the opponents reacts with the aim of provoking risks, and stealing, and scoring, this makes for a great spectacle.
The future game
How I describe the uniqueness of futsal
“Futsal exists in the distance between a fast mind and a well-trained foot”
Futsal exists in the distance between a fast mind and a well-trained foot. It has a dimension and an ability to gather emotions such that the things that touch your heart pass through all parts of your body. Futsal is so fast that those who watch it should understand that they have a bipolar heart, accelerated whether they try to push or try to contain.
We should try to create a product in such a way that those who watch, after the starting whistle, will try to invent a system to expand the interval between the 1st and 40th minute to an enormous extent. And then live in it. “Jednom, i za sva vremena”: literally, "once and for eternity". This is the phrase in Croatian, on the walls of Šibenik, in honour of the Mozart of basketball Drazen Petrovic.
It should be what we in futsal aspire for too.
How futsal and football can live together
“The child who plays futsal naturally acquires tools for technical application and decision-making”
I have a great relationship with Francesco Farioli, who is the coach of Ajax, and we've talked about this so many times, even in discovering how a futsal coach can be good for a senior football training staff. One good example is when working on micro situations.
But I think that there is a way in which the two sports – which are similar but different – can live together.
Futsal is not preparatory to anything, except itself, but the child who plays futsal naturally acquires tools for technical application and decision-making, which could also be useful when practising the other sport, football.
If everything started with futsal and the integration between the two disciplines also included a senior goal for futsal (adult team not only youth), it would be something that would be incredibly useful for both disciplines.
If you missed it:
• World Cup 2024 Game-changers series: 1) The history-maker, Jorge Braz
• World Cup 2024 game-changers series: 2) The legacy-builder, Pierre Jacky
• World Cup 2024 game-changers series: 3) The 1v1 wizard, Merlim
Up next:
• World Cup 2024 Game-changers series: 5) The goal-player supreme
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