{"id":1949,"date":"2017-05-03T11:38:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T11:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=1949"},"modified":"2023-03-22T12:40:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T12:40:30","slug":"inside-the-beautiful-game-elliot-thomas-ba-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/2017\/05\/03\/inside-the-beautiful-game-elliot-thomas-ba-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the beautiful game – Elliot Thomas (BA 2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elliot Thomas (BA 2012)<\/span> is\u00a0Wales\u2019 highest capped futsal player. Here he shares his experiences of becoming a Home Nations champion, and playing against Europe\u2019s elite.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For the last four years, I\u2019ve been playing futsal for both Cardiff University and Wales<\/strong> \u2013 an amazing privilege that has allowed me to travel Europe, competing in some amazing countries and experiencing some very different cultures.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had some incredible success as a national team;<\/strong> particularly in the Home Nations tournament held in December 2016. It was here that we beat England 6-2 in the final to become champions, and I was fortunate enough to score two myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

That winning feeling made me love the sport even more,<\/strong> not just for the technical skills that five-a-side, hard court football demands, but for how close it made us as a team. Never before has the Welsh slogan, \u201cTogether Stronger\u201d, been more apparent than that weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have also been lucky enough to play in an extremely good Cardiff University side<\/strong>, which for two consecutive years qualified to take part in the UEFA Futsal Cup \u2013 the futsal equivalent of the event coming to Cardiff this summer.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My futsal career undoubtedly has its roots in my time as a student;<\/strong> without the set up in place at Cardiff, I would not have been able to trial for the national squad, and therefore not been able to become the highest capped Wales national player to play the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

With that in mind, I can\u2019t think of a more perfect venue than Cardiff<\/strong> for the Champions\u2019 League final in 2017. In tandem with the success of EURO 2016, I hope it can kick start a culture of grass roots, technical football that can only benefit Welsh sport in the future. <\/span><\/p>\n

Personally, I’m hoping that Barcelona can make a miraculous recovery and reach the final<\/strong>. The way they play the game strongly resembles the way futsal is played and I would love to see the likes of Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta play here in Cardiff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Either way, let’s hope for an amazing final to compliment an amazing city.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elliot Thomas (BA 2012) is Wales\u2019 highest capped futsal player. Here he shares his experiences of becoming a Home Nations champion, and playing against Europe\u2019s elite.","protected":false},"author":1080,"featured_media":1959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiff-connect","category-our-alumni"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1080"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1949"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2068,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions\/2068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}