Futsal began as a five-a-side experiment in a Montevideo gym in 1930, and it ended up shaping the Brazilian players who redefined soccer. Nearly a century later, 232 teams from ten Canadian provinces and territories entered this year’s national championship. Here is where the game came from, how it actually works, and where Canada fits into it.
On April 12, 2026, a Toronto club called 9 de Octubre beat Atlético Gatineau at a sports complex in Calgary to win the Men’s Futsal Canadian Championship, a rematch of the previous year’s final, which Gatineau had won 3-2. Down the hall, Sporting Montréal FC beat Saskatoon Green & White 4-0 to take the women’s title, completing something no Canadian club had done before: national championships in both divisions of the same sport. Few readers outside the game will have heard of either club. Fewer still will know that the sport traces back to a YMCA gymnasium in Uruguay, or that its most famous alumni include Pelé and Zico.
