It's Valentines Day so we at KIKOFF would like to confess our love of football, but more specifically, 5-a-side football! This stemmed from our love of the 11-a-side game but over the last 10 years the smaller, faster paced version of the beautiful game has taken off around the world. In some countries 5-a-side has taken over the 11-a-side game as the most popular version of football, here's why fiveasidefootballcoach.com thinks that is:

• Do you have any idea how impossible it is to get 22 players for a weekend game? You only need to get 10 gullible fools for 5-a-side.
• Goalkeepers want more involvement than just hoofing the ball into the wind or having to retrieve it from half a mile behind their goal. In 5-a-side they can be crucial to outfield play, distributing the ball around like a majestic Andrea Pirlo.
• So you prefer over-used under-maintained council-run pitches with divets, barely any grass and mediocre lighting? You’re right – those are better than state of the art privately run 5-a-side facilities. Who needs floodlights anyway?
• 5-a-side pitches have walls and fences. Great for keeping the ball in play, and crucial as footballing fortresses to keep out those that try to steal your ball.
• Sick of your team mates not passing to you? With less players on your team in 5-a-side, they’re going to have to pass to you at some point, right?
• Even the most technically inept player can look like Messi when they fluke a pass to a team mate off the walls.
• You never have to endure the shame of being penalised for a foul throw-in, or get angry when one of your team mates does it again, and again (and again).
• Offside rules? Save that poor referee from all of the abuse and goal-poach until your little heart is content.
• Short of a player or two? No problem. There’s always ‘rush-keeper’!
• The wearing of a full-kit is not necessary. Just pick up a set of $2 tees from target and you're off! Unless you want to look like the pros (even if you don't play like one) then theres always the Nike Teamwear Store.
• Where else can you showcase your 1991 PSG retro shirt you got off eBay? Surely, a vast improvement on the bag of rags you’re usually forced to wear in 11s?
• Too tired/unfit/hung-over? No problem – take your shot in goal and catch your breath. Do try and make a save every now and again though.
• Too old to play? Come over here old-timer. In 5-a-side we respect our elderly for your footballing ‘brain’. Now, get in goal Grandpa!
• Who cares what the scores are, as long as everyone realises exactly how many goals you bagged.
• Have a head shaped-like a 50c coin? No problem – we don’t like to head the ball anyway.
• Who can be bothered with 90 minutes? With fives you’re all done and dusted within an hour.
• Can’t afford those Christiano Ronaldo signature boots, in pink, yellow and green? You can play fives in your gran’s slippers for all we care.
• Your ankles and shins are going to thank you for playing 5-a-side – tackles are less likely to put you in Accident and Emergency.
• ‘Tactical geniuses’ are less common, with their superior knowledge from that Summer where they played Football Manager a lot.
• Ever hear of a ‘false-nine’, ‘box-to-box midfielder’ or ‘inverted winger’ in fives? Nope, there’s no place for that kind of rubbish here.
• Fives – you can play anywhere....
• Like to take pot-shots from the half way line despite how angry your team mates get? Forget those guys, you’re a hero in fives.
• No longer the hallmark of the worst player on the pitch, the toe-poke is actively encouraged in fives.
• Who washes the kits? No-one. There is no need for matching kits. Five-a-side teams are picked based on who is wearing roughly the same colour t-shirt.