“I can think faster in a small space. And I think that’s what football is about, micro-matches within a very big game, you know? There are little games there, two against two and one against one, that sometimes you have to solve to win a game. All of that is like futsal and it helps me a lot.”
That was it the legacy that Ríos began to build on the fields and streets of Vegachí, a modest town in the department of Antioquia. His talent led him to play in different teams in Bello, in the metropolitan area of Medellin. A few years later, he ended up in Rio de Janeiro.
Leaving a poor region and changing his address several times, always in search of better opportunities… Sport was perhaps the only possibility of changing his family’s standard of living. It is the same script that many South American talents have followed.
When he was much younger, at 12, Ríos could wear out his shoe or the sole of his foot playing with the ball, but he was unable to watch Colombia’s historic performance at the 2012 FIFA Futsal World Cup in Thailand on television. “We couldn’t watch it because I didn’t have very good living conditions. We followed what we could follow from there,” he says.
What is interesting is that later on, thanks to his rapid progress, Ríos was able to see up close the group of players that reached the World Cup semi-finals. “There are some players that I remember; I also played alongside some of them, like the number 10 of that team, Angellott (Caro; one of the great names in Colombian futsal). In any case, it was something that left a mark on me because it was at the beginning and it contributed a lot to me being here now.”
That 2012 futsal World Cup was the only one for which Colombia qualified without automatically qualifying as the host country, something that happened in the following edition in 2016. But that does not mean that Richard Ríos has remained on the sidelines of the competition since then. “We wanted to go with Colombia, of course. But when they are not participating, we support the South American teams. And there we always have Brazil and Argentina as powers in this sport,” he stressed.
Also for that reason, andThe Colombian cultivated his admiration for the stellar Falcão. “He was an extraordinary guy. And if he also tried to play football and leave this modality, it is because he had already done everything he had to do in futsal,” he concluded.
Now, in Uzbekistan 2024, alongside the two aforementioned South American powers, Paraguay and Venezuela will also be competing for the title. And as long as the Brasileirão schedule allows, Ríos, a die-hard futsal fan, will be able to watch the matches live and will have plenty of people to cheer on.
At the same time, he is paving the way to another World Cup, the 2026 World Cup to be held in Mexico, Canada and the United States, with a team that is second, two points behind Argentina, where he came to claim a place in the starting lineup and where he looks stronger every day.
Football on TV
SATURDAY
Southampton-Manchester United 6:30 a.m. ESPN
Mallorca-Villarreal 7:00 a.m. ESPN 3
City Manchester City-Brentford 9:00 a.m. ESPN
Liverpool-Nottingham Forest 9:00 a.m. Disney+ Premium
Espanyol-Alavés 9:15 am DSports
Empoli-Juventus 11:00 a.m. ESPN 2
Aston Villa-Everton 11:30 a.m. ESPN
Seville-Getafe 11:30 am DSports
Milan-Venezia 1:45 pm ESPN 2
Real Sociedad-Real Madrid 2:00 p.m. DSports
Fortaleza-Pasto 2:00 pm Win Football+
Once Caldas-Cali 4:10 pm Win Football+
Tolima-Boyacá Chicó 6:20 pm Win Football+
Golden Eagles-Medellin 8:30 pm Win Football+
DOMINGO
Celta-Real Valladolid 7:00 am DSports
Tottenham-Arsenal 8:00 a.m. ESPN
Girona-Barcelona 9:15 a.m. ESPN 2
Wolverhampton-Newcastle 10:30 a.m. ESPN
Cagliari-Naples 11:00 am ESPN 3
Las Palmas-Athletic Club 11:30 a.m. ESPN 2
Atletico Madrid-Valencia 2:00 pm ESPN
Brazil-North Korea 2:30 pm Win
America-Pereira 4:00 pm Win Football+
Colombia-Holland 4:30 pm RCN and Gol Caracol
Japan-Spain 6:00 pm DSports
United States-Germany 8:00 pm Win
La Equidad-Millonarios 8:30 pm Win Football +