Category: International Contribution

Categories
Development International Contribution

Belgium’s Rise To the Top..

This fascinating article about Belgium’s rise to world football. What hits home the most is that we could never achieve this in Ireland with the narrow-minded people running the game. There are very few people who are really interested in developing the game in this country. Unfortunately most have their own agendas and financial benefits are much more important.

Never the less this article in the Guardian on Friday 6th June,  gives you a sample of what could be achieved with a plan and involving schools & clubs all around Ireland. We could do no worse then to at least try and implement even a fraction of this. We have to try something to improve the quality of player we are producing.  I’m also well aware that Belgium has a professional league that includes teams that have some of the best academies in the world. We also don’t have resources across the Island and many counties lack facilities; the coaches and the players aren’t getting enough contact time with the ball. A lot would need to change. Coach education would need to improve and a big sum of cash would be needed to put the right structures in place across the country. We can dream!!!

Who is Ireland’s answer to Michel Sablon?

Below is a video which shows some of the work (Cognitive Training) Michel Bruyninckx has been doing with the Anderlecht Academy. This video is not part of Stuart article but I felt it was worth adding as it’s relative to player development in Belgium.

Belgium’s blueprint that gave birth to a golden generation

By @StuartJamesGNM

The team of stars travelling to Brazil as fifth favourites are the result of a coaching revolution that started in 1998.

Not everything that Michel Sablon writes down goes to plan. At Italia 90, Sablon was part of Belgium’s coaching staff, and a couple of minutes before the end of extra time in their last-16 match against England, he compiled a list of the penalty-takers. He had just finished scribbling the names when David Platt, in one of those iconic World Cup moments, spectacularly hooked the ball past Michel Preud’homme. “A great goal by Platt. But I was so disappointed,” Sablon says. “I threw the list away.”

A little more than a decade later Sablon started with another blank piece of paper, this time with the intention of revolutionising Belgian football in his role as the federation’s new technical director. At its headquarters in Brussels, Sablon proudly hands over a copy of the original blueprint, dated September 2006 and titled “La vision de formation de l’URBSFA”. He smiles when asked whether going to this summer’s World Cup finals as fifth favourites was what he had in mind. “For sure, no”.

Go here to read the rest of the Article

-End

Download the Belgium Vision on Youth Development

I always like to hear your opinions and views. If you feel you have something to say, please comment below or email me info@thecoachdiary.com If, you don’t have anything to add then please forward this on to a friend. As always, thanks for reading.

I’m also on twitter @Coachdiary

Email this page
Categories
International Contribution

Rules of Engagement

This is an article by Greg Hurvitz, Director of Sport at King David High School Linksfield, South Africa and it was originally published some time ago. Greg also writes a weekly column in the Star Metro ZA.

No matter where we are in the world, we face the same issues when it comes to development in youth sport. His contribution starts here> 

Very often, when speaking to groups of coaches, I speak about the rules of engagement. Now this is certainly not warfare but it is education, which as our own Former President Nelson Mandela has made so very important through his public emphasis on its importance – I would say that it is more important than warfare.

Pride, Passion, People and Participation – It’s what we do!

Sport is far more about life skills than it is about the sport itself. It is far more about learning who you are as an individual or within a team environment. Because of these 2 vital factors, we as coaches have to know how important positive and appropriate engagement is for the kids under our watch. It is not about how you were coached at school, it is not about what you think works for the individual. It is about what the individual needs to be the best he/she can be. For this to be remotely realised as coaches we need skills that extend beyond the mere technical. We must know how to positively engage our players almost perfectly. This takes hours and hours of thought, planning and implementation. This is a massive part of a coaching philosophy.

‘Know the individual, it will absolutely change how you manage that personality and character.’

For the first time ever, since I have had the privilege of writing this column, I want to extend my thoughts into the academic sphere. Schools are changing, the way our kids need to be educated has to adapt with this. The conventional desk and chair model is fast becoming redundant. The very quick tendency (my opinion) to diagnose ADD, ADHD or other ‘behavioural’ obstacels could, I believe, be alleviated and worked through with the correct approach to how we engage that individual in the learning environment. Notice I defined it as a learning environment not a teaching environment. Teachers and coaches, so similar in their tasks, must take every ounce of time possible to learn more about the individual so as to ensure the best activation model for this child – to make that child the best child he/she can be. School excos, driven by a Headmaster or Headmistress must critically assess their school learning environment to do the best possible for the spectrum of children in that school. I am proud to acknowledge my own school as a place moving positively in this critical analysis of our own model and I know many Heads of schools are asking these questions, Good for you!

Know the individual, it will absolutely change how you manage that personality and character. It does take time and it does take major self investment, but at the end of the day as educators in the classroom or on the sports field – we do this because we have chosen this and this is our calling – so go ahead and make your calling the best job in the world and changes thousands of lives in the process.

We would like to thank Greg for his contribution to thecoachdiary.com. You can follow Greg on twitter @GregHurvitz

====

I always like to hear your opinions. Please comment below or email me info@thecoachdiary.com If, you don’t have anything to add then please forward this on to a friend. Thanks for reading. I’m also on twitter @Coachdiary