As the 10th Luneng Weifang Cup International Football Tournament, held from July 24 to 30 in Weifang city of east China's Shandong province, wrapped up, not only did the participating teams play a series of attractive games, but the coaches of each team also shared their youth training models and experience.
INTEGRATION AND SPECIFICATION
The Dutch club FC Heerenveen, which sent two youth team coaches to the tournament to scout for players, is a small club, but their youth camp has nurtured such great Dutch legends as Ruud van Nistelrooy and Klass-Jan Huntelaar.
According to Robin Veldman, coach of Heerenveen's U-13 team, their youth training system includes a football school for kids aged from seven to 11, plus five teams ranging from U-11, U-13 and all the way to U-19.
Veldman said one of the advantages the club can offer is that they have private coaches for individual players playing particular positions on the pitch, such as striker coach and winger coach. In addition, all the coaches in Heerenveen have spent at least 10 years playing for or working with the team, according to Veldman.
"They (have spent) way long (a time) in the club to know how we work ... and since we are so small, everybody knows what everybody is doing," he said, adding that a small club in which coaches, though in charge of different divisions, assist each other and work only with talents is good for developing the young players.
The Portuguese league champions Benfica, like Heerenveen, have taken a similar approach in specialized training, and their focus is on goalkeepers.
In the 2011-12 season Benfica created a special department to train goalkeepers and named it "Eagle One". The department's methodology is applied to all teams in club's youth training system with the mission of "cultivating goalkeepers with professional skills for Benfica."
DETAILS MATTER
One thing that has led to the Brazilian club Desportivo Brasil wining this year's Weifang Cup championship is their pursuit for perfection in details.
Every time before the training session started, the coach would hand out a form to each players asking whether they ate and slept well, how their physical conditions were, and whether they felt exhausted. The information would in turn help the coach design different training plans for individual players.
