Leigh Egger
Leigh is a member of the 1993 born Pathway Development Program squad. Leigh’s hard work and commitment to developing his technical game has seen him gain selection in the NSW State U14 squad that participated in the 2006 Friendship Games. His leadership qualities were also recognised as he was bestowed the honour of being the Vice-captain.
2006 European Tour
IQ Soccer’s Director of Coaching, Geoff Stanmore, recently returned from a three week research trip to Europe. During this time he visited TSV 1860 Munich (Germany), AJ Auxere (France) and the French Football Federation’s (FFF’s) National Technical Centre at Clairefontaine, Nottingham Forest FC, Everton FC, Blackburn Rovers FC and Barnsley FC (all of England).
The aim of the trip was to research information for Stanmore’s final year of his Masters of Applied Science (Sports Coaching) degree. The final year involves a major project whereby student’s have the opportunity to come up with a topic of interest. Stanmore’s area of interest is Youth Talent Identification, Talent Selection and Development Policies.
“The highlight of the trip was spending time at the FFF’s National Technical Centre at Clairefontaine. Spending time with Andre Merelle was simply brilliant. Being able to swap ideas was invaluable for my study as Andre was able to provide a mind-map for the course of the study.”
The FFF’s National Technical Centre can be compared to our program at the AIS. However, the AIS enrols players into the program at age 17 whereas the FFF take players at age 13. The players train and live at Clairefontaine where they receive both an academic and a football education until they graduate three years later at age 16. At 16 they return to their clubs technically proficient and tactically adept for the modern game.
“I am looking forward to returning to Clairefontaine in January 2007 for an extended visit with Andre as his insight of the development of the junior and youth player is both extensive and unequivocal.”
Time spent at AJ Auxerre was timely as the Zimbabwe National Team were using Auxerre as a base to prepare for the African’s Cup. The Zimbabwe team were exceptionally gifted athletes but were not as technically proficient as the French. Mr Bernard David, Director of Coaching for the AJ Auxerre Academy, detailed how their system worked and how it dovetails with the FFF’s development program. An enormous amount of time and energy is poured into juniors and youth development with full-time coaches responsible for the implementation of the curriculum.
Time spent in Germany was also informative. TSV 1860 Munich, home of Australian Paul Agostino, conduct a very sound recruitment program which is matched by a very heavily oriented education program. “1860’s approach to youth development is incisive as they place just as much importance on coach education as they do on player education. This approach ensures that the players are receiving the best available training from the best available coaches. No coach seems afraid to share information.”
In the UK the clubs have differing approaches with some emphasising student player more so than some who were more focused on purely the player. All the clubs had great training facilities, coaching and support staff. Nottingham Forest hosted their own education facility at the club whereby school teachers are employed to teach the players during the day between training sessions. Everton’s philosophy towards identification best mirrored the approach that I have adopted to study and Blackburn’s holistic approach to development was extremely impressive. Barnsley, home of Australian Jacob Burns, was very much focused on coach education as the Youth Academy Director, Dave Hancock, saw this as important to the academy development program.
Many aspects of the trip were significant but none stood out more than the rule that players must live within a one-hour travel distance from the club. Significant because the players are training minimum 4 days a week, with some clubs training twice per day for 4 days and a non-competition game on the weekend. Therefore, players in Europe can be training up to 12-15 hours on the park a week. Compare this to 3-4 hours on average per week here in Australia and one could conclude that Europe could be developing their players at up to 4 times quicker than here in Australia. This raised the point of over-training for which the common reply was that ‘burn-out’ was usually as a result of training sessions being uninspiring and non-educational and the player is not getting anything out of it and is hence getting bored and simply lose interest.
So overall, great information was collected and many new friends were made. I am looking forward to meeting up with them all in January 2007.
