| AZ Alkmaar - U19 – A1 – Train 6X per week |
|
|
| on 28 Jan 2008 | |
|
How can we catch up when they are training 6x per week and we train 2-3 times?
European Coaches Education Tour – 2007 – Blog #9 AZ Alkmaar – Friday, December 7th and Sunday, December 9th , 2007 Visit www.farpostreport.com for all the blogs of the Euro Tour 2007. Thursday night we watched the UEFA Cup game 1FC Nurenberg – AZ Alkmaar on T.V. at the Sky Sports Bar in Leidesplein. In the first half AZ dominated and played in the ½ of the opponent, pressuring and controlling the ball by keeping possession. At half time it was 0-1 for AZ. In the 2nd half they backed off and let Nurenberg play and ended up losing 2-1. We were supposed to watch AZ train on Friday morning, but Louis van Gaal was disappointed in the result and closed training on Friday. We went to Frans Hoek Sports in Hoorn and Frans gave us a lecture. We then went to AZ ‘s youth complex for a lecture from Alloys Wijnker the Director of Youth Development. Alloys Wijnker is in his 3rd year as the head of youth education. He was a professional player at AZ and coached the U15 and U17 youth teams for 6 years before becoming youth director. AZ has a brand new facility with offices, locker rooms, weight room, medical room, a lounge/game room for players and van drivers to hang out and 3 fields. They are in the process of building a new facility for the youth. Within 2-3 years, it should be ready. Mission – To educate talented players at the highest competition level in Holland. Aim – To have the best youth development in Holland. Objectives – - place 3 youth players in the first team every two years - within 4 years, have 75% of the players from Jonge AZ (2nd team which is U23) playing professional voetbal in Holland. How AZ wants to be recognized? - be down to earth - be approachable and open minded – look to other clubs and learn from them - be ambitious - work as a team (no stars), do it together - typical Dutch way of playing AZ = Altijd Zichzelf = Always yourself!!! Scouting – Recruitment – Scouting is organized by Michael Doesburg (former AZ player) and 20 scouts. Each scout is responsible for 8-12 amateur clubs. AZ is looking for players within a 40 km area from Alkmaar. AZ has 286 clubs in the area that they scout. Criteria for finding players – T – Techniqe (Skills) V – Vision C – Communicaiton To be a top player, you need to have all 3 aspects. The physical and mental are hard to make better. Teams at AZ – the structure is a stichting which is more of a business structure than a club with voting and members. This structure in Holland allows them only to have teams from the D age group and above. U19 – A1 – train 6X per week U17 – B1 – train 6X per week U15 – C1 – train 5X per week U14 – C2 – train 5X per week U13 – D1 – train 4X per week U12 – D2 – train 4X per week AZ Voetbal School – Ages 10 /11 Players are invited 1X per week from the local amateur clubs to train. AZ is thinking about a future cooperation with a local amateur club to work more with players age 6-10. The process when they find a player they are interested is: - write a letter to the club stating interest in a player - phone the parents/player - have them train and play a game - ask them into the club By May 31 all players for the following season must be signed in to the club. A question was asked about why no 2nd teams in the A and B age groups. Alloys said that the accommodation is not big enough, but more important, there are not enough quality players in the area and AZ is only for talented players. AZ Way of Playing – from U12 until the Professional team - Dominant voetbal - Attacking and attractive voetbal - Pressing voetbal - Playing technical voetbal - 1:4:3:3 system in the youth - Control the game by having the ball (possession) - Defending in the zone Older Youth (U19) Play in all systems for the development. U17/19 play point forward and point behind. U12- U15 all play 1:4:3:3 point forward. It is too difficult to play many systems well at these age groups and this system is proven to be best for youth development. Objectives for the different age groups: D1 and D2 – - learn the essence of the game during attacking and defending - learning to play in a team organization - the most important objective is teaching TECHNICAL aspects C1 and C2 – - making players aware of tasks of the team - teaching the meaning of the game - the most important objective is teaching more TECHNICAL aspects and the players VISION. B1 – - it is more important to win matches - making players more aware of their functions within the team and position - the most important objective is to improve the players vision and communication during the games. A1 – - learn to play in different systems - make sure that every player knows his duties/tasks perfectly during the game - teaching that winning the game is an now and important objective of the game - to understand and be able to play in every line-up the opponent is playing in - all aspects (technique, vision and communication) are important. Future and developments : - new and hypermodern accommodation - expand the area of scouting - mental training and support - work with specialists in every aspect of the Academy Structure and staff of AZ Club : Marcel Brands is the Technical Director of AZ and oversees all Voetbal Louis van Gaal is under him and responsible for the Professional team and Jonge AZ (2nd Team). Alloys Wijnker is under Marcel Brand and responsible for the Youth Department. Youth Staff : U12 coach is part time 6 Full time coaches Full time director of scouting 20 part time scouts 1 full time Physio who is responsible for the medical side, he has another full time assistant and one part time assistant. 1 part time goalkeeper coach 1 full time person and several part time responsible for academics 6 part time drivers who pick up and drop off the players AZ is looking for a skills coach – they need someone who is very good and must be able to do things that the current AZ staff can not do. AZ has 2 Evaluations with the players every year one in Nov/Dec and one in April/May. Job of the AZ youth director: Not much on the field 30% on the field 70% off the field Coaches Education: Once every 6 weeks, they bring in a coach or have an item that the staff discusses for education. Every Thursday the staff has a lunch meeting at the club and much of the development goes on at this meeting through discussion / confrontation. Individual Training Program : On Tuesday and Thursday in the AM, they work with all players on an individual basis. The staff of 9 coaches: All 6 team coaches Jonge AZ coach Director of Youth Striker coach 8:30-9:30 – U14/15 9:45-10:45 – U17 11:00-12:00 – U19 and Jonge AZ The entire staff is responsible for the development of ALL players. The Individual Training Program lets the players work with experts in certain positions and see new faces other than their own coach. Question? What are the most important aspects of your job? - Getting the coaches all on one line, working together with the same ideas of Voetbal. - Develop all aspects of the club better. Improve everything that is going on. Higher quality in all aspects. What is the star system designed by the Dutch Federation (KNVB)? It is a measuring stick for clubs to see what they have and what they need to become better. A rating system. The most you can have it 4 stars. 4 star clubs: AZ, Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, Heerenveen, Twente / Heracles Clubs get points for everything they have in their club. Such as: Scouting department Training (days, special programs etc.) Level of the youth teams Facilities Specialists Administration By looking at all of these items it makes clubs think about what they have and what they can improve. The KNVB rates a club every 3 years. Right now there are 38 professional clubs and within 5-10 years there will be more like 14-20 clubs due to mergers. By merging clubs will spend less money and get the BEST TALENTS together with the best coaches, facilities etc. What is the budget of AZ? AZ does not have a budget. Usually it is 8-10% of the entire budget. After a great presentation we watched youth trainings and then drove to Den Haag to watch the 1st Division Professional match between ADO Den Haag and MVV. MVV was winning 0-3 and the lights went out with 15 minutes to play. It was because of a storm and they ended up calling off the game. Luckily a player who I had played with at Quick, Den Haag in 1994 is now the Marketing Director for ADO and got us all in the business lounge. We had a few drinks and headed back to Amsterdam to rest up for a long Saturday watching Ajax youth games and then Willem II – Ajax professional game at night. |
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
