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Technical Director Rob Baan and Scott O’Donell, the Technical Director, Regional and Elite Academies always insist on Coaching sessions to be interactive ones. Hence, the second day of the AIFF Coaching Seminar started with a Group Discussion with the 65 participants divided into six groups. The topic: Strengths and Weaknesses of Indian Football.
Head Coach Youth Development, Colm Joseph Toal, expressed his views on Current State of National Youth Teams. “This is such a wonderful initiative to get so many Coaches under one roof, that too for a week. It gives us the idea to exchange ideas. This was long due,” he stated.
In his presentation which was appreciated by all, Toal encouraged all the participants to “express their opinions.”
“We need to talk and question each other. Coaching is all about opinion and nothing is correct and definite. The more the opinion, the more the ideation,” he defined.
“It’s imperative to understand the difference between winning and development,” he further added. “At the Youth Development Programme, winning doesn’t matter; but development does. You all as Coaches need to differentiate it. It’s necessary to strike the balance and marry both,” he maintained.
Besides, he urged the Coaches to be “honest,” while selecting a player. “Unfortunately the age-old issue of age-fraud is very much prevalent and when you find a player found overage, it comes as a frustration and discouragement to all who have been the process. For the sake of winning, many force over-age boys into age-group tournaments. But that doesn’t help,” he added.
Earlier in the day, Pradip Dutta, Fitness Coach, All India Football Federation struck a balance on the Physical Preparation of Young Players. An AFC Elite Panel Instructor, Dutta emphasized on the recovery of players, as he spoke at length about the dominant energy systems, ergo genesis, energy suppliers, limiting factors and training objectives. He also highlighted the comparison between early specialization and multilateral development and also on duration of exercises.
Significantly enough, he brought forward injury prevention techniques and a periodization model for long term strength training.
Scott O’Donell, Technical Director, Regional and Elite Academies, who has been running all nook and corner to ensure smooth facilitation for the participants dished out the Plan for future AIFF Regional and Elite Academies. “We need to create a Nationwide scouting network to ensure we produce future World Class Players.”
The practical session for the day was conducted by AIFF Technical Director Rob Baan as he demonstrated various skill training techniques at Father Agnel’s Training Ground.
