Confirmation or recognition?

When you work in football, and have worked in different clubs you always keep looking over your shoulder what goes on in your previous clubs. In my case I still follow the clubs I played for and the last years the clubs where I organized the football departments.

FC Shakhtar Donetsk and FC Kairat Almaty are the clubs that I follow with interest. A part of FC Shakhtar Donetsk first team consists of academy developed players. At FC Kairat Almaty players are making their debut in the first team in the last months.

It has been a privilege to work for these clubs! Why? Both owners had a big interest in developing not only the first teams but also the academy. For me it was a pleasure to organize football for the academy teams, players and coaches. Not only the facilities where created on a high level but also the players and coaching staff were very motivated to assist in making the changes possible.

Result

The result, was not to make all teams champion, that was a fact because all teams were developed in the same philosophy, but to develop players for the first team for the years to come.

FC Shakhtar Donetsk had troubles because of the political problems and had to leave their own region. The support and philosophy around the first team changed and this gave opportunities for younger players to make their debut and to show that they had the level to play in the first team.

FC Kairat Almaty had also a few debuts of academy players in this season because of the development of these players, injuries and coaches changing.

The interesting part is that this are all players that trained for a longer period in one philosophy followed by all coaches in the academy. What does that mean to me? It is for me a confirmation that you need to follow a philosophy for a long period, that you should create a plan that becomes stronger while doing and repeating it and that is what creates a stable development of players. That is the confirmation!!

The recognition comes from the management of clubs that compliment you still when you meet the management or visit the clubs and through the previous coaching staff that recognizes the stability that they had while the philosophy did his job. Most of the time that stability is gone when a new person takes over, a new philosophy or a person falling back on old rules.

What the club management should do when hiring new people is to set aims. Set the aims but connect them with all the previous positively developed parts in a football academy. Use them and keep them as the stable factors for the development of players and coaches when these aims have shown to be successful!