CONTENTS
FOREWORD
CONTENTS
Executive Summary ................................................................................................ 4 Executive Summary: key findings ............................................................. 6 Quality areas framework . ................................................................................ 8 Overall methodology . ....................................................................................... 12 Map of participating clubs ............................................................................ 16 Quality Areas methodology ....................................................................... 18 12 Quality Areas . ..................................................................................................... 20 Survey introduction . .......................................................................................... 44 Survey methodology .......................................................................................... 46 Survey analysis methodology .................................................................. 48 Working processes within the Quality Areas ........................... 50 Most common working processes ........................................................ 60 Working process correlations .................................................................. 64 Statistical findings conclusions .............................................................. 68 Club case study analysis ................................................................................ 70 Interview methodology .................................................................................. 74 Ajax Amsterdam .................................................................................................. 76 Athletic Club ........................................................................................................... 80 RSC Anderlecht .................................................................................................... 84 FC Copenhagen ................................................................................................... 88 Fenerbahçe SK ..................................................................................................... 92 FC Internazionale Milano .............................................................................. 96 FC Inter Turku ................................................................................................... 100 FC Kairat ................................................................................................................ 104 Legia Warsaw .................................................................................................... 108 Malmö FF .............................................................................................................. 112 Olympique Lyonnais .................................................................................... 116 Rangers FC .......................................................................................................... 120 HNK Rijeka ........................................................................................................... 124 FC Red Bull Salzburg .................................................................................... 128 FC Shakhtar Donetsk ................................................................................... 132 Sporting CP ......................................................................................................... 136 Zenit St. Petersburg . .................................................................................... 140 FC Zimbru . ........................................................................................................... 144 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 148 Glossary/project delivery team .......................................................... 150
T hese are challenging times for youth academies across Europe. The pandemic has affected the football world heavily and many academies have had to be flexible to deal with ever-changing circumstances. This only strengthens our belief about the important role the ECA Youth Working Group has to play. We firmly believe that youth academies can strengthen both themselves and each other through constant cooperation and the sharing of knowledge. Over the last year, the Youth Working Group has come together to translate current needs and industry developments into an ambitious three-year strategic plan. The ECA Youth Football Strategy, which runs from 2021 to 2023, comprises of four strategic pillars that aim to provide ECA member clubs with valuable guidance and services to further support the development of their youth academies both now and in the future. The first pillar is dedicated to the “regulatory protection of training clubs”. The rapidly evolving transfer market and increasing value of players require a robust and unambiguous framework to protect the development of youth players and their education. The strategy’s second pillar is centred around the “development of the youth competition landscape.” This includes optimising international club competitions, with the inclusion of the UEFA Youth League. The third pillar which aims to “facilitate knowledge exchange,” provides platforms for the sharing of insight and expertise between youth programmes through a wide range of formats; webinars, online workshops, and in-person visits to affiliated youth programmes. The fourth and final pillar commits to “delivering essential research,” including the release of this report. Projects such as this help ECA members to navigate global developments, gain further industry knowledge, and learn from best practice plans. This plays a crucial role in our aim to bring talent development at all clubs to the highest level, and inspire youth around the world with the game we love to play.
“The exchange of knowledge helps us in our aim to bring talent development at all clubs to the highest level”
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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Our online survey had 352 individual hits from 72 countries around Europe and the rest of the world
Countries Germany
Hits
Countries
Hits
27 20 19 18 17 17 16 14 14 12 12 12 11 10 10
Georgia Sweden Austria
4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1
Spain France
Switzerland United States Netherlands
Czech Republic
Belgium
Republic of Moldova North Macedonia
Russian Federation
THE GLOBAL GAME
Kazakhstan
Senegal Norway Serbia Slovakia
United Kingdom
Italy
Slovenia Poland Croatia Turkey Finland Bulgaria Ukraine Ireland Portugal
Latvia
Azerbaijan
Estonia
Israel
9 7 7 7 6 6 6 6
Faroe Islands
Hungary Lithuania Romania Albania Belarus
Philippines
Cyprus Greece
Montenegro Other countries
Denmark
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YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23
12 QUALITY AREAS
The working processes connected with the Physical Care Quality Area include:
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PHYSICAL CARE
The standard of medical care, pitch-side and rehabilitation treatment
Do you have a formally defined coaching methodology?
Do you have Te-Ta coach for all age groups?
A nalysing Physical Care within the academy system enables us to cast an eye on all aspects of a player’s physical growth and physical well-being, which includes preparation for physical exercise, sport science, nutrition or medicine among others. Ultimately, when it comes to a player’s Physical Care, an academy will ensure its players are strong, fast and resistant to physical injury or, if an injury does
Do you have a dedicated coach to provide individual coaching to players in the academy?
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happen, players are treated to ensure they can recover as quickly as possible without suffering long-term effects. The need for academies to consistently develop healthy, strong, fast and resilient individuals with positive lifestyle habits is growing. Modern football is placing increased physical demands on athletes, especially at the highest level, not least through growing speeds, intensities and fixture quantity. For many clubs, this is one of the areas with the most obvious focus on recent technological advances. It requires investment in hardware, software and
“The PlayStation has had an impact on kids' physical development”
Do you have strength and
Do you have athletics coach for all age groups?
conditioning coach for all age groups?
Jani Meriläinen, FC Inter Turku
Do you implement biobanding principles in age-group composition?
Is there an assessment of the physical capacity of the players?
staff, as well as new methodologies of physical training, medical care and sport science support at younger age groups. Since many of the elements connected with Physical Care include the delivery of specialised services to players in regulated areas, it's possible to verify quality levels through objective assessment of staffing (for example, the presence of certain positions within the organisational structure; and the quality of employees and their memberships to professional bodies). Other possible quality markers include such measurement of variables as the number of injuries by type, or training days missed within an academy setting, though this kind of individual health, and performance data, is a major challenge from a privacy point of view.
Do you film youth matches for subsequent analysis?
Do you have a full-time nutritionist at youth academy?
Do you have full-time doctor at youth academy?
Do you have a full-time physiotherapist at youth academy?
Is a player assessment done for each parent?
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YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23
YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23
SURVEY INTRODUCTION
Working processes represent 'what' we do at work consciously or unconsciously. Asking academy experts what they do has helped us gain valuable insight across academies…
you will identify areas that need improvement, and you will find new processes to help you do this. There will be some elements of your work that will be constrained by infrastructure and or logistics, but the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ are things
W hat and how we focus on for and the structure of our tasks. The working processes we use to do our duties also highlight what we find important to us and what is suitable to our philosophy or vision. How we then perform is related to the operationalisation of those processes. All of this is extremely important within the academy ecosystem, and it is all clearly interconnected In terms of the working processes you use, some relate to ‘what’ you do, ‘how’ you do it, and it’s the combination of these processes, and how they work together, that help us perform. our daily work routines relates to the organisations we work On top of that, it is useful to know what you use to deliver the ‘how’. Of course,
you can shape based on your philosophy, values, club DNA or your vision of what you see as successful for your academy and club. These working processes describe the same environment as the 12 Quality Areas, just from a different perspective. To help identify and describe the 12 QAs, we have used the list of working processes in the form of questions, then analysed their impact and assigned them to one or more Quality Areas. Hopefully, this list, which could in itself be seen as a concise methodology of running or development of a youth academy, could be useful when comparing to your own working processes, and might trigger some new questions for you to consider within your setting.
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SURVEY
INTRODUCTION
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YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23
Edwin van der Sar Chairman of the ECA Youth Working Group, ECA Vice-Chairman & CEO AFC Ajax
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YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23
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