Shakhtar Donetsk Youth Academy

Almost 3 years ago Henk van Stee and Shakhtar Donetsk Patrick van Leeuwen – working for the youth academy of Feyenoord Rotterdam at the time – were appointed to take over youth academy (2): the youth education at Shakhtar Donetsk. Last summer Henk van Stee joined De Graafschap as head coach, but Van Leeu- wen stayed. SoccerCoachingInternational paid a visit to Shakhtar Donetsk to take a closer look on how to start a top education programme in Europe. In this se- cond episode director Patrick van Leeuwen will discuss the education of coaches. Due to the lack of street football in the Ukraine. Shaktar's U11s team plays at a lower level than most other Eu- ropean top clubs. The objective is to catch up by the time they reach U17s. The difference must be made by educa- ting good coaches. By: Paul van Veen “Good trainers are the foundation for good players” 20 No. 34 – August / September 2009 Youth academy “My most important objective here is to set up an academy that does not depend on me. That means that it is important to guide the coaches well. They must understand why we train this way. This is a process that will take years and Henk van Stee and I started this a while ago. In the beginning it was a huge task. We wanted them to start doing new things and because we did not want to offer all the theory at the same time, we split the material up into certain components. We started with the system of play. We developed some PowerPoint presentations to show the coaches how we want to play in possession and with loss of possession against several other systems. After going through everything we gave them the handout and said: `this is think of the total organization. They prefer to focus their coaching the way we want to play from now on'. We then discussed the to the player in possession. A Dutch coach will focus more on the games by means of video recordings and we noticed bigger picture.” improvements every week." Exercise overkill Defense when in possession “We subsequently started to work on the way of training. We try "You start with the basic ideas and by doing so you will automatically to do this a little like the Dutch way: 7 against 6, 8 against 7 with notice what the frequent problems are and what we need to focus on tasks. This is, however, not common here as most training the most. We realized all teams where frequently making the same sessions here would consist of what we call exercise overkill: tactical mistakes. When we noticed those mistakes we would take doing as many exercises as possible in the available training time. them with us to our next meeting and discuss them thoroughly. We This is part of their culture; variation, variation and more variation. witnessed that they were having problems to allow players to take So they would spend five minutes on this and then five minutes on the initiative, to accept errors and not to punish players every time, that. While in the Netherlands we focus on repetition and applying so they wouldn't dare to try it again. the same techniques in various exercises. This is something we have spent a lot of time on here.” Another problem was the defense, keeping control when in possession. We often witnessed situations here in which a left Changes in coaches wingback takes a run down the flank and the right wingback moves “The first months we worked with the group of coaches who were forward also because he wants to attack as well, because the ball here when we arrived, but after 3 or 4 months we changed some may enter his area. In the Netherlands we would think: let’s things around. We let go of some trainers and attracted a couple defend the right flank and also give back cover to the central of new ones, mainly former players, who became assistant defenders. The right midfielder controls the midfield and therefore trainers and would have the potential to evolve to head coaches. creating good positioning in possession and with loss of A lot of these new trainers were involved with scouting before and possession. These things are very hard to teach coaches from were unable to do anything concrete with their knowledge before. this culture. They will say they understand the concept, but we They all had their coaches certifications and most of them played don't always see them apply this in the games, because they have at the top European level, some even for the national team. They problems detaching themselves from the player on the ball and to therefore have a lot to offer to the development of the players.” No. 34 – August / September 2009 21 Youth academy New way of training Demonstration Training “We also added two new coaches to the staff, both former youth players who were unable to play due to injuries. They were both educated with our vision and therefore had no experience with the 'old' Ukrainian way of training and teaching. I am always watch the coaches and am very critical of how they handle the kids and that they don't fall back to their old habits. You can give the young coaches more information and they will try everything we throw at them. Coaches who have been working at the club longer need a little more convincing and push to try things.” Time management “All coaches at Shakhtar do well for themselves. They all have full time contracts, even the youth coaches. This means they are available a lot. The football schools only train once a day, meaning they are very busy from 1 to 5. So we use the mornings to give them courses and we have the opportunity to have coaches shadow each other. The youth technique trainer (who works with the Wiel Coerver method) will shadow the adult technique trainer, same things applied to the conditioning trainer and the goalkeeper trainer.” “Chelsea's Ruud Kaiser provided one of the demonstration training sessions. He did some exercises the coaches had Guest coaches “In order to get through to the trainers more effectively we also use never seen before, but since then they use them in their own guest coaches. Coaches from big European clubs, who we fly over sessions. Play 4 against 2 in an area. The moment the ball and ask them to give demo training sessions on a certain subject. is won by the team of 2, they will pass the ball to their team- We have invited coaches who have given tactical training sessions, mates in the larger area. The game proceeds in the larger technical training sessions (like Ricardo Moniz of HSV Hamburg) area where the teams play 6 against 4. When the team of 4 and coaches who focus on the physical aspects. This way our wins the ball they will continue in the smaller area, where coaches can see that other top clubs also work the way we are only 2 opponents are allowed.” working. The next step was visiting other academies. We took an 8- day trip through Europe with a selective group of coaches. We visited 4 clubs and the KNVB. This gave them a good idea of who Combination other clubs work. From this trip we gathered that 1 day at a club was “This combination of a group of older coaches, who had been too little and we therefore decide to go to the Manchester United involved with coaching at the club for a longer time, along with the academy for a week and follow all the training sessions.” former players proved to be a good mix for most teams. Of course it is not perfect yet and there will be some more staff changes in the future, but so far the changes have been minimal. With the younger teams we really didn't change the staff much. We started with the young, enthusiastic coaches who were here when we arrived. I only changed one coach, because I thought he was too nice, so I made him coordinator of one of our football schools and he is doing a great job and he has the opportunity to develop himself as a coach as well.” SoccerCoachingInternational asked the U17 coach what he thought about the new way of playing: “This new way of playing is the current way of playing in Europe. If we want to play at the top level it is important to adopt this new way. Because all positions are occupied in a 1-4-3-3 it is easy to use this system in offense as well as defense. Furthermore it allows for the development of all round players, because all players have to think about both offense and defense. Everybody is always doing the same thing, as everybody is defending or attacking.” 22 No. 34 – August / September 2009 Youth academy During the coach education all coaches were given exercises to without defenders. The 3 options are trained separately first, improve in offense. These exercises are coached in two groups, after that the player has to choose what he wants to use. Attacking from the right flank (1) Attacking across the right flank (2) - 3 passes to 2 - 3 passes to 2 - 2 passes to 6 - 2 passes to 6 - 6 passes to 7, who comes to the ball after a pre- - 6 passes to 7, who comes to the ball after a pre- move move - 2 overlaps 7 and receives the ball - 7 wall passes on 10 - 2 crosses, good positioning in front of the goal - 10 passes back to 7 - Pay attention to the rest defense - 7 crosses, good positioning in front of goal - Pay attention to the defense on the attacking team Attacking from the right flank (3) Attacking from the right flank (4) - 3 passes to 2 - 3 passes to 2 - 2 passes to 6 - 2 passes to 6 - 6 passes to 7, who comes to the ball after a pre- - 6 passes to 7, who comes to the ball after a pre- move move - 10 overlaps 7 who dribbles inside - 7 wall passes on 10 - 7 passes to 10 - 2 overlaps 7 and receives the ball from 10 - 10 crosses, good positioning in front of goal - 2 crosses, good positioning in front of goal - Pay attention to the rest defense - Pay attention to the defense of the attacking game No.

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