– Are you ready for training? asks Raymond Rachid, player developer for the very youngest in Bodø/Glimt. – Yes, the children answer in unison. One of them has a Manchester United shirt with Ronaldo on the back. Another is dressed in Paris Saint Germain’s blue kit with superstar Kylian Mbappé’s number 7. – Lovely, lovely! Today we will focus on consistent numbers and dribbling. So it will be good. For those of us who have played football for a few years, we all remember what training was like when we were younger. It was a lot about good passes. Two and two together, right and left foot. – The best thing you can give a good friend is a good pass, said former footballer, coach and commentator, Ivar Hoff But something has changed in football. This is out: Removing passing drills A year and a half ago, the Norwegian Football Association (NFF) launched a new plan for player development for children from the age of 6 and through adolescence. – There we have removed a number of things that we believe are less important, says Håkon Grøttland, subject officer for player development at the NFF. Gone is what Grøttland calls isolated technical training, such as the good old passing drills. Now it’s about training on scoring goals and preventing goals. And it’s about dribbling: – When you’re 6-7 years old, it’s more than enough to deal with yourself, the ball and the rooms that are close to you. If you get to practice it, you develop a type of skill that we have too little of in Norwegian football. At Aspmyra in Bodø, training is in full swing. Nine-year-olds Theo and Isak are two of the players who are very satisfied with the offer at Glimtakademiet. – We learn a lot that we haven’t learned before, says Theo. – Like what? NEW EXERCISES: Isak and Theo learn new things as part of the Glimtakademiet, an offer for young footballers in Bodø, regardless of which club they play for on a daily basis. Photo: Sondre Skjelvik / news – We learn a lot about dribbling. How we are going to get past the players and get more speed towards them to challenge, says Theo. – And the first touch, to get past the opponents. But we also practice passing a bit, says Isak. Trainer Raymond Rachid says that Glimt’s methods are based on research. – It depends on what the players can learn, based on their cognitive abilities, he says. For the very youngest, the focus is on “myself and the ball”. Gradually, they expand the scheme. GOOD DRIVE: Isak (9) moves the ball at good speed at Glimtakademiet. Photo: Sondre Skjelvik / news – Then it becomes “myself, the ball and opponent”, then we move on to “myself, the ball, opponent and my own team-mate”. And this is how we gradually expand, says Rachid. But what does this mean for the players who are not so good with the ball? Does the NFF or Glimt fear that these players will drop out when the focus for the very youngest is on solo skills? Håkon Grøttland in the NFF doubts it. Among other things, because of the arrangement for matches that the NFF has introduced for the very smallest footballers. Everyone gets to touch the ball In the past, young footballers played seven against seven, before gradually switching to eleven against eleven. A few years ago, the NFF changed the system and organized the game at several levels. The very youngest (ages 6-7) play three against three on courts with a wall around them. As a result, the ball rarely goes out of play. – Those who are furthest back have just as much opportunity to get the ball as a result of ping pong situations as to get the ball from a pass. Having more focus on dribbling will not lead to those players being less involved, we believe, says Grøttland. Even Ivar Hoff, the man who once said that “the best thing you can give a good friend is a good pass”, likes what he hears. DRIBLEFANT: Ivar Hoff singles out Tom Lund as a player who dribbled a lot, and who has gone down in history as one of the greatest Norwegian footballers. – That’s how you develop creativity, says Hoff. Photo: NTB / NTB – We have to let the children get to know, and be safe with, the ball. It builds self-confidence, then the passes come naturally when you have good technique, says Hoff. – Have we had the wrong focus in the past? – What we have done in the past is uninteresting. It’s what we do now that matters. Håkon Grøttland in the NFF still expects that there will be discussions about the relatively new scheme for the very youngest. – We have some environments that are very keen on passing games ala Barcelona, who want a lot of that. We want that too, but want other things at the same time. That’s what’s so nice about football, there is no conclusion, but many opinions. And a bunch of people who think they have it right, he says. “Pappatrainerne”: – Demanding balance Eirik Øiestad runs the “Pappatrainerne” podcast. Together with Martin Blekkerud, Øiestad also runs a separate Facebook group for parent coaches. He is positive about moving away from the old exercises with cones and isolated passing exercises, and over to more game and play-based activities for training. – Through our work, we see that there has been too much playing in children’s sports, as opposed to more play-based activities. Although I do not have a football background, I still have the impression that football has become much better in that area, says Øiestad. At the same time, he sees that the focus on dribbling and free exercises can give the coaches challenges. BALANCE: Eirik Øiestad, one of the men behind the podcast “Pappatrenerne” thinks the NFF’s ideas seem smart, but emphasizes that it requires more from the coaches to be able to give all the players a good experience. Photo: Photographer: Frida Marie Grande / Photographer: Frida Marie Grande – If you have too many exercises where you set up those who are best at dribbling against those who are less good, it can quickly become a bias there. Then you as a coach have to work a lot with differentiation, and to make it possible for everyone to get a benefit, says Øiestad. – It is easier to achieve in more isolated exercises, which the players can perform at their own pace. But it is also a balancing act. – If you want to differentiate, you must again try to put together the right groups, so that there are not such clear differences between those who have come the farthest and the less experienced players. Raymon Rachid in Bodø/Glimt says that they work a lot to put together groups based on physical abilities and other characteristics, so that everyone feels mastery during the training sessions. And Glimt are not the only ones who encourage children to dribble. INSTRUCTION: Raymond Rachid says that they don’t just set up for dribbling. They like to stop the game to ask what is the right thing to do in different situations. Should the kids center or dribble? Photo: Sondre Skjelvik / news New stars in Bodø/Glimt? Strømsgodset, in line with Glimt, has employed trainers to work with the very youngest. They also focus on dribbling and one-on-one skills for this age group. – When the players are not mature enough to interact, dribbling, shooting, winning the ball and preventing goals are good areas of focus, says Harald Johannesen, development manager at Strømsgodset. Lillestrøm has the same philosophy. – It is important that boys and girls become comfortable with the ball before we start focusing on the passing game. If you compare Norwegian senior players with players from abroad, Norwegians struggle more to handle tight situations, says development manager in Lillestrøm, Toni Ordinas. – In my eyes, it is therefore important to work with one on one, dribbling, and protecting the ball, early on. Then we can start working on the passing game when they get a little older. So what results has this work produced in Bodø so far? Player developer Raymond Rachid says it is difficult to say anything about concrete results of the investment so far. – But for us it ends up being a lot about coping and development. If one of our players doesn’t manage to dribble past another when we start, but manages to do it the following week, then we see that he or she has taken a step forward. Then we are satisfied. – Will we get any new Glimt stars from this? – We will never know, but we hope so. Norwegian documentary series. Four teenagers in Tromsø are starting a new football season. They have different starting points, but the same big dream of one day becoming a football professional. Sigurd (12) has got a new coach, Håvard (14) is starting a new club, Henrik (14) hopes to be selected for the regional team and Bruno (17) is getting ready for a decisive season. (1:8)
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In Norwegian football and Bodø/Glimt, young footballers must dribble, not center – news Nordland
