What a privilege it was to entertain a professional youth trainer from overseas.
Maksim Arakelyan visited us from Armenia where he is a professional youth coach with FC Ararat.
He took the opportunity to visit FC Ajax Amsterdam, FC Feyenoord and FC Dordrecht youth academies to learn more about the way we do training and share some of his experiences from working with youth players in his home country.
He was made welcome wherever he went. He spent a lot of time with FC Dordrecht O16 as this is the similar age group his team is in Armenia.
Training is a little different. They spend a lot of time on technique training, balance and co-ordination, and developing the players’ fitness while we in the Netherlands spend more time on small-sided games to develop team and positional play. Here, the training and games are always of a high tempo and intensity.
Now he wants to bring his team to the Netherlands to give his boys more experiences from which to learn and become better players.
I had a video conference with them earlier this week and was impressed with their interest to learn more about professional football and their superb behaviour and manners.
I hope they come next year and we show them a good time.
