Global Football Training

Asia, Australia and South and North America. In other words GLOBALLY. Survey visits to the individual club/academy typically last for 1-4 days. The project features interviews with trainers and managers associated with the club/academy in question. These interviews, coupled with an inspection of the club’s facilities and the GFT consultant’s observations regarding the club’s training sessions and matches, will be used to answer a number of pre-defined questions; questions which relate to the following 6 focus points :

Training methods
Physiology
Diet
Social background
Scouting
Club organisational structures
GFT’s purpose in collecting this data is also to strengthen the foundation for future work in refining the training method and to improve the football talent development nationally, internationally and globally. The GFT project provides a snapshot and a store of current footballing knowledge. At Global Football Training, our primary objective is to uncover differences in global methods of training and educating football players. We want to illuminate some of the many issues facing football and come up with the answers; issues such as:

What variations are there in the way clubs in different parts of the world train and how long do they train for? What factors are most important in individual training and the player’s football education? What factors improve a country’s relative standing in the area of talent development whilst other countries lag behind, both in terms of results and in terms of the number of players they successfully develop? Why don’t more talents emerge from the world’s population centres and what prevents talent development in these areas? Why are some clubs very successful in developing talents whilst others never succeed in developing young players of a high standard? What factors should scouts be looking for when assessing players? How many players should be scouted and at what age is it best to start? Do individual clubs have a training innovation policy and if so how does it work in practice? By visiting selected clubs, we wish to identify differences and gain insight into and knowledge of a variety of training methods. We wish to obtain a global overview of talent development innovations and methods. We are NOT interested in the individual player ”the talent”, but just in the environment within which such talent is nurtured and the methods that are used to promote it.

”What does your club do differently when it comes to talent and player development? What training methods do you employ? What characterises your club?”

By collecting data and material GFT aim to gain further insight into issues such as why technically gifted players often emerge from South America, and why so few players come from Asia/China despite high population levels. Is the answer to be found in genetic or social factors? What parameters are key to the emergence of a football talent? The global tour will result in a pioneering training method inspired by our assessment of training all around the world combining and focusing on the best techniques available in order to achieve our goal:

a new training method – Global Football Training. Clubs/academies participating in the GFT project can show what they do differently as well as taking the opportunity to participate in a global data-collection survey covering global talent development. Plus, and perhaps most importantly, participating clubs will be able to influence an innovative new training method that takes its point of departure in the best methods from around the world – providing global reach. Participating clubs/academies have been carefully selected using the following parameters: the national football association’s assessment of talent development, the number of players developed from youth players to top-level senior footballers and GFT’s own interests and data. The GFT visit will ONLY be used to collect data regarding player training, training methods and the club’s talent development structures. Global Football Training hopes that your club will accept our offer of a GFT consultant visit. The visit is completely free of charge; the only thing it will cost you as a club, is time and openness on the part of the club’s trainers and management. Any expenses associated with the visit such as travel expenses and accommodation expenses, will be met by Global Football Training.