Nicked from: http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/...topic=277719.0
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Quote from: Google Translate
Thursday, June 09, 2011
The Liverpool Academy program - Pep Segura
The first football conference I [Perarnau] organized for the Catalunyan Footballing Congress and RCD Espanyol was conducted by Pep Segura, Technical Director of the Liverpool Academy, and focused on LFC's youth team, whose basic principles are summarized below.
The 'target' of the Liverpool Academy is twofold: to implement a common style of play teams through all categories, and to provide players for the first team. When Rafa Benitez hired Pep Segura as head of the academy, Liverpool FC had three distinct and unrelated operations:
- Scouting
- Technical Staff
- Sports Science (doctors, physios, trainers)
The target was to implement an integrated model of the style that currently exists in many Spanish clubs, so that all departments work in the same direction.
The Liverpool training center consists of four large age groups:
1) Year 1 > Playing games, technical skills
2) Year 2 + Children + Cadets > technical skills, tactical work starts, physical work starts
3) Youth + Amateur Year 1 > technical skills, tactical work, physical work, psychological work
4) Amateur + Reserves > technical skills, tactical work, physical work, psychological work
The second group participates in the Under-15 Championship, the third group includes the U-17s and U-18s, and the fourth group plays in the Under-20s tournament and the Reserves. This team has been included in Pep Segura's area of responsiblity during the season just ended. The Academy focuses on organising the boys' training, education, and family accommodation in Liverpool.
Pep Segura's Academy work is divided into five major areas:
1) Facilities
2) Selection of players
3) Coaches
4) Program (Syllabus)
5) Management of the player
For reasons of time, he could not detail each of these areas, but he did mention aspects of several of them.
Facilities
LFC have twelve training camps, ten on natural grass and two with artificial turf, plus one indoor for winter work. The facilities, according to Segura, are excellent, and not much more physical infrastructure is needed.
Selection of players
Scouting is the responsibility of the department. Keep in mind that English law is very rigid and ossified. Some examples:
- Players up to 14 years can't be signed beyond a radius of 150 kilometers from the club (Liverpool competing in the same environment as Manchester United, City, Everton, and so forth)
- The Academy is owned by the player's home club forever, bringing disparate any procurement levels [didn't understand this]
- You can't sign players until after the community 16 years
- All games U-16 and U-18 are played on Saturdays at 11 am and from other categories, Sundays at 11 am This precludes the coaches come to watch opposing players of interest. Another peculiarity: the U-15 takes place on Wednesdays, which is almost unfeasible to train more than two days a week
Liverpool work the Academy for sporting and economic necessity and because "we want to work with our players, but do so with our style of play." Segura found, after some time, Liverpool was repeated in a pattern that had already lived in the club: "Most youth players came from a particular geographical area and, especially, of a particular school."
For scouting the club uses three essential parameters: selection from very small, constant monitoring of all of them, and determining the precise moment of joining the club. The relevant department raises three questions: a) What is the player profile? B) Is player for Liverpool; c) We will grow as a team?
We analyze four factors:
- Technical: We appreciate the passing game (passing game)
- Tactical: Your ability to play without the ball
- Psychological: Your willingness to be professional
- Physical: We value speed, strength and size (English football)
Teams from different categories are structured in the form of a double pyramid
- Between 8 and 11: 3 teams per category
- Between 12 and 14 years: 2 teams per category
- After 15 years: 1 team per category
In the two years since Pep Segura as technical director, the Academy has doubled the number of players at his disposal. In the selection process, all are subject to a battery of physical and technical tests that continue to take those who are part of the Academy several times a year to establish internal and external comparisons.
You've identified three types of targets in the catchment:
- Focus A: 14. Local Players
- Focus B: 16. The 2 best in England plus 2 best foreign
- Focus C: 18. Best English and / or foreign to compensate for the shortcomings identified in the Academy
Program
"The program is a great tool to implement and not just having a good criterion for selection of players. It's the idea and style that make an organization stronger." Segura says it takes a sense of strategic thinking to acquire from it, a basic understanding of principles of play and style, and an idea to work efficiently and consistent with the philosophy of the club.
Segura says in this regard that the success of Spanish football are based on working with the Academy, which has created an excellent selection of players and Spain catapulted to number among European success at youth level, followed by France. However, he also believes that something is wrong with our football since that success does not correspond with the actual number of youth players that eventually arrives at the first teams.
The technical program of the Academy is based on a 4-2-3-1 system of play implemented by Rafa Benitez "although I would have preferred a 4-3-3, but England has historically used the 4-4-2 and had to adapt." In the case of Liverpool, "using it as a key tool because our style is the passing game, where the greatest impact".
Stratification of training is as follows:
- 8 to 12 years: 35 weeks of competition / weekly sessions 3
- 13 to 15 years: 35 weeks of competition / weekly sessions 4-5
- 16 to 18 years: 40 weeks of competition / weekly sessions 7-8
- 19 to 21 years: 42 weeks of competition / weekly sessions 7-8
The structure of a typical training session is as follows:
1) Warm up
2) Technical skills: especially in the passing game and offered before the pass
3) Tactical skills: Automating offensive and defensive work, possession, Gale Related (reduced situations: from 1 to 1-5 against 5)
4) Part games: Application of the stuff they've worked on
5) End section: Gym Off, work and stretching pitch
Automation: Work in all phases, from leaving the ball in pass defense to ultimately creating meaning and order of play. "The small details that make them grow to the player: body position, speed, striking the ball, the timing of his move at the right time ...." Games of position, with special incidence in the circulation at high speed, knowing the positions of the companions are defined and known.
Recordings: The Academy records every game and every practice session with a very interesting point added: they also record the coaches' voices giving advice during sessions. He was a research conducted by Liverpool University who took up the removal of oral communication, which has yielded great results: "We have seen the shortcomings of the coaches and have corrected messages. Some have always corrected the same concepts and not others more important. Or were fixated with some players. "
Finally, the criteria for Pep Segura to improve tactics:
- Everyone must work
- We must be inspired by street soccer
- Street Soccer is gone and we have to make up work
- We must use recantangular surfaces to work on depth and breadth
- We must always breathe offensive spirit
- Explain to children the meaning of 4-2-3-1 to understand it
- Develop the game from the defensive line
- Teaching the collective game based on our system
- Emphasize creativity: the English player is disciplined and easy to learn automation and order, but Spanish is more creative and we must move in this direction
- The Game Related is difficult to apply to players and coaches because they are awaiting orders. When they do, work hard, but they suffer when they have to bring own creativity
* Frank McParland named Pep Segura as Technical Director of the Liverpool Academy on June 1, 2009, being the first coach of the Rafa Benitez team. After his debut in Olesa, Segura was coach of football at Barcelona from 1999 to 2005. He was later coach of AEK Athens and Olympiakos, who won the League-Cup bolete in 2008.
Originally posted by royhendo@RAWK
Quote from: Google Translate
Thursday, June 09, 2011
The Liverpool Academy program - Pep Segura
The first football conference I [Perarnau] organized for the Catalunyan Footballing Congress and RCD Espanyol was conducted by Pep Segura, Technical Director of the Liverpool Academy, and focused on LFC's youth team, whose basic principles are summarized below.
The 'target' of the Liverpool Academy is twofold: to implement a common style of play teams through all categories, and to provide players for the first team. When Rafa Benitez hired Pep Segura as head of the academy, Liverpool FC had three distinct and unrelated operations:
- Scouting
- Technical Staff
- Sports Science (doctors, physios, trainers)
The target was to implement an integrated model of the style that currently exists in many Spanish clubs, so that all departments work in the same direction.
The Liverpool training center consists of four large age groups:
1) Year 1 > Playing games, technical skills
2) Year 2 + Children + Cadets > technical skills, tactical work starts, physical work starts
3) Youth + Amateur Year 1 > technical skills, tactical work, physical work, psychological work
4) Amateur + Reserves > technical skills, tactical work, physical work, psychological work
The second group participates in the Under-15 Championship, the third group includes the U-17s and U-18s, and the fourth group plays in the Under-20s tournament and the Reserves. This team has been included in Pep Segura's area of responsiblity during the season just ended. The Academy focuses on organising the boys' training, education, and family accommodation in Liverpool.
Pep Segura's Academy work is divided into five major areas:
1) Facilities
2) Selection of players
3) Coaches
4) Program (Syllabus)
5) Management of the player
For reasons of time, he could not detail each of these areas, but he did mention aspects of several of them.
Facilities
LFC have twelve training camps, ten on natural grass and two with artificial turf, plus one indoor for winter work. The facilities, according to Segura, are excellent, and not much more physical infrastructure is needed.
Selection of players
Scouting is the responsibility of the department. Keep in mind that English law is very rigid and ossified. Some examples:
- Players up to 14 years can't be signed beyond a radius of 150 kilometers from the club (Liverpool competing in the same environment as Manchester United, City, Everton, and so forth)
- The Academy is owned by the player's home club forever, bringing disparate any procurement levels [didn't understand this]
- You can't sign players until after the community 16 years
- All games U-16 and U-18 are played on Saturdays at 11 am and from other categories, Sundays at 11 am This precludes the coaches come to watch opposing players of interest. Another peculiarity: the U-15 takes place on Wednesdays, which is almost unfeasible to train more than two days a week
Liverpool work the Academy for sporting and economic necessity and because "we want to work with our players, but do so with our style of play." Segura found, after some time, Liverpool was repeated in a pattern that had already lived in the club: "Most youth players came from a particular geographical area and, especially, of a particular school."
For scouting the club uses three essential parameters: selection from very small, constant monitoring of all of them, and determining the precise moment of joining the club. The relevant department raises three questions: a) What is the player profile? B) Is player for Liverpool; c) We will grow as a team?
We analyze four factors:
- Technical: We appreciate the passing game (passing game)
- Tactical: Your ability to play without the ball
- Psychological: Your willingness to be professional
- Physical: We value speed, strength and size (English football)
Teams from different categories are structured in the form of a double pyramid
- Between 8 and 11: 3 teams per category
- Between 12 and 14 years: 2 teams per category
- After 15 years: 1 team per category
In the two years since Pep Segura as technical director, the Academy has doubled the number of players at his disposal. In the selection process, all are subject to a battery of physical and technical tests that continue to take those who are part of the Academy several times a year to establish internal and external comparisons.
You've identified three types of targets in the catchment:
- Focus A: 14. Local Players
- Focus B: 16. The 2 best in England plus 2 best foreign
- Focus C: 18. Best English and / or foreign to compensate for the shortcomings identified in the Academy
Program
"The program is a great tool to implement and not just having a good criterion for selection of players. It's the idea and style that make an organization stronger." Segura says it takes a sense of strategic thinking to acquire from it, a basic understanding of principles of play and style, and an idea to work efficiently and consistent with the philosophy of the club.
Segura says in this regard that the success of Spanish football are based on working with the Academy, which has created an excellent selection of players and Spain catapulted to number among European success at youth level, followed by France. However, he also believes that something is wrong with our football since that success does not correspond with the actual number of youth players that eventually arrives at the first teams.
The technical program of the Academy is based on a 4-2-3-1 system of play implemented by Rafa Benitez "although I would have preferred a 4-3-3, but England has historically used the 4-4-2 and had to adapt." In the case of Liverpool, "using it as a key tool because our style is the passing game, where the greatest impact".
Stratification of training is as follows:
- 8 to 12 years: 35 weeks of competition / weekly sessions 3
- 13 to 15 years: 35 weeks of competition / weekly sessions 4-5
- 16 to 18 years: 40 weeks of competition / weekly sessions 7-8
- 19 to 21 years: 42 weeks of competition / weekly sessions 7-8
The structure of a typical training session is as follows:
1) Warm up
2) Technical skills: especially in the passing game and offered before the pass
3) Tactical skills: Automating offensive and defensive work, possession, Gale Related (reduced situations: from 1 to 1-5 against 5)
4) Part games: Application of the stuff they've worked on
5) End section: Gym Off, work and stretching pitch
Automation: Work in all phases, from leaving the ball in pass defense to ultimately creating meaning and order of play. "The small details that make them grow to the player: body position, speed, striking the ball, the timing of his move at the right time ...." Games of position, with special incidence in the circulation at high speed, knowing the positions of the companions are defined and known.
Recordings: The Academy records every game and every practice session with a very interesting point added: they also record the coaches' voices giving advice during sessions. He was a research conducted by Liverpool University who took up the removal of oral communication, which has yielded great results: "We have seen the shortcomings of the coaches and have corrected messages. Some have always corrected the same concepts and not others more important. Or were fixated with some players. "
Finally, the criteria for Pep Segura to improve tactics:
- Everyone must work
- We must be inspired by street soccer
- Street Soccer is gone and we have to make up work
- We must use recantangular surfaces to work on depth and breadth
- We must always breathe offensive spirit
- Explain to children the meaning of 4-2-3-1 to understand it
- Develop the game from the defensive line
- Teaching the collective game based on our system
- Emphasize creativity: the English player is disciplined and easy to learn automation and order, but Spanish is more creative and we must move in this direction
- The Game Related is difficult to apply to players and coaches because they are awaiting orders. When they do, work hard, but they suffer when they have to bring own creativity
* Frank McParland named Pep Segura as Technical Director of the Liverpool Academy on June 1, 2009, being the first coach of the Rafa Benitez team. After his debut in Olesa, Segura was coach of football at Barcelona from 1999 to 2005. He was later coach of AEK Athens and Olympiakos, who won the League-Cup bolete in 2008.
from now on I will skip talking about our finances. That is a promise and will save myself from looking like a 
Even the most enlightened football man would probably misunderstand this and punch you 
Great post mate alot of good points, we have the same prob here in Oz, I coached ladies U18s who were multiple time state champions but they merely relied on there state and national runners up front and in the backs to win them games, and its too late to try to teach them to look up and look for a pass as they'd already been taught this way and were successful so in there minds it was right. Also far too often going to oval getting ready for my game and seeing parents yelling at the kids to do this and do that lets win and all that **** I cant stand it.
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