That's how Chemnitz U19 works

At the end of May I was able to visit Jonas in the junior performance center of Chemnitzer FC. Accordingly, I would like to discuss the practical implementation of the Coach² content with you in this article.

Expectation

In preparation for the visit, I quickly realized how large my catalog of questions was. Accordingly, I tried to concentrate on 3 questions in the first place and let everything else come to me. The selected questions mainly relate to the training content.

Load Management. If you train twice a day – what are the details on the ratio between work and rest?
Individual Training. With over 20 players in your squad how is possible to develop the individual player?
Detailed Sessions. Does every player work in the same games or are there groups?

Exchange

The exchange during the days at Jonas’ took place all day, so to speak, and the range of topics was extremely diverse. The Coach² contents were all present, but other topics such as GPS, performance diagnostics, injury prevention, types of players, monitoring and training principles were also controversially discussed. I personally realized very quickly, especially in a discussion on the subject of athletics, how much Jonas feels about the Coach² content in practice. As soon as someone deviated from “playing football” with their training content, Jonas always brought them back to “play” out of full conviction. At this point, conviction is a key word that will have a further meaning later.

Training preparation

The training preparation was generally started well before the training session. The coaching team discussed and discussed everything together. “Everything” here also refers to everything, with the exception of one thing: exercises. Exercises are not available in practice and therefore question 1 has also been answered. In preparation for the training, only game forms were developed and these game forms were then examined in great detail with regard to their load control. The highest value was placed on intensity and the exercise times – according to Raymond Verheijen – were precisely recorded and strictly followed in practice. Then the teams were divided up and everything was set up well before the start of training.

Training content

The whole week I worked on the active focus “Opposing ball possession”. The training units differed in that they trained more individually in the morning than in the afternoon. In the individual units, we carried out station training on one day, which answered questions 2 and 3. The station training was organized in such a way that one group completed an individual training course close to the game on the training principle of “reworking”, while two other groups alternated between an individual training course close to the game focusing on “1 against 1 on the wing” and a small game focusing on “defending in a back four”. In the afternoon units, small and large game forms were carried out. Depending on the day of exposure, coaching was carried out differently. For example, only synchronous coaching was used on the main load day, while stop coaching and game break coaching were also used the day before. The end of our first training session was also impressive. We quickly agreed that the rest of the defense didn’t work well, so Jonas lets one team cuddle up in a block and asks the other team for their fastest player. A lob over the cuddly block and a demonstrative run of the fast player and everyone present had a picture of the matter in front of their eyes. A very good idea!

Follow-up to training

The training units were basically followed up with the entire team of trainers and, at the same time, new tasks repeatedly emerged from this follow-up. Nothing wild in itself and yet there was a scene that reminded me of the Coach² content. In the first training session, Jonas was not at all satisfied with a small and spontaneous change on his part. But after he was annoyed for a moment, it went straight to the next topic and everything else was blown away. One play at a time!

Culture

In addition to the training content, I don’t want to withhold the topic of culture from you either.

We are back to the point of conviction. A large poster hangs in the dressing room of the U19 team at Chemnitzer FC. A fighter, the CFC logo and three words describe everything that I was able to experience in those days: readiness – conviction – respect. On a pin board I discovered an agreement on goals between the player and the coach. On the one hand, individual and team goals were recorded on this target agreement, but on the other hand personal goals were also recorded. One player has set himself the goal of taking advantage of career information offers. I was personally very impressed!

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