Dear Fellow Forumites

Just dropping aline as I prepare to escort my son and 12 other boys to a football tournament in France called the Festival D'Armor held in Plougonvelin in the province of Brittany. The group was organised and lead by my friend Jean-Pierre who is from Brittany and is a crazy French bastard (in the nicest way).

Tournament website

http://www.festival-armor.com/fr/home.php

Some past winners of the tournament

http://www.festival-armor.com/fr/lienmenu5-2.htm

Our Group and some details on our opponents

Groupe B - ILE DE OUESSANT
MELBOURNE UNITED (Australie)
GSI PONTIVY
FC LANDERNEAU
STADE PLEUDIHENNAIS
GJ DES 4 CLOCHERS

OK, this is it!...and this is what I know of our opponents:

GSI PONTIVY - Situated in the Morbihan region of Brittany (near Quiberon, where we will be staying), this team is likely to be a very tough opponent. The club has a FFF (French Football Federation)-approved academy. This club does traditionally well in tournaments (reaching the finals stages on numerous occasions), they will be fit, skilful with a traditional Breton stubborness in refusing to accept defeat. Their 2011 U15 team were the losing finalists in this tournament so beware of this new crop!

Their U15 team operates in the first level of U15, DH Elite.

http://www.pontivy-football-gsi.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=10


FC LANDERNEAU: Landerneau is an old historical town near Brest. They are a new club, borne out of the merger of two of their three clubs. They have 3 Under-15 teams, with their A-team playing in DH, the level immediately below DH Elite. They are currently in third spot in their championship, 2 spots above AS Brest, against whom we will play a pre-tournament friendly.

http://www.landerneaufc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=8&Itemid=50

No team photo available yet.

STADE PLEUDIHENNAIS: old friends, and a lovely club whose philosophy is to play good football with WHOEVER they have in their team and make sure that the kids are happy. In 2010, we were at the same U13 tournament and they borrowed 3 of our boys, as they were short of players (half their team competing in another tournament). They played a second round game which they lost against one of the eventual finalists, FC Nantes. I cannot stress enough what a fantastic bunch of kids and coaches these guys are. Whatever happens on the pitch, there will be a lot of mutual respect. Pleudihen is a small seaside village in the Cotes d'Armor region.

The team curently operates in U15 PH and sit 4th on the ladder. Their coach is a terrific guy called José Escanez. This club also organizes a European U11 tournament every year, attended by many of Europe's most famous clubs:

http://www.europoussins.com/index.php?limitstart=5



Finally GJ Des 4 Clochers (literally: Youth Group of the 4 Steeples) is an amalgalm of the village teams of St Divy – AS Kersaint-Plabennec – La Forest-Landerneau et la JS St Thonan, all from the Finistere region. They've only been in existence for 4 years. Traditionally, each of these villages would have had their own team only 10 years ago, but wth the change in demographics and economic situations, a lot of these villages are depopulating, which is why you are seeing more and more mergers in the Breton and French countrysides.



The complete draw is here:

http://www.festival-armor.com/fr/lienmenu3-1.htm


We play some practice games along the way starting on May 10 vs RC JOINVILLE, Stade J.P. Garchery 12, avenue des canadiens 75012 PARIS (RER Joinville le pont).

Then May 16 v Auray Football Club http://auray.footeo.com/ , 22 km from our base in Quiberon. Currently runaway leaders in U15PH


So there you have it as I leave on a four week football odyssey, I hope to find out a lot on how the French develop their players and will try and take as much footage and notes as possible.

When and where I can I will report in from France.

Keep us posted mate.

This sounds like an interesting adventure.

If you meet an FFF offical, can you ask about their mobile coaches ,who have a van full of football gear touring the country village to village coachings kids, is this true .

Will do.

Currently in Greece watching football all afternoon waiting for FA Cup to start at 730pm Athens time.

This is the life.

I am very envious and what a wonderful opportunity for the kids and the old bastards (meant in the nicest possible way) accompanying them. This will be fantastic for their football and I hope my son or daughter does something like this in the years ahead so I get another excuse to travel and watch football!!

I will enjoy reading your posts about this.

Edited by Riv of Canberra: 6/5/2012 12:48:35 PM

Way to go Arthur.

Keep us posted and best of luck for your lads. Should be a wonderful experience for the boys.

French food yummm...Lucky bugger.

Currently in Athens, saw the Olimpiakos academey teams in action, kids generally show strong individual technique while one group displaying a possesion style game of a ver high level.

Interesting.

Keep the posts coming mate.:)





Edited by Decentric: 11/5/2012 08:43:21 AM

Are you bumping into many Greeks planning on moving to Australia, given their current economic woes?

And if they bring their skilful young players with them, all the better!

Bonjour gentlemen,

Reporting to you from the seaside village of Quiberon in France. The team started in Paris and a day after played Joinville losing 9-2. I was not at the game but reports were that they played at a much faster pace than the boys had ever seen while their possesion game had us chasing shadows.

Wedneday 5:15pm we play Aury FC which is a FFF regional Academey side, we are struggling with injuries at the moment but at least I finally have a chance to see how things are.

The Joinville coach was quite good with english telling the team manager that four of his players are off for trials at French first Division Clubs and a German First Division Club. While they are a fourth division club their U15 side plays at the top level in France and they have produced some quality players in the past.

Cheers

Arthur

Bonjour monsieur.

Interesting about the pace of the game that the French played.

Merci, Arthur.

Bonsaur Decentric

We lost 0-4 to Aurey FC they are champions of their third tier U15 Comp in their province in France. There are 95 provinces in France. They held the ball well, had several dynamic individuals. Their warm up no different to us, first the 11+ then a possesion game in a confined area.
Our individual tecnique was up to standard as the opposite coach pointed out, our organisation was lacking according to him and I agree.
Our tactical understanding was way blow par, very much a game of first intent.
When you consider their 3rd tier is equal to our first tier thats frightening.

By the way I have no involvement in the coaching of this team. But I am busy taking notes.

Two points from this game;

1) Team shirts correspond with on-field positions eg. no 2 is right back

2) When taking attacking corners none of their players where in the box they all started outside the box.

cheers

having been to France quite a few times.
I can image just how tactful (not) the French coach had of telling you what he thought.:lol: :lol: :lol:
Cheers

Ah.... nothing like good old national stereotyping;)

We got the opp to talk to him over a beer. The conversation was both ways in the spirit of Football people. The hospitality was first class.

have you seen any route 1 football from the the opposition ?

Aurey did sparingly when they thought the moment was right. But it was usually ithe form pf a ball over the top of the defence into space.

What clubs do the boys playing for FC melbourne play for?

Rhere are 13 players from 11 clubs, bulleen, box hill, nunawading, northcote, knox, south melb, caufield, springvale we, bentliegh, riversdale.

While in six weeks another group leaves for Italy.

The organisation/structure was a massive component in KNVB that I'm finding locally trained FFA Youth and Senior Licence holders haven't done.

The French's Clarefontaine graduates would be very strong in this area.

Arthur, does your club emphasise each line coaching and positioning the line in front of them?

Do they do sequential defence and midfield working against attack and midfield on the training ground?

I haven't seen one local coach at any level doing this - yet. Dean May must do it with his NTC team, because they have such a good structure.

Hi D

I'm not sure about your terminology in regards to your questions. The team here in France this is well beyond our coach here.

While I'm guessing here I think at our home club Nunawading we don't do this.
When I get back I will call you to discuss further.

We played another match on Monday night drawing 3-3 having to come back 3 times.
Our opponents not as good as Aurey FC but they did have some quality players. Interesting that we (our coach) still highly regards the hard won 50/50challenge over the player that beats 4 or 5 opponents.

wednesday will be interesting as we take AS Brest a first tier club.

Slightly sad about that 50/50 vs a dribbler situation Arthur.

Thanks for this thread by the way, good stuff.

Unfotunately it seems it is ingrained in us due to AFL, League cultural identity.

Yeah, not overly surprised by it to be honest. Does it seem like any of the coaching staff have learnt a bit from the experience? All well and good for the kids to have that amazing opportunity, just hope some of the older guys pick some tips up as well, heh :)

It is hard Arthur even i am guilty of it. not for what i think but of what others will think.
Unfortunately the player who is always free makes brilliant runs plays give and go and has great skills will never be admired as much as the one who goes in hard.

and what does the player do after beating 4/5 opponents ? what is the end product

Just got back from the Melbourne Utd vs AS BREST match ending in. 1-1 draw. Due to mounting injuries in the second half we had four of their players assisting us.
Their players were all comfortable on the ball, fantastic vision, athletically capable and well coached. They are in the DH U15 competition of Brittany finishing 4 th last yet this outfit would probably dominate in the same age group in Victoria at our A level and VCL level.

Had a talk to the coach about his coaching qualification, he has a FFF diploma called a BE1 level that took hom 10 weeks to complete ( fon't know how many hours). week 1 was gor 6-7yo's, week2 8-9, w3 10-11yo, w4 12-13, w5 14-15, w6 youth- seniors, w7-10 theory.
Tried to find out about their curriculum but language is a barrier.

Another interesting point is that once again the way they lined up was the way the shirt numbers where handed out. e.g. the right back wore no. 2

cheers
Arthur

Good stuff.

Keep it coming mate.

At senior level sure you don't want too many dribblers, but at youth level like U 15 they need to be encouraged and developed. The end product was nothing, but I'll be damed if I will clap and cheer a kid for kicking a ball into touch or that he did a crunching tackle that leaves his opponent writhing in pain on the ground .