thought i would post it here rather than graveyard section
Horst wein , legend


N March this year the German Football Federation (DFB) announced a revolution in the way that the country's Under-11s would play and be coached.Gone were conventional 7 v 7s; in were small-sided games, four goals and shooting zones. The emphasis was on fun and a player-centred approach, with adults banished to supporting roles.

The DFB issued press releases and fliers detailing the changes, but two key figures were notable by their absence. The first was the late Horst Wein, who had created the concept of Funino (fun + child in Spanish), upon which Germany's new game formats were based.The other was Professor Matthias Lochmann, who had provided a scientific basis for Funino and lobbied hard for the DFB to adopt the concept for the last seven years.Lochmann will be the opening speaker at TGG’s Youth Development Conference in Manchester on September 20th, outlining the changes in Germany's foundation formats and the reasons behind them. Before that, here's the story of how he drove a major change in the way Germany will coach its young players.Lochmann was a player at SV Darmstadt in the German second division in the late 1980s before moving into coaching, starting off as U15s lead at Mainz when Jurgen Klopp was a senior player and future manager there.
A watershed moment arrived in 2000, when he attended a presentation by Wein, the former international hockey player and coach who had become something of a football missionary. Wein's Funino concept was billed as 'street football for the 21st Century' and involved small-sided games, four goals instead of two and small pitches.
What Lochmann liked was the fact that Funino involved not only more game time and touches - “reducing the size of the teams gives more ball touches, this is not rocket science" - but game intelligence as well."A player who is intelligent goes through four phases," he explains. "First you have to observe the environment. Then you understand what is going on. Then you make a decision. Then you execute. Most training exercises focus only on execution, but to have game intelligence you must be successful in all four.
"Funino addresses all of these areas and I thought, 'What will happen if we do this for three or four years with the youngest players? We will have players with really good technique who are able to make the right decisions.'"Then life took over, as it so often does. Lochmann got a job as Professor at the Department of Sport Science at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he still works today, and also started a family. His football coaching took a back seat for a while, until his passion for Funino was re-ignited when he began to coach his son’s team in 2015.“My son was five or six and we started off with our team in the official league, 7 v 7,” Lochmann recalls. “This was a big mistake, because the children weren’t getting many touches and, even worse, they were on the bench and not even playing. Often they were crying or sitting eating sweets.

“I knew that unless we changed we were going to lose more and more children to the game. We were already having an increase in the drop-out rates for children aged seven, eight, nine and 10 in Germany."In England we often look admiringly at Germany as European football's powerhouse, with their four World Cup trophies and three European Championships, but Lochmann saw things differently."Germany has a population of more than 80 million," he says. "Belgium (11.5m) has a smaller population than the state of Bavaria (13m) but a much better efficiency at producing world-class players. You have to ask why this is and I think it goes back to the way the children play the game at the youngest ages.

“At the front of my mind was Horst Wein and Funino. I knew we needed a revolution.”
So Lochmann took the team out of the league and instead they played small-sided games based on the Funino format.“We now had three mini pitches in the same area that we had used for 7 v 7 and we were able to involve all of the children. They all had more touches of the ball, they all scored goals, they all developed their technique and all developed their decision-making. And, most importantly of all, they were all enjoying playing football."There were tweaks to Funino, such as a shooting zone that players had to be inside in order to score. And there was a 'self-pass rule' to replace throw-ins, enabling players to pass or dribble back onto the pitch from the sidelines. All the rules were designed to develop game intelligence.“Players have two attractors - the ball and the goal,” Lochmann explains. “If you use the conventional two goals then players always go to the centre and not the sides of the pitch. With two goals to shoot at they use the full width and have an added layer of decision making."The shooting zone creates more touches and playing culture. You can go into the shooting zone by passing or dribbling, so we see more decision-making and problem-solving. With the self pass rule there is a degree of freedom. If your team-mate is free, then pass to him; if not, you can dribble on. This rule was implemented in hockey 20 years ago and now there is even a discussion about implementing it into adult football.”Lochmann says the Funino format also fundamentally changes the role of the coach."A lot of people still think the coach has to permanently explain things from the side of the pitch or before an exercise," he says, "but the coach should invest more into thinking about the rules of the game and allow the rules to do the job."Then the coach focuses on observation and during a break can talk about the good and bad things and evolve the game."
Buoyed by the success of the new format, Lochmann decided to spread the word. Ulf Schott, a former team-mate at SV Darmstadt, was working at the DFB as a Director (and is now Head of High Performance Programmes at Fifa). so Lochmann decided to go and see him to present his findings.

“Ulf was impressed and said, ‘How do we implement this in Germany?’ I said, ‘Let’s do a pilot league.' So we started in Erlangen and then went to Munich, Hannover, Hamburg.”Being an academic and a sport scientist as well as a coach, Lochmann was eager to gather data and video to back up his belief in Funino."We started a scientific study in 2015 and analysed the number of ball touches, the number of ones v ones, how many shots and dribbles, heart rate and GPS," he remembers. “The new approach had advantages over the traditional one in every aspect. You could see it with your own eyes, but the science backed it up.”Still, there was resistance to change both from within the DFB and also the grassroots game.“Inside the federation there are two factions - the sport side and the administrators," Lochmann explains. "The administrators said, ‘We have a good system, why change?’ I was on the outside, so I wasn't afraid to tell them why.“If you want to innovate you have to be honest and not play tactical games, although innovators are often not embraced or involved."Fortunately, there were a couple of big breakthroughs.One came when Lochmann presented his findings to a Pro Licence cohort including Damir Dugandzic, who was a co-ordinator at the DFB and the future Technical Head of their Talent Development Programme.“Damir asked if I could come to a small group of soccer association people and demo this in theory and practice,” says Lochmann. "We showed them the findings of the research and we also showed them on the pitch, with young players, to compare the old and new system. They could clearly see the difference."The biggest turning point came in August 2018, when he was asked to deliver the keynote speech at the DFB’s International Trainer Congress in Dresden. You can watch a video of the presentation below.

https://trainingground.guru/articles/matthias-lochmann-how-germany-revolutionised-the-foundation-phase

Ta, Dirk.

Dirk Diggler welcome back!

Yeah look I am glad Germany can actually afford to pay these big brain 200IQ+ peepeepoopoo-ologists to improve their game like this with their wall of text mumbo-jumbo but we can't even get enough qualified, quality coaches in junior NPL lmao 

and here's a country that football runs through its veins having to keep its finger on the pulse of the changing times and action......

Notable quote :
“I knew that unless we changed we were going to lose more and more children to the game. We were already having an increase in the drop-out rates for children aged seven, eight, nine and 10 in Germany."In England we often look admiringly at Germany as European football's powerhouse, with their four World Cup trophies and three European Championships, but Lochmann saw things differently."Germany has a population of more than 80 million," he says. "Belgium (11.5m) has a smaller population than the state of Bavaria (13m) but a much better efficiency at producing world-class players. You have to ask why this is and I think it goes back to the way the children play the game at the youngest ages.

First world problems.
In 10 years this will be replaced by some other bright spark's idea.
Everyone thinks they have the answer.
They already know what the real problem is:  in the First world:
 - kids have much better things to do than chase a ball around all day
 - parents prefer them to be indoors in any event, where they can keep an eye on them
 - in any year, unless you're amongst the very best 0.5% of players coming through the ranks, you are unlikely to get rich from the game - so is it a surprise so many steadily drop out as they get older?  focus on studies, focus on other hobbies, part time jobs, whatever....that's just life in the West.

That's a really interesting read, thanks for posting.
"What Lochmann liked was the fact that Funino involved not only more game time and touches - “reducing the size of the teams gives more ball touches, this is not rocket science"
Maybe irrelevant, and highly anecdotal, but in my youth one of the boys in U16s or 17s was from Chile and was the greatest "holder" of the ball I have ever played with or against. Our coach at the time, a former Yugoslavian (sorry cant remember were he was from now, no offence to anyone) dad asked him how he learned to dribble and keep the ball so close to his body both at speed and in close confines and he said "playing in the streets, sometimes there were 20 v 20, if you wanted to touch the ball during a game you had to learn how to shield it from the bigger boys so nobody gets it off you" .... small sided games clearly creates the most amount of technically gifted players but HUGE sided games brings out the one or two diamonds .... its all a matter of philosophy really but what Pablo said back then struck a chord. The kid could dribble his way out of a phone box with three guys marking him ...... 

That story you explain I remember reading the same thing with George Best. I think variation is important but small sided stuff embeds the key ingredients 

No, Pablito was great  but no Georgie Best :).. I'm not taking away from the technical German method here, just that structured vs unstructured approach can often yield different, but equally as effective results. If anything, I wish we produced both types of players here..... Combine Northern European technical skill, game awareness and positioning with South American hunger and "touch", add a little Aussie physicality and desire.... holy shit, that's a style to be feared.

agreed, that stand outs are the ones who can shine at small sided and normal size field, their use of the time/vision and space.
Well thats my pov.
Its not apples vs apples comparing Pablito and Besty as we know though what great subjects to talk about re aspects for the game..
Legends in their own right for me Pablito the true no9 whereas Best a 10 attacking mid or winger.
Ofcourse you saw Best running at the defense and dribbling by them dropping like domino's - was magic to watch pity he played for them, what a talent and they marvelled at Ronaldo.
Like to see CR7 play on those bog heavy pitchs of the 70's lol.......
Pablito's vision and timing was typical impeccable no9 touch that so many Clubs today wish they had up front today.

Re the revolution styles pointed out in the thread, this has been going on for sometime here nowadays.
Small sided games, small goals, be it 7 aside or whatever small numbers used.
The skill set is improving I see at NPL/YL training for years now.
What I don't see much of is goal shooting practice - its all about passing your way to the 6yard box and more for the tap in, hey sure thats great play but what about the rest that can happen.
Heck we even used to play indoor knowing it would pick up your skillset/one touch football/shoot first time/movement.
Another back in my Div1/rep day drills was playing defense against attack starting from halfway attacking the goal.
Using the space, making the runs and get the ball over for a header towards goal or a lay back and shoot.
Then corner drills.
Shooting prac ball after ball.
Its just not practised today.
Might I add some small sided players with all the skill in the world can't cut it enough on the open pitch, too much space they are not as effective.
As you mention structured vs unstructured to a degree.

MSC your pov re our Roos style of play I agree.
Our early days due to our lack of technical skill compared to the Euros was being very aggressive - I think we also kind of liked watching that might I add growing up here due to the outside noise against our game being sissy compared to the rugbys/alf.
I'm sure your early days on the park like mine was very English Div1 style - play hard, don't you dare faint hurt/pain - take em on with some razzle and dazzle but when you lined up for a tackle it was to inflict pain :) those who came up trumps we're Kings lol......
Obviously you can't win games like that always BUT our opponents sure knew they played against the Roos, kicked off the park at times lol.....
So we went the Dutch methodlogy that yes has its merits, I always struggled myself why we didn't apply our OWN brand of improved football like you mention.
Warren really pushed the Brazil skillset through the 70's onwards that I wish we applied as you mention BUT also keep a little of our aggression/physicality like Craig Moore for eg.
I suppose Grella was another that had that as well but overall today we are 'soft" so to speak but our play has improved generally but we're lacking X factor players that turn games on its head and creates winning goals.
All the possesion in the world is marvellous (BPO's yaddayadda) and the countless pass's back and the many pass's between the backline but scoring is the name of the game !  and thats what we keep chasing forever and a day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXQEfVVG9bU

Watch this video a good example of what the Germans are doing which is basically following the Belgium lead.
Good to see you back Dirk

Something for Ernie Merrick and Football Australia to look at? 

Small sided games are what we did as 6-12 year olds at school every break in the 1980's.  Two jumpers at each end for goals, sometimes on grass more often in a asphalt netball court.  You don't need to spend $millions on the leeches who have made careers out of it teaching how to cushion, dribble and kick  a round ball.  You just need to love doing it, and repeat it a lot.

Definitlely this.
I can't believer anyone would honestly believe that the small-sided concept is something brand new that has never, ever been done before.

before we didn't have cones/coloured bibs but a coach now its a TD and his assistant/physio and treasurer lol........

Like I said earlier we used to do similar training back in the 70/80's and like Enzo quotes at school, it was using bins or bags or whatever as the goals.
Christ my one primary school oval I went to was dirt and rocks lol.....
and the bigger diff compared to today after school we didn't have street football like the sth mericans we all played at the local ovals for we jumped on our pushys the moment getting home.
The cricket nets was full, on the field we were playing small sided football games depending how many turned up, then had to make the pitch bigger due to more turning up.
We played forcings back with the egg ball.
All these ball skills is what they are on about nowadays about training more.