The Swedish club IF Elfsborg, 6 times champion of the Swedish league and 2 times winner of the UEFA Intertoto among others, has recently announced its collaboration agreement with Soccer Services Barcelona to expand the use of the Ekkono Method within its structure.
The main objective of this agreement is to help the club achieve its objectives both in terms of the performance of the first team and the development of the academy.
After the signing of the agreement, Stefan Andreasson, manager of IF Elfsborg, stated that “we have been working with Soccer Services sporadically for some time, but the continuous work that will be carried out from now on will be unique. Soccer Services will complement IF Elfsborg’s work in the areas where we believe it can add best value. We are very proud to start this collaboration and we look forward to working together.”
For his part, Miquel Farrerons, CEO of Soccer Services Barcelona, concluded the following: “We are well aware of IF Elfsborg’s current achievements and ambitions. The project of this club is unique and has been consolidated year after year. There is already a ‘dream team’ of people leading the organization. For this reason, we are convinced that through the Ekkono method we can help the club continue to grow”.
Last Friday David Hernández, co-founder of the Ekkono method, traveled to the French city of Mulhouse to offer a technical speech to the historic FC Mulhouse, the second oldest club in France, founded in 1893.
Under the title “The creation of a curriculum for the initiation and specialization stage”, the lecture had a great reception, with the attendance not only of coaches from FC Mulhouse, but also from the French Football Federation and clubs from the surroundings.
During the lecture, the planning of content to be carried out during the initiation (U7-U13) and specialization (U14-U18) stages was discussed, examples of content blocks that should exist in such planning were shown, and the best way to organized these blocks and the importance of each of them depending on the objectives of the club were explained.
Last October, we presented to Albirex Niigata’s directors a new report in which we summarized the progress of all the processes carried out by the Methodology Department during the current season.
It should be highlighted that all the processes started and implemented during the 2021 season, seek to meet the following 8 main objectives of the Methodology Department:
To know every detail of each process carried out, you can download the full report from the following links:
Last September, we started the “Mirror Training” activity at the Nara Club Methodology Department, a Co-Learning activity addressed to all club’s coaches.
Co-Learning, one of the four pillars on which the Ekkono Method is based to create or enhance club identity, consists in decentralizing the teaching processes to accelerate the learning processes.
The “Mirror Training” activity is carried out in pairs of coaches, in which Coach A prepares and explains to Coach B a training task, and B carries it out with his team under the supervision and subsequent feedback from Coach A. Subsequently, roles will be swapped.
Therefore the “Mirror Training” process is as follows:
Therefore, through the “Mirror Training” activity we will get the coaches to work together and be able to capture ideas from other coaches, increasing cohesion within the club.
Taka, assistant coach in Nara Club U18 team, says: “Mirror training is a really good tool to grow as a coach. I can learn the ideas about the rules, limits and the concepts from the other coaches and it’s totally different from me “
The Australian Adelaide University Soccer Club, founded in 1936, has recently announced its partnership with us to support its coaching education department by the use of the Ekkono Method.
During this collaboration, we will help educate all academy and first team coaches about some of the most important aspects, such as: Training Methodology (going from Initiation stage to Specialization stage and to High Performance stage), Planning, Physical Fitness and Game Analysis, as well as go in-depth into Individual Fundamentals per Position.
In addition, a yearly access to the Ekkono Coaches Academy (our virtual campus where coaches will find plenty of quality content) will be given to AUSC’s coaches in order to keep on learning from the Ekkono Method.
Miquel Farrerons, Soccer Services Barcelona CEO: “We are very excited to kick off this long-term relationship with Adelaide University and its football club. We will do our best to help Adelaide Uni in achieving its sportive and educational objectives”
Michael Matricciani, AUSC Senior Men’s Coach & Junior Boys Technical Director, speaks further about “what a great opportunity this new partnership is for all of our members and coaches”, on the next video:
Last June, Oya Mizuki and Takano Shuya, both from Albirex Niigata’s U18 team, had the pleasure of debuting with Albirex Niigata’s first team during an official match.
The debut was made during the first round of the Emperor’s Cup played against Zweigen Kanazawa and ended with a 4-1 result in favor of Albirex Niigata.
This great news gains even more weight taking into account that it has been 3 years since a player from the Albirex Niigata Academy made his debut with the first team. A fact that shows the high level that an U18 player must have to be able to compete in the J-League.
Since we reached an agreement in early 2019 with Albirex Niigata to use the Ekkono Identity method in their academy through the creation of the Methodology Department, we have prepared and presented to Oya Mizuki and Takano Shuya a total of 9 individualized reports that served to improve their performance and enhance their strengths.
From Ekkono we would like to congratulate both players and the club for this great news which reflects the great job that the entity does both in improving its academy and in building club identity.
Finally, we would like to show our special thanks to Uchida Jun (Academy Director), who not only coached both players in the past, but as Academy Director he perfectly takes care of the structure of the Academy and helps the Methodology Department carrying out all established processes, and to Irie Toru (U18 team Head Coach) for the great work he is doing with the players on his squad.
This program, which has already been successfully implemented by Ekkono at Paris Saint Germain, consists of HJK’s first team, B team and U-18 team players “accompaniment” to young player from the academy to instill in them the importance of club’s values.
To do so, the “Big brother” will attend the practices of their “younger brothers”, analyze their matches, spend free time together and help to jointly create habits that allow them to experience and positively assimilate the Ambition.
This committee, which is expected to last over time, is led by Sanna Malaska, the head coach of the 2009 Academy for Girls, who also works at HJK as the responsible instructor of the afternoon club.
“I’m really excited about this project. I believe that this will enable us to significantly increase club unity. We will start cautiously with five pairs, but in the future, we can hopefully increase the number of participants” Malaska expresses.
PARTICIPANTS:
Last June 1, the periodic technical discussion held between the Albirex Niigata Methodology Director and the Academy coaches had a special guest: Carles Romagosa, technical director of Thailand FA and co-author of the Ekkono Method.
The main topic of the discussion was “How to help young footballers to be professionals?” and it was attended by both the academy coaches and women’s team coaches, who showed big interest and asked some great questions.
During the session, Carles remembered all good memories he has after his almost 10 visits to Japan where he worked with players and coaches, and highlighted the huge leap in quality that Japanese youth and professional football has recently taken.
Uchida Jun, Albirex Niigata’s Academy Director said: “We would like to express our sincere appreciation to Ekkono for providing us with this education opportunity. I strongly believe that being a good leader is essential to develop good players, and this is why we use technical discussions as a “learning place” to continue learning.”
On the next lines, you can find some of the questions that Carles answered during the session:
Question: When deciding how many minutes of game to give players in official competitions, what is the balance between competing and learning in the U18 category?
Answer: In the Youth category it is important to give all players opportunities, but as we are in the pre-professional football stage, it is also important to make future players play for longer.
Question: Broadly speaking, which different concepts do you have to train in Junior, Junior Youth and Youth categories?
Answer: Players understand the game differently based on their age. Therefore, we must train different things according to their age. In Junior category it is important to train concepts more related with the player’s relationship with the ball, in Junior Youth category the concepts which should be trained are those that help the players to manage the spaces so that the possessor and non-possessors have an advantage, and in Youth category, collective fundamentals are essential to be understood.
Question: Based on your experience training and scouting young talents, which types of young players are the most likely to be professionals?
Answer: In general, among the most talented players, the ones who are most likely to be professionals are those who pay attention to the small details. This means that you need talent, plus effort in training, plus taking care of the external aspects of training. From club’s vison, it is important that we also guide families to educate them in those external aspects that are important for the player.
Question: What percentage of freedom in the game should be given to U12 players?
Answer: A very important aspect in these ages is having fun. It is important not to confuse fun with giving freedom to play as the players want, because talented players have the most fun when the team plays well, not when everyone plays the way they want.
Question: At what point do you propose to set player’s position?Answer: It is important not to do it too early and to experiment in various positions. In clubs where an associative style of play is played, it usually happens those players who as children played in advanced positions, at the end of their Initiation Stage or at the beginning of their Professional Stage, end up playing in more backward positions. For example, Jordi Alba when he was U14 he played as a midfielder and Sergio Busquets when he played at Barça B with Guardiola, he played some matches as Advanced Midfielder.
On April 23, coinciding with the International Day of the Book, Sant Jordi’s Day is celebrated in Barcelona, where it is used to give the most loved ones a book and a rose.
Therefore, we cannot think of a better day to announce the launch of the second book of the Ekkono Method, “Ekkono Identity: The invisible part of Success”, in digital format.
The development of a football game model, a DNA in the Training Academy, and the ultimate creation of an identity are some of the current challenges faced by professional clubs. It is a proven fact that this is the best way to train a professional player for the first team and it is the right approach for a team’s economic strategy to be sustainable.
How to achieve it? Which structures should be coordinated in the organization? What are the processes to be carried out? This book includes an answer to all these questions and describes the authors’ experience, which they have been gathering for more than 20 years working with professional clubs all over the world.
Comprehend the importance of building an identity, explore the concepts of Talkmade, Smartfielder, Co-Learning and Committees, learn about the opinion of soccer experts, deep dive into each concept and how we applied it around the World, and find out real examples of material used in our projects.
Visit the link below and order your book!
https://ekkonocoaches.com/ekkonomethodbook
After a successful season in which IFK Göteborg won their 8th Swedish Cup, the historic Swedish club has announced the extension of their collaboration with us for one more season.
In this way, during this 3rd season of collaboration, we will keep on working on the construction of the club’s identity, as well as working and advising young players of the club through our individualized programs (IPPP), and trying to maximize the performance of the first team.
Pontus Farnerud Sporting Director of IFK Göteborg stated that “Coach Ekkono Ferran is very popular in IFK Goteborg, not least in the player squad for both his personality and skills. He has a football knowledge that few coaches possess and has together with Roland found a well-functioning dynamic and a good way of working. It feels great that we agree on a continuation in 2021.
For his part, Roland Nilsson, coach of the first team, comments: “It is great to see how the collaboration between us has developed from day one and it will be exciting to see how we tackle together next season. We have done and are doing a great deal of analysis work to achieve success in 2021, and Ekkono plays an important role there”.