Vårt akademi og Leeds fremover

[Promotion 2010]

Stephen Taylor

Hate seeing our academy lads poached by cat 1 academies. Got their debut shirts when they benched in the championship, and I’ll keep hold of them, but both have gone to premier teams now (almost) While ever we are cat 2 there’s nothing we can do to stop them being taken. Shame

Hvem er det snakk om?

Nicell og Dalby til Leicester og Watford.

[Lundewhites]

Stephen Taylor

Hate seeing our academy lads poached by cat 1 academies. Got their debut shirts when they benched in the championship, and I’ll keep hold of them, but both have gone to premier teams now (almost) While ever we are cat 2 there’s nothing we can do to stop them being taken. Shame

Hvem er det snakk om?

Nicell og Dalby til Leicester og Watford.

Ingen av disse to var ønsket med videre av Leeds?  Men siden begge var under kontrakt til 2020, så kanskje det følger med et videre salg klausul i kontrakten?

[Asbjørn]

Prøver denne tråden for oppbyggingen av akademiet vårt.

Martin Diggle har (omsider) blitt tilbudt stillingen som akademidirektør etter Adam Underwood, som i sommer gjorde opprykk til Head of Football Operations. Han kommer fra en tilsvarende stilling hos Liverpool men flytter nå 'hjem' slik eg tolker artikkelen. Han har tidligere undervist i Sports Coaching ved Leeds Beckett University der han i en tidligere fase tok sin universitetsutdannelse.

Karrieren begynte han hos Bolton som trener, og har nå 15 års fartstid innen fotballen. 9 av disse tilbrakte han i FA som sjef for all trenerutdannelse.

Artikkelen:
https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/leeds-united/leeds-united-poach-liverpool-talent-28682630

Om strukturen til Leeds fra i sommer:
Diggle will report to Underwood at Thorp Arch and follows the recent appointment of Jordan Miles, who has arrived as head of recruitment and works under Gretar Steinsson in a similar fashion. Scott Gardner was another recent piece in the puzzle for the Whites, being appointed permanent under-21s head coach last month.

[Asbjørn]

Martin Diggle har (omsider) blitt tilbudt stillingen som akademidirektør etter Adam Underwood, som i sommer gjorde opprykk til Head of Football Operations. Han kommer fra en tilsvarende stilling hos Liverpool men flytter nå 'hjem' slik eg tolker artikkelen. Han har tidligere undervist i Sports Coaching ved Leeds Beckett University der han i en tidligere fase tok sin universitetsutdannelse.

The Athletic skriver om det samme:
https://theathletic.com/5292352/2024/02/22/martin-diggle-leeds-liverpool/

Leeds United are set to name Liverpool's Martin Diggle as their new academy manager.

Diggle has agreed to join Leeds and will complete the switch in the coming weeks, leaving his role as head of coach development at Anfield.
...
Diggle has been with Liverpool since 2019, with a focus on supporting and developing academy coaching staff there. He held previous roles with Bolton Wanderers and the Football Association, which employed him in a range of jobs including head of professional game coach development.

[Asbjørn]

Martin Diggle er ennå ikke formelt ansatt men det virker rimelig klart,

Leeds-Live har sett i gamle intervjuer av ham fra tidligere og sammenfatter følgende:

But what can Leeds expect as part of this appointment and the values he will bring to Thorp Arch?

A firm believer in simplifying activities on the training ground, Diggle is likely to maintain this approach when his new job begins. Explaining why he has this mindset, the current Liverpool coach told Technique: "I think that within all of us there's been a perception that 'I'm coaching' because I've got another practice to show. Sometimes I think we've got to reframe coaching.

"It should not be so much about the practice, it should be about my ability to observe and be obsessed with the individuals within the practice and how I help them."

Many Leeds supporters will be unaware of the job Diggle has overseen for the last five years, so what exactly was his primary responsibility on Merseyside? Shedding light on this topic, he told the GoPlay Soccer Podcast in 2022: "The specific part I play is coming in and continuing the work I had done at the FA. My primary focus is to work with coaches, to make them better and help the players become the best they can be. Our ethos is everything starts and finishes with the players. You have to understand the players you are working with.

"This is about a long-term journey. There are ups and downs. Stand back and observe more, talk less. Each kid is unique, so be careful if you've got a lovely manual of how you want to work and apply that to all players."

Making clear what his key principles are when working with young people, he said: "You need good people, people with good values and principles. There is a lot of ego in football. You have to love working with children and football.

"If you really want to work with young kids, you have to be extremely selfless and it can't be about you as a coach. You have to have a natural enthusiasm and see the good in kids. I am a glass half full rather than half empty in terms of what might be possible. I believe we can push the boundaries of what children are capable of. You have to build belief and confidence in young people and inspire them. You have to communicate in a simple way that they will understand.


"The gift of the coach is how you work in an environment and how you help the children feel comfortable to express themselves. One of the things in this country is there are huge number of adults who surround these kids once they get into the 11-a-side game. That brings benefits and challenges as everyone wants to feel like they're helping. All these people surrounding young players will naturally create uncertainty and a lot of questions."

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/leeds-united/martin-diggle-key-principles-coaching-28694076

[Asbjørn]

Da overtar altså Leeds for Chelsea.

Leeds United will 'take over' from Chelsea as the host for the talent hunt in Sweden this year.


That's according to Hallandsposten, who cover the work done by Chelsea in 2024 and the Whites' plans for this year.

https://sportwitness.co.uk/leeds-united-taking-over-chelsea-scheme-in-search-for-best-young-talents/

The newspaper claims the Halmstad edition of the Chelsea Football School took place last summer. This was held at Vapnö IF's facilities, and 100 young talents took part in this event.

Vapnö were hoping for Chelsea to return this year, but that won't happen. Instead, Leeds will 'take over' from the Premier League club.

.........

'Leeds is a club on the rise, so it's fun. They are leading the Championship and are on their way back to the Premier League, as it looks, and have entered into a partnership with Red Bull and all that. So, it could be a nice club to follow in the future," Svensson explained.

[Asbjørn]

...fant denne tråden som kanskje den mest relevante om Andy Wood - som har vært trener i akademiet vårt gjennom tre tiår:



Andy Wood has spent 28 years+ as an Academy Coach at Leeds United. He has developed players like Kalvin Phillips, James Milner, Aaron Lennon, and Archie Gray. When someone with that depth of experience and that track record says something about youth football, it's worth stopping and listening.

What he said is all   ⤵�

1️⃣ Here's the quote in full:

"At home, they'd be playing, as I said walking off Monopoly, Kerplunk, any kind of board game you'd let them play and enjoy. Let them play and enjoy this, it's their journey, not yours, not ours. It's their time, let them enjoy it. They will get to a level, whatever that level might be, that's where they'll get with or without your help. Just let them play, when they come off the pitch and they've been battered 20-0, tell them how good they did and have they had fun? End of."

2️⃣ It's their journey, not yours, not ours. Andy is speaking to parents and coaches in the same breath. Both groups, not just the parents on the sideline, the coaches too. That's an unusual and important thing to say.

The temptation to take ownership of a child's development, to feel personally invested in their progress, to steer and shape and direct that exists in coaches just as much as it does in parents. Andy's point is that the journey belongs to the child.

3️⃣ They will get to a level, whatever that level might be, that's where they'll get with or without your help. Andy isn't saying coaching doesn't matter or that parental support is irrelevant. He's saying that a child's ceiling is theirs, shaped by who they are, what they want, how hard they're willing to work, and how much they love the game.

The adult's role is to protect the conditions that allow that journey to unfold, not to engineer the destination.

4️⃣ The board game reference is deliberate, Monopoly or Kerplunk, games children play for fun. With no external pressure, no one deconstructing their decisions, no adult telling them they should have bought Mayfair instead of the Old Kent Road.

They just play, they make choices, they laugh, get frustrated, and keep going. Andy is saying football at this age should feel the same way owned by the child, enjoyed for its own sake, free from the weight of adult expectation.

5️⃣ When they come off the pitch and they've been battered 20-0, tell them how good they did and have they had fun? End of. That ending "end of" is powerful.

It's not an invitation to debate, it's not a starting point for a discussion about when it's appropriate to reflect on a heavy defeat. It's just, that's it.

That's the job in that moment. Two things. Tell them they did well and if they had fun?

6️⃣ There's something in Andy's words about trust that sits underneath everything else. Trust that the child will find their level. Trust that the game itself will teach them what they need to learn.

Trust that joy and play and ownership of the experience are not obstacles to development, they are development.

Twenty-eight years at Leeds United Academy, four Premier League players and many more, and his message to parents and coaches is essentially, get out of the way and let them play.

7️⃣ The coaches reading this who work across the landscape of coaching might feel a quiet tension in Andy's words. Because coaching is an active thing, we plan sessions,intervene, give feedback, design environments and all of that matters.

Andy's point isn't that coaching is useless, it's that the best thing a coach and parent at youth level can do is create a space where children feel free to play, to experiment, to fail, and to keep going. The coaching that serves the child is the coaching that keeps the enjoyment alive.

8️⃣ Andy Wood has watched more children develop through football than most people ever will. He's seen what works and what doesn't across nearly three decades at Leeds Academy. His message isn't complicated, let them play, let them enjoy it and ask if they had fun. 

How much of what happens around youth football right now, on the sidelines, in the car, in the coaching sessions, actually reflects that? And how much of it is quietly making the game harder to love?

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Her er noen av responsene på tweetene:
Had the pleasure of working with Andy( Woody) I learned so much in a short time frame.He kept things simple. He is hands down the best youth/junior coach i have ever seen. A fantastic man. I hope hes still coaching.
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He is an absolute legend and a top bloke. 👌🏻
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Top coach and my son loved his sessions when he was at Leeds. Sessions were so good and importantly fun for young kids that my son would literally run from the car at Thorp Arch.

https://x.com/martynejohnson/status/2045862610961068438?s=20