Euro Tour 2017: Holland Day 1

I arrived in Amsterdam on Tuesday morning and by noon I was sitting in the club house of my favorite club Ajax. Much of this trip will be centered around the use of video for performance and player analysis. The first lecture was with Alan Fairbanks from Hudl who helps Ajax with their performance and player analysis. It was very interesting to learn a bit about how video is used in team performance, individual player development, opposition analysis, and tactical implementation in training. I also got to pick his brain a little at lunch. My biggest takeaway was how to create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for individual players and then how to link those to their Performance Plan. Once that’s done results can be measured through the use of video analysis. I’m really looking forward to implementing this approach this spring with our team to help each player improve individually. It’s a very Player-centered approach. Next we received an overview of goalkeeper development at Ajax from goalkeeper coach Rene Stam. It was interesting to see how their Model of Play influences their goalkeeper development. He broke down goalkeeping into four main categories:

Playing with feet

1v1 Breakaways

Crosses

Shot stopping

Their technical training is an ongoing 5 week rotation of these themes. After those two lectures we observed a goalkeeper training for the U17-U19 keepers. At the same time those two teams were training separately. I’ll put together a PDF later of training sessions and exercises observed.

Finally we ended the day with current Dutch National Team assistant coach Frans Hoek about the structure of the game and creating a common language. We already use what he discussed at Stan State and Turlock SC.