Kia FC based on Hoffenheim model

[DR Strangemoosh]

Be curious no longer, my waffle-chomping friends.

[Sly]

We are comparatively so good in our youth levels. it also showed in the U17 WC. When does our senior team start to fall behind European teams? That is something we really need to answer before we can try to solve our football problems.

[St_Mark]

[PSGman#19]

We are comparatively so good in our youth levels. it also showed in the U17 WC. When does our senior team start to fall behind European teams? That is something we really need to answer before we can try to solve our football problems.

Because our kids stays in IPL, Qatar league for years while seeing Japanese 14 y.o kids entering Barcelona Academy straight

[Sly]

Because our kids stays in IPL, Qatar league for years while seeing Japanese 14 y.o kids entering Barcelona Academy straight

But how come our kids turn out better? It's not like our kids' moms were training in Barcelona while being pregnant with them! The European kids sure as h*ll have better training facilities and coaches as well. They do when they are already 5 or 6.

But at a certain age, the Europeans start to get better. There must be a logical explanation for this.

[Medzdidz]

Outstanding what Mahdavikia has done. Should be a role model for every Iranian club out there; get your acts together and our football crazy country is nothing short of the top European teams. Our kids have the drive and passion they just need the institutions around them that’ll let them thrive.

If we had 10 more organizations like Kia FC our teams would be head and shoulders above Asia

Has to start somewhere , if other ex players can follow the same model and put their all into it then it could happen. This is big for Iranian football to have these young players in these kind of tournaments , getting recognition and hopefully being picked up by European clubs to help their development.

[perspolis#1]

But how come our kids turn out better? It's not like our kids' moms were training in Barcelona while being pregnant with them! The European kids sure as h*ll have better training facilities and coaches as well. They do when they are already 5 or 6.

But at a certain age, the Europeans start to get better. There must be a logical explanation for this.

Training? Physical status? Tactical knowledge?

A lot of talent exists in Iran. You still see some very poor execution of crosses/shots/passes/traps. Europeans look for that stuff more than technical ability.

[mattigil]

I think we need to give credit to Ali Doostimehr for his work with Mahdavikia as well earlier in the setup of Kia academy.

Having worked with Doostimehr and seeing the setup, they invest a lot in technical training, strength and conditioning, having the right food plans etc and the who biological and nutritional assessment of the youth players, but something that we are lacking specifically is the transition from technical focus towards tactical focus as the players get older. This is something that coaches at these academies are looking at and wanting to break through.

[inarsenewetrust]

I think we need to give credit to Ali Doostimehr for his work with Mahdavikia as well earlier in the setup of Kia academy.

Having worked with Doostimehr and seeing the setup, they invest a lot in technical training, strength and conditioning, having the right food plans etc and the who biological and nutritional assessment of the youth players, but something that we are lacking specifically is the transition from technical focus towards tactical focus as the players get older. This is something that coaches at these academies are looking at and wanting to break through.

If im not mistaken, doostimehr was integral in setting up the academy with Kia, but also went on to create his own academy of Iranmehr which has also been quite succesful in recent times too.

I think FCKIA is trying to address this very point. Currently, they have a regular party of german coaches (most from Hamburgs academy - including at one point the man who went on to be head coach of senior team shortly after-Christian Titz) visiting for extended periods of time, taking both training sessions of the teams and coaching sessions of young iranian coaches, educating them on precisely these aspects of the game.

[dcpp]

I'm glad that I spent the day next to Mahdavikia and had the chance to understand more about our younger players.

There are many factors why our players never fulfill their potentials but I'll just mention several ones. None of those come straight from Mehdi so don't assume those are his words. It's my conclusion based on what I knew and stuffs that I heard today.

First of all, we should never be totally impressed by the results of our players based on Asian competitions. We Iranians as you all know tend to start our growth really young. We saw it today too, half of our players looked like they were u15 and the other u15 which were there looked like they were u17. What the Kia academy is achieving is something else, that's why I said that we should consider this based on Asian competitions.

Then, there are the facilities issues. Even Kia academy staff members were saying that you can barely find good conditions to train those kiddos so I can't even imagine in which conditions, teams like naft or nassaji train.

We also face the coaching issues. I managed to see the trainings kids get within the Kia academy and it was actually pretty good but again we don't have enough quality youth coaches to bring the best out of a player and make them complete players in other teams.

For instance, Kia is literally trashing almost every teams in the youth leagues. They were complaining that unfortunately they don't get quality games to make their team better.

This leads to the next point, luckily Kia academy's players get to play international games against really good teams. Now can you imagine the other players, their first international experience is against the likes of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and so on during the qualifiers and then they're playing straight against countries like Japan, Korea where kids are trained properly and have a better knowledge of the game. Lack of quality games, lack of knowledge so who can improve under these circumstances.

That part was about the players when they're still pretty young.

Now let's talk about our league. Our league is a talent killer. First of all, the previous point has to be taken into consideration, for a talented young player one year in the PGPL is enough after this it becomes a waste of time but there's another problem, how many young players do you see starting for their teams. I know it improved lately but for instance here in Europe, every move are calculated. The playing time a young player should get, against who, in which situation and so on...

While in our lige bartar we keep on relying on old players and there's no real talent management from teams. It's quite simple I don't care about his current form but compare Jahanbakhsh for instance to a player like Sadeghian. Talent wise Sadeghian was head and shoulders above Jahanbakhsh. Our players need to move to better leagues ASAP. I remember watching an u21 game when I was a teenager and I was impressed by two players, I even wrote their name down because I thought that these two had the potential to become legionnaires (Kazemian and Borhani), well, the rest is history. Most of those talented kids play better football at the age of 18 than when they're older.

Another issue is that many of our kids do not do well when they move to Europe. For several reasons, but the most important one is the professionalism, keeping on with tough trainings, routines and so on.



Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[Sly]

A lot of talent exists in Iran. You still see some very poor execution of crosses/shots/passes/traps. Europeans look for that stuff more than technical ability.

Correct but by that definition, the European youths should be better than our youths too! After all, it's the former who train tactics, crosses, shots, passes, etc., right?

[Sly]

First of all, we should never be totally impressed by the results of our players based on Asian competitions. We Iranians as you all know tend to start our growth really young. We saw it today too, half of our players looked like they were u15 and the other u15 which were there looked like they were u17.

Thanks for your input and update about KIA academy.

I do agree about facilities and better training and friendlies for the European kids. However, I think you touched on a very sensitive point here above. I was gonna say despite the better training facilities and schools, the main reason for this difference must be "genetics". At youth level, our players are physically stronger (because of faster growth in some cases) whereas when they grow up, the Europeans get stronger with much better stamina. I'm starting to really believe that.

Anyways, I hope KIA's training for these kids will create much better generation for our football. Having said that, I wasn't very impressed to read that even in KIA's team, they still do not play the best football and are dependent on their best players, plus some of them still play selfishly like the rest of Iranian players. I thought these stuff rooted in our football culture would get eliminated by proper training in KIA's academy. That was their purpose for bringing lots of foreign coaches to Iran on regular basis to teach and acquiring psychologists working with the kids already at this age. I guess I was wrong!

[perspolis#1]

Correct but by that definition, the European youths should be better than our youths too! After all, it's the former who train tactics, crosses, shots, passes, etc., right?

On technical ability we can get away with a lot more at a younger age. Once tactical lessons really come into the fray in the teen years we start to see the Europeans make a huge improvement once they know how to cancel out individualistic players.

[inarsenewetrust]

Thanks for your input and update about KIA academy.

I do agree about facilities and better training and friendlies for the European kids. However, I think you touched on a very sensitive point here above. I was gonna say despite the better training facilities and schools, the main reason for this difference must be "genetics". At youth level, our players are physically stronger (because of faster growth in some cases) whereas when they grow up, the Europeans get stronger with much better stamina. I'm starting to really believe that.

Anyways, I hope KIA's training for these kids will create much better generation for our football. Having said that, I wasn't very impressed to read that even in KIA's team, they still do not play the best football and are dependent on their best players, plus some of them still play selfishly like the rest of Iranian players. I thought these stuff rooted in our football culture would get eliminated by proper training in KIA's academy. That was their purpose for bringing lots of foreign coaches to Iran on regular basis to teach and acquiring psychologists working with the kids already at this age. I guess I was wrong!

thats a pretty unfair assessment. This is one of their multiple teams, the youngest of all of them. Both the other age groups were also highly successful in similar tournaments and had a good style of play. Often in these younger teams (u13), if there is a dominant player, regardless of the coaching, the players will try to play through them since it is so effective. But as they grow older and his dominance is less prominent, they will have to adapt and I think the quality of coaching is high enough that they will do so successfully. Will be interesting to how their u17 team, who came runner up in cordial cup at the start of FCKIA european tournaments a few years ago, does in international tournaments this year. We know that two of their players, erfan Ghorbani and Hajizadeh, have both trained for extended periods of time with Bayern and Hamburg respectively.

[Sly]

thats a pretty unfair assessment. This is one of their multiple teams, the youngest of all of them. Both the other age groups were also highly successful in similar tournaments and had a good style of play. Often in these younger teams (u13), if there is a dominant player, regardless of the coaching, the players will try to play through them since it is so effective. But as they grow older and his dominance is less prominent, they will have to adapt and I think the quality of coaching is high enough that they will do so successfully. Will be interesting to how their u17 team, who came runner up in cordial cup at the start of FCKIA european tournaments a few years ago, does in international tournaments this year. We know that two of their players, erfan Ghorbani and Hajizadeh, have both trained for extended periods of time with Bayern and Hamburg respectively.

Let's hope you are right. It's just that, judging from what I've seen from KIA's academy, my expectations for these kids are quite high. It will be a very interesting year indeed. Soon, it's the time to see the new fruits of KIA's academy.