We decided to tweak our plans a touch for our second trip to Cameroon this year. Rather than holding an open training course for all of the Inter Campus coaches out here - there are nearly 200 of them - we focused solely on those who passed an entrance test. Therefore, with lower numbers than usual, we were able to provide better quality training, which in turn helped the participants' involvement and end product. Fourteen coaches thus attended the session entitled "Correcting technique as a means of player development". It's a complex topic, which although relatively easy to understand, was more difficult to acknowledge and apply in training sessions for some of the participants.
Coaches often tend to focus their stoppages on only improving youngsters' motor and technical skills, overlooking every other area - the sum of a child's parts - which make them more than just a footballer. Here at Inter Campus, however, our aim is not only to teach them to kick, dribble or control a ball in the right way. We want them to have self confidence, become part of a group, accept the rules and apply them off the pitch too. It's all about our kids growing up and learning life lessons through the beautiful game.
So it's over to the Cameroonian coaches. Yes, the work is long and complex but it's also exciting and rewarding. They have to devise exercises which stimulate not only a youngster's raw technical ability. Every child is different, with varying life experiences yet the coach's task - admittedly no mean feat - is to develop the kids' ability to work together, think and challenge themselves. That's what we want to see out there.
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