Reporter Liu Xiangyu reported that at the end of last season, Guoan and Bilic broke up, and the club signed Xie Feng in the shortest time, determining the direction of using local coaches and clarifying the goals. Subsequently, the framework of foreign aid was reconstructed, and the four newly signed foreign aides were all extremely targeted reinforcements, extremely restrained in internal citation, focusing on promoting players cultivated in their own youth training system, and the target positioning was in line with the needs of the development of the club at this stage. From strategy formulation to implementation, from the first team to the youth academy, from the management to the logistics support staff, the Guoan Club has formed a complete set of systematic management models to ensure the effective operation of each link.
Guoan has always been a symbol of Beijing football and one of the most profound professional football clubs in Chinese football, and Guoan has accompanied the growth of generations of Beijingers. "Old Guoan" is full of vivid stories, but "Old Guoan" has some problems in the construction of the club. After Sinobo took over, the club has become more in line with international standards from the management level, and has been continuously improving in the past five years.
"After Sinobo Group became the owner, it put forward the three concepts of professionalism, specialization and internationalization." Li Ming, general manager of Guoan Club, said that these three concepts are the direction and code of conduct for the development of Guoan Club.
"Professionalism represents attitude, we are not just a professional football club, we are an important part of Beijing culture, which is our aim. Specialization is a natural demand of professional clubs, many domestic clubs do not fully understand 'specialization', most of them may only be for the first team, there are requirements for results. The specialization we emphasize is technology, theory, science and technology, social achievements, social co-construction and sharing, forming a specialization, because professional talents can assist competitive football, amateur football, social football, so that more people can participate in and like football. Li Ming elaborated.
Internationalization is better understood, the Guoan Club should be in line with Beijing's urban positioning, and Beijing, as the capital and international metropolis, Guoan should also match it.
"As a professional football club in the capital, Guoan Club has such social responsibility, and at the same time, we hope that through the professionalism and systematization of professional clubs, we can promote and lead the development of Beijing football." Li Ming said.
After Sinobo became the owner, Guoan built a club based on this concept and did a lot of things, the first team has always maintained competitiveness, and the most effective thing is the establishment of the youth training system.
When Sinobo took over Guoan, the performance of the Guoan first team was guaranteed, the biggest shortcoming was the youth training, the club believed that the youth training should be equally important as the first team, and made great efforts in youth training.
Due to various factors, Guoan was initially unable to form a small-age team. Initially, the base was in Xianghe, and after Sinobo became the owner, at the request of the Chinese Football Association, the base moved back to Shunyi, Beijing, and began systematic construction as a node.
In Li Ming's view, the youth training system is the "top priority". At the beginning of the establishment of the national security youth training system, there was a certain debate about which model to choose. There are two main models, one is to cooperate with some well-known foreign clubs, and the other model is to start from scratch and build your own system.
The former model is fetchism, which may be easier, but it also means greater economic contributions. "At the negotiating table, whether it is with the European giants or non-giants, we are relatively weak, because we have nothing to communicate with others, we can only ask for it, the negotiations are not equal, I am not willing to cooperate in this way, and if this model is adopted, it will use larger-scale funds, which is not very realistic." Li Ming said that even if Guoan signed a contract with a European club, the other party could not give us everything, and Guoan may not see results.
"The club originally wanted to do it in a simpler way, but I came up with a different idea. From my philosophy, we're going to do some basic work. I think we should build our own system in light of our own situation. Guoan's youth training foundation is very weak, Li Ming suggested choosing a youth training director who can build a system and has rich basic work experience, and then build his own team, which may better achieve the desired effect." When he said his idea, everyone agreed.
After clarifying the direction, the club quickly began to act, li Ming and two youth training leaders Yang Pu and Zhang Zhijun, as well as several technical directors, discussed the selection of youth training directors. At that time, Guoan received a lot of resumes, many of which were very famous candidates, "but I think we should choose a candidate who can complete the basic work and has more experience in building a system." Mr. Li said he began to set his sights on the elites of the Dutch system.
The reason for choosing the Dutch youth training model, on the one hand, is that Li Ming has lived and studied in the Netherlands for a long time, and he has a relatively good understanding of Dutch football, and more importantly, in the basic training technology theory and development mode of the adolescent stage, the influence of the Netherlands in the whole of Europe is huge.
"The Dutch are usually taller, but there are often some players with very good flexibility in their system, the Netherlands has a unique point in youth training, and many European countries have referred to the Dutch system to develop their own system, which is also some of the understanding I have brought after living in Europe. At that time, we visited experts from Germany, Belgium and other countries, and finally we chose Radru because he had worked in Ajax for a long time, and he had also worked in the Middle East, and he had also done youth training with Cruyff in North America, and later returned to Ajax to do technical work and become a scouting director. Li Ming said Guoan soon joined hands with Radru, who played a crucial role in guoan's youth development in the following years.
It is not unusual to hire a foreign youth director in Chinese football, the usual practice is that foreign experts are responsible for technical matters, And Chinese people are responsible for management, but Guoan does not play cards according to the routine. "(Chinese foreigners) this philosophy is biased, and the professional operation of the base may be more important than the youth director in some aspects, because it is more long-term, more continuous, he has to conform to the philosophy of the club, as well as match the financial budget. Including the arrangement of the event, the improvement of the base hardware, the problem of education, the management of personnel and the details of life to the laundry, etc., and by extension, it also includes the cultivation of children's second and third interests, all of which are in it. All of this is very important, and healthy management and operations are prerequisites. Li Ming said.
After in-depth study in Europe, Li Ming believes that the management of the Academy is actually more important, so almost at the same time as signing Radru, Guoan signed Paul, the director of youth operations. Paul has worked for the Eredivisie Club Hague for over 20 years and has a wealth of experience in operations management. After Paul arrived in Guoan, he wrote the first book of the Youth Academy, which clarified the youth training system, the departmental settings in the system, and the division of management authority.
"For example, we hold the Sinobo Cup International Youth Invitational Tournament, when we do the event planning and operation, if we do it ourselves, it will take a lot of energy, and it may not necessarily have a good effect." Communication with Europeans and South Americans, because of cultural differences, the cost of intermediate communication will be very large. But under the coordination of the foreign director, we have done a good job in the organization and operation of the event, we made all the plans half a year ago, and completed the communication with the participating teams, and only need to adjust some details during the game. Paul played a very important role. Li Ming said.
Now Paul assists Radru in completing the youth training work, the two have different authorities, and then combine the Chinese management to help them coordinate the organizational work of the periphery and its subordinates. Within the club, the Sports Strategic Development Department supports the Youth Academy, which is the technical support that runs through the whole team and echelon, with Wei Kexing as the director. The youth training director is only responsible for the training, game operation and execution within the team, and Yang Pu, as the deputy director of youth training, assists Radru, manages the Chinese coach and formulates the plan.
Radru, Paul and Yang Pu are a triangle, mainly responsible for the internal, as well as the youth development department, responsible for the cooperation of low-age outlets and external exchanges. The Department of Sports Strategic Development provides technical support and evaluates them on a regular basis.
When Radru first arrived, there were some deviations in his understanding of Chinese football, but he was able to make some timely adjustments, and of course, Guoan actively cooperated with him. "After they came, I didn't fully emphasize that you must integrate into China, and to this day, I have concluded internally that it is precisely because Paul and Radru have adhered to principles or some stubbornness that we have developed our national security youth training system today, and we need his principles and stubbornness." Li Ming said.
Persistence and stubbornness are reflected in the fact that as long as the plan is in place, it will not be easily changed. As long as the position and responsibilities of this coach are decided, do not easily replace him. As long as this training content is formulated, do not adjust it easily.
At the beginning, many local coaches felt that Radru had practiced too little, and Li Ming reflected that the number of training hours should be increased. Li Ming's way of dealing with it is that everything is mainly based on foreign directors. "I told the local coaches that we practiced the previous method, but it didn't work out, let's try to follow the rhythm of the foreign director, and if there is a problem, we will adjust it. Something very interesting happened, although we have reduced the number of trainings, but the number of players has risen, which means that the players have been fully rested and more engaged in each training. ”
By reversing the results, everyone changed their opinion and accepted it. "Because there is no system in our country, every coach has his own ideas, every coach has his own experience and experience, he wants to do it his own way, so it is difficult to accept new things. After working for a period of time as a foreign director, I asked all the departments of the club to go to the Academy to conduct research, one-on-one conversations, including all aspects, from operation to venue to canteen food, the administrative department to the administrative department to talk, the technical department to talk to the technical department. The whole group was at the Academy for two weeks, and then I went over to see the results, and I talked to someone one-on-one. ”
"For example, we set up several office areas, director work areas, 8 to 12-year-old team areas, 13-16-year-old team areas, but some Chinese coaches are not used to working in the office, they are used to training and then go back to their rooms, there are no more departments to work together, there is no communication with the athletic performance team, the technical team, what can you do in the room? I lost my temper at that conference, and the next day I had a meeting to communicate with everyone, so that they gradually realized the problem, and everyone gradually accepted and took the initiative to change. When they, as a team, discuss and review each other before and after training every day, they themselves have improved. "It's not necessarily that they can solve all the contradictions now, but at least they are trying to talk and coordinate, rather than working independently." ”
Guoan now adopts a team of foreign directors and Chinese executive coaches, most of the head coaches and assistant coaches of each team are local coaches, there are currently more than two dozen local coaches, but special directors such as physical performance directors are all foreign.
"We want to train Chinese coaches. In the past, we hired foreign coaches to pursue short-term results, of course, the short-term purpose may be achieved, the results have improved, but when the foreign coach left, the team still became useless, because there is no system continuation, foreign coaches These methods are not left, it is difficult to continue through our coaches. Li Ming said that it is necessary to let local coaches learn more and grow faster around foreign directors. For example, Guoan's foreign sports performance director has two or three Chinese coaches to cooperate, and these Chinese special coaches have now stood in their respective positions.
"Of course, systematization is one thing, but it still requires a real understanding of football by coaches." Li Ming said. Now the National Security Youth Training System follows a set of concepts from top to bottom, and all coaches must adopt the same concept. After four years of learning and growth, Sui Dongliang is currently the manager of Guoan U21, and Xing Dong has gone from the position of assistant coach to the position of echelon head coach.
In addition to allowing local coaches to learn from foreign experts, Guoan has also taken a more important approach, that is, to combine technology and cooperate with the world's leading data software companies to build a digital office platform.
Now Guoan's coaches have a Pad and work on it every day, and the plan will be synchronized on it before the training starts, and the end of the training will be summarized. Including athletic performance coaches, team doctors and others, they will update the information on a daily basis. The Youth Director completes the work plan for each cycle on it. Each player's information, including daily physical condition, training performance and injury situation, is reflected in the software. The training sites are scattered, but the working platforms are all on this one platform. Guoan's coaches have never been used to it, and now their work is more efficient, but everyone is inseparable from technology. When the foreign coaches leave, they have left all the "intellectual property" in the software, and the Chinese coaches have become accustomed to using this platform, which can be seamlessly linked.
The club also has unified management software, and now there is a large screen in Li Ming's office, where he can see every team and every player every day at any time. All assessments and assessments related to coaches are done on the platform. "After having a system, without evaluation, it is impossible to judge whether the system is good or bad. In the past we were more subjective, now we rely on more data. I hope to be able to form a horizontal and vertical comparison of future developments, and based on this data, the training level, training quality, and training safety of existing players will also be evaluated. The support of the data at least gives us a basic standard within the club. Li Ming said.
"Systematic development is necessary for our Chinese football, because only in this way can players continue to emerge and continue." We have a elimination rate every year, the personnel is not flowing, then it is difficult for the team to get big development, because only good players, good training can get greater improvement, the average player can not reach this level for the time being, he to another platform to continue to develop, he may have the possibility of growth, so we hope that the players are mobile. "The systematic construction of the National Security Club has been at the forefront of the country.
Guoan Youth Training has formulated a ten-year medium- and long-term plan. "There is a cycle of youth training, we think there will be changes in the first three years, the player may change in the quality of training, the quality of the game, through three years he knows what to do in this system, this position. The second time point that can change should be the first five years, 13 to 18 years old, if the players receive professional training and high-quality games, and constantly improve themselves, it is possible to enter the ranks of excellent professional players, I think this may be a qualitative change. The third node is in the eighth year, if the player starts to receive systematic training at the age of ten, then in the eighth year, there should be a big change. ”
Li Ming said that through its own system of training, coupled with some reinforcements, Guoan's youth training has begun to see results. "We have a clear vision, a unified concept, a consistent training and competition style, after we have built a complete system, there is data support, there is technology to help, and it is very important to have evaluation standards, which is a very complete system in operation." Today's national security, with a set of effective closed-loop logic, is on the right path.