The “JFA International Coaching Course 2015” was held at Osaka J-GREEN Sakai from 13 to 18 July.

This course, which is the seventh time to be held this year, aims to raise the level of instructors in Asia. This time it focused on youth development. 27 attendees in total, including Technical Directors and relevant staff from 15 Asian countries, participated in the course.

In the training course, they learned about the specialties and methods of coaching for each generation from children to U-18, as well as about the Academy. They also attended a lecture and practical session on goalkeeping coaching and undertook analysis of J.League matches.

Each participant gave a presentation about the youth development in his respective country, so that they could share various types of information. They tried to understand the “current state” of Asian football through discussions and exchanging opinions.

This training course is part of the arts and cultural exchange programme for ASEAN-member countries, which is supported by the Japan Foundation Asia Center.

The Japan Foundation Asia Center creates opportunities to exchange art and culture between Japan and other Asian countries under the slogan of ‘WA Project: Toward Interactive Asia’.

Participant's Comments

Fritz SCHMID  Malaysia Association Technical Chairman
On behalf of Football Association of Malaysia and all my colleagues of the invited Member Associations, I would like to thank JFA for organising this International Coaching Course 2015.

In the fantastic facilities of the Dream Academy Sakai, where one can truly feel, smell and breathe football twentyfour-seven, we did not only benefit from a well balanced itinerary, packed with highly interesting discussions, presentations and sessions in the classroom as well as on the pitch. We also experienced an admirable friendliness and hospitality, which left nothing to be desired.

From my personal view and experience, there is not much comparable to the openness and transparency with which JFA provided us an insight in their practices and their philosophy of youth development. They allowed us an impressive overview of best practice and a valuable learning opportunity. Also, I was deeply impressed of the vivacity of the exchange of views and ideas with the participating representatives of our Asian member associations.

As I strongly believe that one of the basic requirements to further improve our game is to enhance a continuous exchange with our neighbours, to share opinions,to discuss, to ask better questions. Asking more of the right questions reduces the need to have all the answers.With this in mind, I wish to express my respect and appreciation to participantsand organizing body at the same time - including staff and all the members of the team behind the team. Arigato gozaimasu!

Alex WANG Chaina  Association Engineering Department
The JFA International Coaching Course 2015 was really amazing course. Through the course, I could feel the details of Japan football technical development, especially in youth development and coach education. And also I've got known the reason that Japan football could lead in Asia, just simple words: coaches and structure. But it really need long-term hard working on developing own technicions, which JFA did very excellent and is real model in Asia during last more than ten years hard working.

During the 7-day course, although it was short time, I was deeply impressed in the professional of JFA instructors, their coaching details and always positive attitude to participants and players. And also impressed by the administrators ofthe course, who provided us super service on and off the pith making me feel very comfortable.

Besides, the participants were from 15 MAs of AFC, and the course also provided us wonderful platform and opportunity to exchange different ideas in youth development and coaching. I do appreciate that JFA organized such a wonderful course and do hope to continue to learn from JFA. Last but not least, I do thank JFA, the insructors and staff for the course. Thank you so much. And warm welcome to China."

Course Master's Comment

KAGEYAMA Masanaga Course Master
The ICC 2015 was held at J-GREEN Sakai in Osaka for six days from 13 to 18 July, and many participants from Asian countries came to join the course. This course, which started in 2006, originally followed a curriculum of Japan’s class C licence course, and all the participants were certified as official class C coaches after finishing the course.

However, most of the participants from other countries, including technical directors and instructors, were more interested in Japan’s approach and sharing information. So we changed the content of the course to include Japan’s youth development, methods of nurturing coaches, and grass-roots activities. 

27 participants from 15 Asian countries participated in ICC this year. Not only did we share Japan’s activities, but also exchanged opinions. We mainly introduced the Japanese approach and our training courses. Also we attended a J.League match and analysed the game to give a presentation.

We paid a visit to Cerezo Osaka to listen to a lecture about the club’s basic principles, organisation, and youth development by Miyamoto, the player development manager.The participants also gave presentations about the respective country’s problem to discuss. I was really impressed with their enthusiasm.

The current Australian Technical Director, Eric Abrams, who used to be involved in Belgian youth development, noted:”it’s a great opportunity to discuss various things in this course. I’d like to host a similar course in my own country.”

Ehsani Mohammad, who is in charge of developing coaches in Iran, commented: “there are only five or six countries that can play world-level football in Asia. We need to increase the number to 15 or 16 countries to compete in the world.” I do hope this course can contribute to creating a stronger Asia, in which teams are competitive and children can play freely and happily.

Finally, I’d like to show my appreciation to Cerezo Osaka, Vissel Kobe, and Kyoto Sanga, who supported the course kindly, by giving us opportunities to visit them. I appreciate that all the staff from Osaka Football Association and J-GREEN Sakai supported the course. Thank you.