Newsgroup: it.sport.calcio.estero
Titolo: Bell'articolo

Tutto sull'Arsenal "dei giovani" con scheda finale per ogni singolo futuro
Campione...
Anche questo pezzo dall'Observer (che e' la versione domenicale del
Guardian..)
Nurturing a new breed of Gunners
Long-term planning and broadened horizons are reaping rewards for Arsenal's
head of youth, Liam Brady
Sunday November 14, 2004
The Observer
Producing players capable of making the grade in the first team at Arsenal
is a long-term project. Eight years ago, the board of directors were not
happy that the club's success in developing home-grown talent had dried up.
My task was to identify the problems and rectify them. But that takes time.
You can't snap your fingers and find a dozen of the highest quality
17-year-olds and a dozen top-class 16-year-olds, give them to the manager
and say: 'There you go, the youth policy is back again.' It takes years. We
put a new staff together, got the club to invest in facilities, and in many
ways produced a mini mirror image of what Arsène Wenger has done for the
first team.
Listening to him and learning from him, we broadened our horizons. When we
realised the pool of young talent in the British Isles was shrinking, and
the competition to sign too few players was intensifying, we decided to cast
the net far beyond the traditional hunting ground. We began covering the
ever-growing list of youth competitions across the world to build on the
various contacts that Arsène, myself, and the other members of staff had
internationally. It has become a global game and getting boys over from an
early age means they can grow with the club, just as they always have from
within these isles. As a result we have had a cosmopolitan team representing
the club brilliantly in the Carling Cup over the past two seasons.
Our youngsters received a lot of praise after beating Everton, but the one
gripe I have is that some people who should know better have focused
negatively on the number of foreign boys in the team. I would like to ask
them who they thought were the best English players on the park. Most would
agree they were the ones in red and white. Our youth development department
is here to serve Arsenal. If we can help England that's all well and good,
and I think we are doing that. We have several boys in England teams at
various youth levels and I'm hopeful before too long we can add to the full
team more players of the calibre of Ashley Cole. Jermaine Pennant, David
Bentley and Justin Hoyte are all in the under-21s and have a chance to make
it for club and country.
These English boys are working with first-class coaches in a first-class
environment alongside first-class players like Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry
Henry. How detrimental can that be to the English game?
No matter whether our boys are from England, Spain or Ivory Coast, they soon
learn what is expected of them. They are helped along by staff steeped in
the club's traditions and are given a little booklet for Arsenal youth
players based on the one I had 35 years ago, laying down the law of how they
have to behave while they are learning their trade. We also like them to
lodge with Arsenal families. Cesc Fabregas and Philippe Senderos stay with
an Irish lady, Arturo Lupoli with an Anglo-Italian family, Nicklas Bendtner
with a friend of mine who has been a fan for 50 years. They are all Arsenal
season-ticket holders who have the club's best interests at heart and keep
the boys on the straight and narrow.
It's harder now with kids to get the right levels of focus and respect. They
are closeted, driven to school, get everything they want like mobile phones,
computers, games. We try to make them realise that to make it in the harsh
world of football is no easy task. Unless they are strong mentally and
physically they are not going to succeed.
The upside of the social revolution is that the kids are quite content to
stay at home during the evenings. It can only be good for young players to
keep away from late nights, and they are happy enough to stay in
corresponding with friends by email, watching DVDs, or chatting on a mobile
phone to loved ones. If only we could introduce the technology to them at 16
rather than eight years old when they should be out practising, the pool of
local talent might be bigger.
In England there is huge competition to find the raw material to work with.
A lot of clubs competing with us for a boy's signature try to warn them that
they won't make it at Arsenal. There's some truth in that - statistics show
how hard it is to make it here, as it is at all clubs who compete regularly
in the Champions League where standards are extremely high. But if you don't
make it in Arsenal's first team, the statistics about the number of players
who go on to make a very good career for themselves elsewhere in the
Premiership and First Division are healthy. That's very gratifying.
We try to educate them as human beings as well as footballers. When I was
young, we used to emulate what the first team was doing - and that meant
some bad habits, like drinking at an early age, gambling as soon as we had
money. Nobody at the club at that time went into the ramifications of things
like that. Now we go out of our way to explain the harm those things, and of
course drugs, can do.
The boys benefit enormously from the example set by the first team, and all
the Carling Cup lads have had a regular opportunity to train with them for
some time now. If Bergkamp or Henry looks at them in a bad way because they
have done something wrong, boy is that a lesson. I suppose Arsène doesn't
look forward to international weeks, but I do, because he works intensely
with those boys. Arsène's training sessions are so simple but so
thought-provoking, it's a great education for the kids.
The Carling Cup gives us a sense that we're on the right road. But there
will only be a sense of real satisfaction that the youth policy is bearing
fruit when they are in the first team regularly and winning trophies. Our
aim is for 50 per cent of the team to be home grown and we will continue to
strive for that.
In the meantime, the boys deserve to look forward to their Carling Cup
quarter-final at Old Trafford. If the teams are, as the two managers have
hinted, similar to what we have seen in the competition so far, their next
challenge will be to pit their skills against a Manchester United team full
of established internationals in front of 67,000 people. This is their
toughest audition on the biggest stage in England. I'll be very nervous as I
always am in the Carling Cup. But I'm confident they won't be.
· Former Arsenal player Liam Brady returned to the club in 1996 - two months
before Arsène Wenger's appointment - to lead the revolution behind the
revolution.
The starlets
Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, 18
I got a letter from a Dutch agent and followed it up. Quincy came over for a
trial and we gave him a scholarship, but with no promises of a contract. It
is worth giving a kid a chance to show he can change his outlook and Quincy
is a case in point. We had to give him more of the bitter medicine than Ajax
did, drumming into him the need to work hard and be a team player, and it's
been a joy to watch his performances against Manchester City and Everton.
Jermaine Pennant, 21
Ever since he came at 15 years old from Notts County, it was obvious he had
the ability to make it at the highest level. It was well documented that
Jermaine had distractions, but he has knuckled down, and it was incredible
the other night to see him given the captain's armband. He must grasp the
chance, when it comes in the Premiership and Champions League, with both
hands.
Robin Van Persie, 21
Bought in by chief scout Steve Rowley from PSV, it looks like money well
spent. We've seen his skills already with some brilliant goals for the first
team. He has settled in well and been patient waiting for his opportunity.
Justin Hoyte, 19
He has been at the club since he was 10. He's extremely agile and quick
because his parents both represented Great Britain in athletics. Having
already played in the Premiership and for England under-21s, he's
progressing well. His younger brother Gavin plays for Arsenal's under-15s.
Arturo Luploi, 17
Our academy scout saw him representing Italy at under-16 level in a
tournament in France. Having followed his progress, we moved in the summer
when we knew he was available from Parma. His statistics as a goalscorer are
quite incredible. He's a natural predator.
-- 
Vista da Londra:
http://lacyroad.typepad.com/lacy_road/
http://lacyroad.typepad.com/calcio/
http://lacyroad.typepad.com/isoladelsole/


E Senderos dov'é?
Aho,ha giocato nel Servette,non dimentichiamolo!!! :-)
-- 
 
Nicolas