Busy times in Shanghai: CL, CSL, U23 & new football schools

It’s been a while since I’ve found time to write in here, but been busy lately.

We are currently in the international FIFA-break in China as well allowing us a game break after a tough pre-season and also a tight schedule starting the Champions League campaign and the Chinese Super League almost at the same time. We are in a solid position in the Champions League before the next difficult away game in Osaka, Japan vs. Gamba next week.

In the domestic league we lost the first round away vs. Henan, where all the teams are struggling, while it was 1-1 in round 2 home in the Derby vs. Shanghai Shenhua. So we need to collect points in the coming rounds to improve our league position with games vs. Chongqing, Liaoning and my former club Guangzhou R&F coming up.

Besides helping the 1. team; I’m also working with the Development Squad (U23) and here I can observe and measure a very nice progress. Not only in terms of the results, but through a high performance environment slowly being build up:

• We have a bigger staff around the squad
• We are now filming and analyzing all our training sessions
• We are getting similar stats / data from our games as the 1. team gets from Prozone/Amisco
• We have a more structured individual development plan / training structure (a software to track development)

So the players are basically under the same conditions as a 1. team player, which is a very strong environment for a young player in China.

Also our SIPG Academy is growing and we are now ready for the next phase to implement the SIPG WAY; our over all football philosophy, our way of playing and developing players. It’s a big project with not only teams and players at our training base, but as we speak 23 football schools all over China to feed our club in the future.

So busy times in Shanghai, but still some very interesting tasks here and I really enjoy serving this club.

You can read about our football schools down below (in English):

https://www.shanghaidaily.com/sports/soccer/SIPG-steps-up-hunt-for-youth-talent/shdaily.shtml