Holland Recap #3

On our third day in Holland, we took a trip to NEC Nijmegen.  Of all the places that we visited in Holland, this place was one of my favorite places.  We were scheduled to get a presentation from Remco Ten Hoopen as well as watch the youth teams train at their complex.

The NEC grounds are fairly small but they have a really neat and intimate stadium with training fields in the back.  They have two turf fields as well as three grass fields.  The turf fields are state of the art turf and the grass fields are well kept and in good condition. 

The first part of our day at NEC was to meet with Remco Ten Hoopen who was one of the full time youth directors.  Remco was a very impressive fella who had been with NEC for over ten years and who was actually going to be leaving the club and heading to another Dutch club.

NEC works with FC Oss which is an amateur club in Holland.  There are 8 full time coaches and one head education position at NEC.  There are also numerous scouts and trainers at NEC.  The philosophy of NEC is to instill the virtues of hard work in every player.  This is reflected in the play of NEC.  Remco said that a soccer team needs a few artists but mostly soldiers.  The coaches at NEC want their players to think in the game and how can the trainers bring the game out to the players.

NEC recruits many players based on the principle that players get to play.  There are many top Dutch clubs with much more money than NEC and those players who are not playing much at AJAX or PSV get to play all the time.  The players learn from the game and there is no better way.

One of the most impressive parts of NEC was the personal individual program.  Every player gets an individual player program.  There are many aspects to this program.  The idea is for the player to create goals.  The player will target their dream goals (i.e. play for Barcelona) and then their achievable goals (i.e. make the first team for NEC).  These goals are recorded and put at the top of a spreadsheet for each player.  In addition, the player's technical skills, mental qualities, training program, and player ratings are included on this sheet.

What impressed me the most is that NEC is committed to each individual player.  Many times, players can get overlooked and not be given enough attention.  It is important that players are given attention so that they can not only achieve their goals but they can also help the team achieve its goals.  By working to do this, a club will have success.

After meeting with Remco, we headed outside to watch the First Team train.  We were surprised to see that Patrick Kluivert (for those who do not know him, he was a legendary player for AJAX as well as Barcelona) was doing his coaching badge with NEC.  What is interesting about the Holland Coaching Education program is that every coach who is working on getting their certifications, spends a year working to achieve that badge.  In the US, we have to go to courses where we spend two weeks getting a ton of information and spending 8 hours a day on the field.  It becomes a real grind and it is not a lot of fun.

After first team training was finished, we got to do a question and answer session with Patrick where we got our picture with him.  He is a very nice man.  I thought he would be kind of stuck up because he is Patrick Kluivert but that was not the case at all.  He answered our questions and took pictures.  He said he was still learning more and more about the game and he really loves coaching.  I included my picture with him below.

After meeting with Patrick, we got a small tour of the stadium.  It was a very small but neat stadium.  We got to walk in the director's box and see where he would sit for home games.  I wish we could have seen a game at NEC but maybe next time I am over in Holland. 

We spent the rest of the day watching the NEC youth teams train at their complex.  We observed some really good sessions.  I took good notes and I plan on using a lot of what I saw with my youth teams.

I included some pictures from NEC below:

Staff outside NEC Fan Shop

Patrick Kluivert and Me

Patrick Kluivert

Staff Picture at NEC