Swans lend a hand

SWANSEA City brought joy to hundreds of young footballers when their academy participated in last month’s Metropolitan (Bayhill) Under-19 Premier Cup, and in the week before held a number of training workshops for players and coaches. In total, the English Premiership club reached over 500 youngsters and 50 coaches, visiting three football projects and three football clubs including Milano United, Bothasig AFC, Farouk Abrahams’ GK Academy, Hout Bay and Strandfontein FC. Apart from imparting football knowledge and skills, the academy also handed out kit, boots and over fifty pairs of goalkeeper gloves, all donated from their youth and senior players back home, including first-team shot-stopper Lukasz Fabianski. “We think the longer term of development is through coaches, so by training the coaches up we feel that is the best mechanism to leave an imprint in that club,” Swansea’s Head of Coaching David Adams tells KICK OFF. “We’ve been working extensively with a lot of coaches across Europe and the UK, and we are obviously happy to bring those ideas into the Cape Town area and into clubs without resources. “The biggest thing we noticed was the attitude of the players and how much they respect the coach – that’s a really valuable thing. And technically, for the pitches they are playing on, the players are excellent,” Adams adds. Swansea have impressed in England’s top flight in recent years, displaying a progressive brand of football. “We believe in possession football and a certain style of playing which was very different to many English teams who were, in the past, very old-school British style – direct with a 4-4-2 formation – where we keep a high percentage of possession and dominate the ball,” Adams explains. “We’ve kept that same style for a number of years. So if you do that with academy players as well, they have something to aspire to and get used to a certain way of playing, which makes the transition to the first team much easier.” After progressing through the group stages of the Metropolitan Cup, Swansea came unstuck in the Last 16, losing out on penalties to eventual runners-up JL Zwane.