Grobler to produce ace footballers for academy
Grobler is a former Boksburg FC coach.
“I want to look after development as opposed to winning leagues. I want to develop players. It’s more rewarding from a coaching perspective to say we’ve developed these players from a grassroots level to where they are now.”
These are the words of the newly appointed director of football at Superstars Academy, Les Grobler.
Considered one of the finest finishers in the game in South Africa, the Grinaker Rangers and Moroka Swallows legend brings with him positivity, creativity and excellence to the academy.
The ex-Boksburg FC coach has already hit the ground running. As he was taking the players through their paces, he told the Advertiser that his plans are already bearing fruit.
“The more I see the better. I already see a massive improvement in just the little time that I have been here. I see an improvement in how they are thinking and playing. However, there’s a lot of work to do.”
He looks after the technical and tactical aspects of football and this includes the coaches being in line with the academy’s overall plans.
“I look after the training programmes and all the coaches. We want to build the coaches to a different level, to give them programmes to know where we are and what we are looking at.
“A lot of these coaches are young and they want to learn. That’s one of the reasons I joined. They have also got some good ideas and goals that are similar to mine.”
Grobler never envisaged that he will become a coach. He told the paper that when he was a player, coaching was a distant thought.
“It was the furthest thing on my mind. My understanding of the game has helped me a lot in my transition into coaching.”
When quizzed about the state of football development in Boksburg, Grobler lamented the lack of proper structures to produce elite footballers.
“There were good players that came out of Boksburg in the past. But currently, there are none. You don’t hear about that many players coming out of the East Rand anymore. In the 1980s, teams like Kaizer Chiefs had probably 70% of players from the East Rand.
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“We need to look at it broadly. There are no real academies producing players from the East Rand.”
He explained that they aim to create a football hub that will be accessible to all footballers in the region.
“We want to fill the gap. We want to turn the academy into a centre of excellence for the whole of Ekurhuleni where we can develop these kids into elite players.”
On the lack of a proper development plan to produce well-rounded professionals in the country, Grobler attributed this to many coaches’ obsession with winning rather than proper development.
“We’ve lost our way. Development has become so competitive that we always have to win and we forget the basics. We are forgetting what the kids have to learn to play. So many coaches want to build their CVs around winning as opposed to the number of players they have promoted.”
“I want technically better players. I don’t want the stress of having to win and develop. I want to build from grassroots up. The basics have to be mastered correctly from a grassroots level.”
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