It has only been three months but soccer is already on the move at Transition Football.
The high-performance development centre for soccer, based at Bryneven Primary School, has already won the commitment of 95 soccer players between the ages of six and 22, mostly from the Alexandra, Sandton and Bryanston areas.
But according to coach Claudio Lorenzani, quality matters more than quantity, and Transition Football has produced loads of quality.
Already, the U13 side reached the final of the opening Rand Central Local Football Association tournament on 4 March, not conceding a goal in the eight matches leading to the final.
But as they went up against Farouk Khan Stars of Africa, five minutes of madness saw them concede four goals.
Such was their resolve to not go down without a fight, the Transition Football youngsters scored three goals in response to lose narrowly by four goals to three.
“As a youth soccer developer, we try to give the youngsters the best grounding, inspire what they have and alter their minds,” said Lorenzani.
He explained that many players grow up believing that being able to dribble a ball instantly makes you a winner, but there is more to the game than just dribbling or showing off one’s ball skills.
“We often have to teach children discipline and technical efficiency. Every year we look at one of the top clubs in the world and see what we can learn from them. This year we will mimic [England’s] Manchester City in terms of their excellent movement of the ball, speed, and possession.”
The coach concluded that the main tenets of Transition Football are passing, positioning and possession, and every drill focuses on at least one of these.
If you know of sport stories you would like to see published, let us know about them on our Facebook page.
