A man who has shaped the future of German soccer has been in London, Ont. this week working with members of the London Whitecaps organization. Holger Kraft spent more than 20 years in German football including coaching the Youth National Team, developing players and mentoring coaches. “I’m here to help Canadian soccer because I saw the crowd in the stadium during the World Cup and the National team did very well, and I think I’d like to bring some German soccer training philosophy here to this country,” Kraft told CTV News. On Tuesday afternoon, he was working with players from U13-U15 at BMO Centre in London, integrating new training sessions and guiding the players. In his first few days in London, he’s seen some notable differences to players in his home country. “The physical contact is much harder in Germany and in Europe,” said Kraft. “The technical skills are better. We start with the German national team in the U12. Can you believe that? Because U12, U13 these are the golden learning ages, and in these ages they only learn the skills. We also only offer game forms. This is a typical German soccer philosophy.” Whitecaps staff have been working alongside Kraft in training sessions, meetings with technical staff and learning from each other. “It’s great to get another perspective and eyes from Europe and get some feedback on what we’re doing here in London,” said Rob Perreira, London Whitecaps technical director. “We’ve been successful here at our club getting players into provincial and national programs. Any of these connections we can make with coaches that bring in different ideas will just help us continue to develop players.” Some of Kraft’s key points to the young players were making sure they scan the field before making decisions and using proper technique when moving the ball. “Soccer is about scoring a goal and defending the goal,” said Kraft. “We train in Germany with many, many game forms. We have game forms for everything. For the wingers, for passing the ball, for dribbling the ball and in Germany it is very important to get in one-on-one situations on offence and defense in these little ages and the older they get. That’s what I’d like to bring to this country.” Perreira believes Canadian soccer philosophy is moving to less contact, similar to hockey. “When really at the higher levels, it’s very physical and it’s very combative,” said Perreira. “I think integrating that into the into the younger age groups is important. We need more 1v1’s, especially at the younger ages because when you break the game down, that’s really what it is. It’s winning those 1V1 situations, whether that’s offensively or defensively and then scoring goals. So, getting into the more that detail the younger ages would be something that we’re going to be focusing on.”
