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> safehands 2022| Borussia Mönchengladbach

NLZ-Trainerteam Borussia Mönchengladbach: Playing along with balls in depth

A report from Artur Stopper | goalguard.de
For years, the annual goalkeeping coach seminar organized by Safehands - the art of goalkeeping.com has offered interested parties a great opportunity to get information and suggestions from top speakers on various key topics in the goalkeeping game. This year, the Mönchengladbach NLZ goalkeeping coach team with Uwe Kamps, Marcin Skowronek and Ludger Blaswich gave an interesting insight into the structure and working methods of the "Foals" and presented their ideas on defending balls in depth.

Presentation of the speakers

First, Uwe Kamps took on the task of getting the audience in the mood for his staff's presentations with introductory words and introducing his team of goalkeeper coaches with their vitae and areas of responsibility at the club. While he himself, after many years as a goalkeeper coach in the professional team, has for some time taken on the task of head of goalkeeper training at Borussia, Ludger Blaswich is responsible for training goalkeepers from U9 to U13 and Marcin Skowronek for U16/U17.

Training philosophy, learning objectives, organization in the association

After Kamp's introduction, Ludger Blaswich spoke about the structures at the club. His topic was the training philosophy at the Bundesliga club with the associated learning objectives, performance requirements and training organization. He also gave brief insights into the infrastructure and training facilities at Borussia Park, which were designed to be ultra-modern at the beginning of the century alongside the newly built stadium with several playing fields, as the aerial photograph shows.

a) Training philosophy

Borussia Mönchengladbach's training philosophy is clearly defined: "Our goal is to train our high-quality talented goalkeepers for the licensed or U23 team in the best possible way in terms of sporting and personal development at Borussia Mönchengladbach. By learning the technical-tactical-athletic-mental skills, the young goalkeepers are gradually introduced to competitive and top-level sport. Age-appropriate focal points of the training content in modern goalkeeper training should form the sporting basis so that our goalkeepers can implement and apply their performance in the respective age groups.'' Ludger Blaswich used graphics to illustrate in detail the content-related goals and focal points of the training philosophy. In the technical-tactical area, he named the defensive as well as offensive skills that a goalkeeper should achieve. He then explained which physical requirements (strength, coordination, speed, condition) a goalkeeper should have and how they are developed in everyday training at what age. In addition to the above-mentioned areas, however, Blaswich also believes that orientation towards the role model plays a role in training. Whenever possible, he takes a look at the work of professional goalkeepers with his protégés. In addition, it is important for the development of a "family feeling" within the club that an identification with the club is created through contacts and proximity to the professionals, as well as through permeability within the coaching team, for example by the U19 coach working in the training of the younger players. In addition to physical qualities, the keepers must also have mental qualities. If these are well developed, the children are highly attentive and the number of individual mistakes decreases, emphasizes Blaswich. These personal prerequisites are important in a commitment, he says, and are fostered in training through positive communication. Blaswich also attaches importance to the goalkeepers' sense of responsibility for themselves and the team, which is evident in the way they handle their individual goalkeeper equipment, materials and clean up the training equipment after training. In their work, the goalkeeper coaches are guided by guiding principles, which in goalkeeper training are - unsurprisingly - Barca goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, who was trained in Mönchengladbach, and the current number one, Swiss national goalkeeper Yann Sommer.

b) Learning Goals

He also presented an overview of the learning content, learning objectives and learning methodology that determine the training of goalkeepers at the individual age levels. Divided into technique, tactics and athletics, Borussia has precise learning objectives that are to be developed and achieved at different age levels. While in the lower age range the focus is primarily on getting to know, introducing and applying basic techniques, from the U16 onwards the focus is on developing and consolidating, while in the U19 and U23 on the other hand the focus is on consolidating and mastering the techniques.

c) Training organization

The goalkeeper coaches at Gladbach work in a team with Uwe Kamps as head of goalkeeper training. Fabian Otte has been responsible for the professionals since 2021. Since the summer, Milenko Gilic has taken over the U23s and U19s, assisted by former Gladbach keeper Martin Kompalla, who also helps out other goalkeeper coaches. Marcin Skowronek looks after the U16s and U17s, Stefan Nöhles the U14s/U15s, Ludger Blaswich the U9s-U13s and Linus Wirth, who still plays in the A-youth and coaches with the U23s, the U9s/U10s. In total, there are 26 goalkeepers in the club at the moment, from U9 to U23. Blaswich also went into more detail about the goalkeeper coach's area of responsibility, which is extremely varied. It consists of exchanging information with the athletic director and the goalkeeper training team as well as the team coaches, planning and documenting training, taking over tasks within the goalkeeper training team if necessary, and accompanying the goalkeepers during training, matches, tournaments, and training camps. From a certain age, video analysis is also a fixed component. In addition, the goalkeepers are regularly evaluated. At the beginning of the season, there is a goal-setting meeting, followed in the fall by an assessment meeting and in March/April by a discussion on prospects. Other tasks include squad planning and personal talks with the goalkeepers or their parents.

d) Performance requirements

In terms of performance requirements, Borussia has drawn up a position specification that also serves as a guide for scouts when sifting through goalkeeper talent. This includes aspects such as technique, tactics, athleticism, game structure, ambidexterity and mentality. Of course, according to Blaswich, not all of these criteria, such as ambidexterity, can yet be present in a young goalkeeper. For Blaswich, it is therefore not an exclusion criterion when signing a young goalkeeper if he does not possess this ability. In his opinion, the expectations must be adapted to the performance of an eight-year-old, because what young person can already play a pass with both feet at this age?
Blaswich then went into detail about which building blocks are trained in Borussia's training: Goal defense, space defense, 1-on-1 and build-up play. In an organizational chart, he showed the exact content of these generic terms and the age at which it makes sense to train them. One aspect was also important to Ludger Blaswich. For him, fun and competitive forms are important elements in goalkeeper training with young goalkeepers. It is about joy and emotions. This also includes dealing with negative events and experiences, because for Blaswich there are no error quotas in the basic area! The goalkeepers' individual perceptions and self-assessments form the foundation of athletic development. He sees it as the goalkeeper coach's job to make goalkeeping fun and enjoyable. For him as a goalkeeper coach, the satisfaction consists in promoting the boys to the next grade if possible, but also to support and accompany them on a human level.

Space defense / playing along with balls in depth

Finally, Marcin Skowronek prepared the participants in theory for the subsequent practical demonstration on the topic of "defending space / playing along with balls in depth". Using video examples of Yann Sommer and Gladbach junior goalkeepers, he vividly demonstrated how the goalkeeper is often called upon to play along when defending space behind the back line. World Cup statistics from the DFB showed that playing along with balls deep after standard situations such as corner kicks is the goalkeeper's second most frequent task in defending space. That's why Mönchengladbach's goalkeeper coaches are keen to train young goalkeepers to be bold, attacking and aggressive both when playing along behind the defensive chain and when defending high up in space, for example when intercepting crosses, Skowronek elaborated. Since Gladbach's U17s, for example, usually have a lot of possession in their games and play predominantly in the opponent's half, he said, this conversely means that there is a lot of space behind the defensive chain when the ball is lost. That's why Gladbach's goalkeepers should be on the offensive and act boldly, even if mistakes happen. On the one hand, according to Skowronek, this type of play is about the space that has to be defended, and on the other hand, it's about keeping your own team in possession of the ball, which can lead to quick turnover situations. That's why the Gladbach team regularly incorporates these demands on the goalkeeper into its training sessions. The training session is based on the DFB's WASIC principle: a warm-up, followed by an analytical part and, towards the end, a situational part. Skowronek then went into great detail about the training unit shown in the subsequent practical part and explained which content-related focal points from the club's technical and tactical requirements profile flow into the exercises shown. How these elements were implemented in the subsequent practical part is shown in the following video, which was created by the goalkeeper coaching team of Borussia from Mönchengladbach after the event in Bregenz.

Pictures from the past events

The speakers