IFFHS NEWS AND STATISTICS OF THE WEEK 30
Picture : Founder Natalie Portman (left) and Jennifer Garner : the project of ANGEL CITY Women Team in Los Angeles !
ANGEL CITY COMES !
Picture : Mia Hamm, The Best Woman World Player of the XXth Century by IFFHS, is involved in this great project of LA !
Picture : Eva Longoria with Cristiano Ronaldo
TRANSFERS
Jessie Fleming, Canada’s star (22 years, 77 caps), joined Chelsea FC !
Santi Cazorla joined Xavi at Al Saad in Qatar
Thiago Alcantara will join Liverpool FC after FC Barcelona and FC Bayern München. A question of days …
ATLANTA UNITED PART WAYS WITH FRANK DE BOER
Atlanta United announced on Friday, July 24th that the club and head coach Frank de Boer have mutually agreed to part ways, effective immediately. The club will announce an interim coach shortly while beginning a search for de boer’s permanent replacement.
Also departing the club are assistant coaches Orlando Trustfull and Bob de Klerk and video analyst Erwin Koenis.
De Boer was announced as the club’s head coach on December 23, 2018, replacing Tata Martino. Under De Boer, Atlanta United finished the 2019 MLS regular season in second place In the Eastern Conference with an 18W-12L-4D record. The team also won two minor trophies, the 2019 Lamar Hunt U.S Open Cup and the second annual Campeones Cup, and finished one game shy of advancing to the MLS Cup 2019 after losing at home in the Eastern Conference Final to Toronto FC.
De Boer guided the club to a 2W-0L-0D record in the 2020 MLS regular season before it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Atlanta United was then knocked out of the MLS is Back Tournament in Orlando, losing all three matches in group play and failing to score a goal.
THE STORY
WHY I BECOME A FOOTBALL COACH – VANESSA ANASTASOPOULOU
Slowly but strongly the evolution of Women’s football got considerable recognition from many football associations. They set up women's football leagues and grooming programs. Even in this modern era there are many wrinkled faces while seeing a woman play football. Also, there are many stories of brave hearts, who fight to overcome these obstacles. Here we can witness one of those stories, how a village girl from Volos - Greece, turned to a football coach in Athens and consecrated her life for young Greek football genesis.
Football is the most popular sport in Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics. Their men's team succeeded in showcasing their power in various football venues in recent decades. Meanwhile the Women's department is still not fully recognized by their nation. Not a popular sport, Women's football is facing many hurdles in Greece. Many of the footballers turn their back to football and pursue their further life. Here in this situation one girl comes forward to do something for the football and her country. She had passion and vision.
Vanessa Anastasopoulou was born in a small town, 17 km away from Volos, Greece. Since her childhood, Vanessa has been more fascinated to become a football coach than a player. When she grew up her visions got more accuracy. Her football lessons go parallel with her studies. She played football for five years. She appeared in Greek Women's football league, championships and many other Under age tournaments with AO Trikala 2011& Volos 2004 FC. Two times she won the championship.
However, she wanted to become a coach so she joined University of Thessaly. There she studied in the Department of Physical Education and Sports Science. In 2012 she graduated from there with a degree in football. Also she did an internship at the Academy of Dimitra Apollwn in Trikala. After that she went back to Hometown, Volos. There she worked for two years at the Soccer school of Agia Paraskevi as a coach in pre-junior categories. She decided to learn more so that she shifted to Athens. There she worked as an assistant coach in the Papagou men's team for two months. She successfully received UEFA B & UEFA A Diploma, also holds Coerver youth diploma 1 (Scotland), Coerver intro diploma (Manchester) and a Smart football level 1 diploma from the Catalan Federation. After that she took on the role of coach at the Women's Academy of Finikas Agia Sofia, in Piraeus and at the soccer school of Olympiacos in Lagonisi. And now 29 year old Vanessa is working for a NGO, named Organization Earth as a sport educator in the Fútbolnet Programme from Barca Foundation.
After a successful nine years, Vanessa decided to look back and give me brief discussion about her coaching career, she was determined to dedicate several years to women’s football, especially to younger ages. Her words reflected wisdom and experience of these nine years. She said: Her experiences made her stronger and wise. She feels that a country like Greece required huge support from the Media and Football Association to get recognition for women's football. Alas in her childhood days, women's football faced negligence by the Hellenic Federation and Media. This caused some dashing hopes. Yet her Greek blood desired to fight. Recent years witnessed dramatic changes in Greek women’s football. They even played well against European football giants like Germany.
In words of Vanessa “ But now, in the last five years we saw big steps of growth. Many women teams and academies were created. There is the support from the federation and they plan new steps to empower the girl's involvement in football and year by year more coaches appear with higher specialty in football. So we can continue to build all this on a new basis.”
She is optimistic and so happy to open up about her hardships. In her view, getting recognition as a women’s football coach is arduous.
“Yes. It is a fact that in Greece you have to work harder than a man, in order to prove your value in football. Perhaps the only trouble that I faced was the non-acceptance as a coach. However, my way to face it was to work hard, to focus on my goals, to develop my knowledge and to find good corporations, so that they start to know my name and ask about me, and that really happened after almost four years”.
Vanessa is a trained gymnast. She learned gymnastics while in university by understanding its values in football.
“It Is like a chain. The gymnastic and all the specific knowledge from my university gave me the pertinent basis to know how I can protect my athletes and players from the injuries for example. About what I have to care about in the fitness part of my sport. On the other side the coaching taught me how I can adapt my general education to the sport of football. As a result the compounding of the knowledge and the experience will create the ideal model of a coach/educator, who will have a high influence on her athletes.”
When discussion goes about coaching young girls, she has many things to tell us.
“When you have to coach young girls, from seven years for example, the first thing is to teach them some important values, like respect, teamwork, ambition, discipline etc. In order to learn the way they have to behave inside the field and between each other. After this, I will focus on the basic technique of the football, the coordination of their bodies and on their agility. From the age of 12 I will introduce the basic personal tactics. Also, from the age of 14, I will start to teach more about team tactics. The most important thing is that the girls are smart and they can adapt faster than the boys in the different conditions. So, I observed that they could develop faster.”
In a community where women are sidelined, Vanessa faced many obstacles.
“That's right. Some years ago the main obstacles were the parent's opinion about football. There was the stereotype that football is a sport only for the boys. However, today we all managed to go ahead step by step. With the correct information I try to prove to the parents the football's benefits for their girls, so that they can trust me.
So, the important thing is to try to create a good environment between you and the parents and after all that works.”
In football, popularity is the key to success. Vanessa is delighted to say she achieved it.
“Yes. Recognition was my purpose. I did it well, I think that my passion and my character helped me a lot to reach my ideal goal. Because I had the persistence and patience to plan my goals step by step and this is what I continue to do.”
In her nine years of coaching life, she met many refugee children, who turned up in her coaching classes to overcome their misery. That was a new experience to Vanessa. So she did it well.
“About this experience. It is a life's lesson for me. I learn so many things about the different cultures and the way that they deal with life's struggles and how they overcome them. I have realized that the trust between the coach and the children is the most important value to build. If you successfully manage to relate to them, you will feel the acceptance from the other side. In any case, both have benefits. Also, this is our daily interaction.”
She mentioned Nadia Nadim as an example of how Refugees can change their life through football. Also the organization cooperates with Nadia in some football programs.
She is just 29 years old and has no time for rest. Vanessa Anastasopoulou is expanding her working area day by day. Every day she comes to the football field with a white board and markers. She is an expert in individual training, finding the weak and strong points of players and helping them to improve mentally and physically. She also did fitness coaching. She is busy searching for new technology related to football and never leaves any football coaching seminars or conferences. Also, she does some interesting research on football training. She is the only Greek womanhood to have a UEFA -A diploma certificate and this makes her invincible.