13 Apr 2015
Doha, 13 April 2015. Former Welsh international Craig Bellamy was recently welcomed at Aspire Academy and taken on a guided tour. Additionally, Roberto Olabe, Director of Football, introduced him to the Academy’s philosophy and the former player with big English clubs such as Manchester City and Liverpool also had the chance to see the training of the feeder teams and exchange thoughts with the coaches.
The 35-year-old, who finished his playing career in 2014 after 17 years of professional football in the UK, is now focused on starting his coaching career in the youth academy of his hometown club Cardiff City. He describes working with children as a very rewarding experience; “It’s because I really love their curiosity and their questions. I am a very young coach and I also learn from working with them and hopefully they get the best out of me as well. One of the biggest problems for some football players is that they feel they have to go straight to being a manager and miss the step of working with kids. That’s the wrong way to go, because you have to start from the bottom and work your way up.”
His piece of advice for the young boys who dream of breaking into professional football is “Work hard, because you can’t underestimate how tough it really is. Of course, you have got talented players and they will make it no matter what because they are extremely gifted. I, myself, had to work very hard. I moved away from home when I was 15 years old, had to deal with homesickness, I was also a young father so there were quite a few challenges in front of me. I feel it’s even more difficult nowadays because the Premier League is such a big league which is bringing in the best players from all over the world.”
The forward, who represented Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics, is also a good example of how you have to deal with injuries. “I was not going to let an injury interrupt my career, I was not going to let that be an excuse. I used the time I had when I was injured to think about the things I could do to get back into the game. Shortcuts in my rehab were also out of the question. If it was 5 minutes on the bike I did 5:05 minutes rather than 4:55 minutes. I made sure I did everything that was asked from me and even more.”