04 Dec 2021
Saturday, December 4th , 2021: Doha, Qatar:
Speaking at the virtual 7th Aspire Academy Global Summit 2021 on Thursday under the theme: ‘Aspire Fellows Meet Other Sports’ former Arsenal FC manager and current Chief of Global Development at FIFA, Arsene Wenger said that the role of a coach or manager is very crucial not just in football but in other sports as well.
“ First of all I welcome very much the idea of Aspire(Fellows) meet other sports, for I think that there are many points that are transferable from one sport to the other, and what we have all in common in our jobs is that we influence people’s life in a positive way,” said the Frenchman
“The manager is an observer who can detect the strong points in a newcomer may not be aware of his or her qualities. Here, the observation quality is very important for a coach,” the Frenchman added.
“It’s important for a manager to know the psychological mind of a young player. A good mixture of intelligence and motivation is important to shape their careers,” concluded the professor Wenger.
The summit was opened with a speech by Valter Di Salvo, Director of Football Performance & Science at Aspire Academy.
“In terms of knowledge sharing, it’s an innovative summit. We wanted to cross-over to other sports and understand their approach to training so that we can learn from them,” said Di Salvo, who is also the Executive Director of Aspire in the World Fellows Program and Aspire Academy Global Summit.
The goal of the summit was to delve into the training and coaching methodology in basketball, volleyball and athletics.
Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy brand ambassador Tim Cahill, who moderated one of the segments at the Summit, opined that it was important to share the knowledge.
“I’ve played in England, USA, China and India. It’s important to know how you can manage competitions besides we need to share information and broaden our horizon,” said Cahill, who represented Australia at the four FIFA World Cups from 2006 to 2018.
The goal of the summit was to delve into the training and coaching methodology in basketball, volleyball and athletics.
“I joined coaching with a different mindset as if I was starting from the scratch,” said US women’s volleyball team coach Karch Kiraly, who guided USA to their first-ever gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in July-August this year.
Former British Athletics head of endurance Barry Fudge chipped in with reasons behind the success of Kenyan athletes.
“Success in Kenyan runners is due to multiple factors. Talent, environment and mindset or hunger for success is important. The best athletes possess these three things. If you can have these things in football, it will work magic,” said Fudge.
Basketball expert Lorena Torres felt that it was important to educate the players on mental health.
“Since players work all around the year, the role of the coach is to take care of the body and mind of his or her team,” said Lorena.
“NBA has 82 games in a very short time in April. It has to manage the schedule. Basketball is different from soccer. It’s a smaller field. Football has a bigger field. It’s a different sport but it’s very important to manage schedules and adapt.”
Retired American decathlete and two-time Olympic champion, Ashton Eaton said that competition management is important in modern sports while the hunger and training prepares the mind of the athletes.
Former Argentine basketball player Luis Scola also spoke on how to balance the mental pressure that comes with the competitions.
Retired American decathlete and two-time Olympic champion, Ashton Eaton, former British Athletics head of endurance Barry Fudge, basketball expert Lorena Torres and former Argentine basketball star Luis Scola were the other speakers, who added a lot of insights from their respective rich careers during the 3 discussion panels.