On Sunday 13, the second day of the 11th Football Conference took place at Kochi prefecture. On this day lectures were held by instructors from England, Iceland, and France.

For this year’s conference, the FA’s U-18/U-20 Senior GK Coach Richard HARTIS, the FA’s Former Head of Coaching and National Team Coach John PEACOCK, the Technical Director of the Football Association of Iceland Arnar Bill GUNNARSSON, and the Director of Clairefontaine Academy Jean Claude LAFARGUE made their appearance.

From the lecturers of England, who finished in the top four at the recent World Cup in Russia, the concept of the “England DNA” was shared in detail, while the importance of player profiling and approaches heading into penalty shootouts were lectured. The Director from the World Cup champions, France, shared their success on discovering talents and youth development through the example of Kylian MBAPPE, who grew up in the Clairefontaine system of the French Football Federation.

Iceland’s Director Gunnarsson gave a lecture on how their national team has achieved their current status. As part of the reason behind the success of a small country like Iceland, who has a population similar to Kochi prefecture with 340,000 people, Mr. Gunnarsson stated that “The roles of each player are clear,” and that they “Repeat the same thing over and over to make it clear to everybody.” The Icelander director also mentioned that “The children of Iceland plays football from a young age and they tend to form a team among close friends,” explaining that despite being limited with the number of teams, they are able to build and develop their teams much closely. The phrase “Equality” seemed to be a keyword during the lecture, as the equality between men’s and women’s team was a norm in Iceland, while tournaments were structured so that teams with similar level will face each other to make it fair and enjoyable for the participants of all levels.

Following the lectures, six personals, including UEFA’s Head of Football Education Services Frank LUDOLPH and JFA Instructor ONO Takeshi took the podium to hold a panel discussion with the theme of “Scenery drawn from the World Cup.” Day two concluded with group sessions discussing the following 12 themes, ①Youth development U-12, ②Youth development U-15, ③Youth development U-18, ④Goalkeeper, ⑤Physical, ⑥Medical, ⑦JFA Academy, ⑧Women’s, ⑨Kid’s, ⑩Youth development in Asia, ⑪J. League, ⑫Futsal.

Participants' Comments

・After hearing the approaches carried out by the other countries, it made me realise that in order to achieve our ideal goal, it is necessary to understand where we currently stand. There were many aspects that made sense and gave me new perspectives.

・As a coach of women’s football, this gave me a rare and productive opportunity to listen into a detailed analysis of the men’s World Cup. The word “Equality” spoken by Iceland’s Mr. Arnar Bill Gunnarsson left a strong impression.

・I am a coach of the primary school level. I feel the importance of this level’s player development, so I deeply sympathized with the approach taken in Iceland where “Every child getting started with football will always get coached by a licenced coach.”