AAGS 2021

11 On behalf of Mr Mohammad Al-Suwaidi (Aspire Zone Foundation CEO), Mr Ivan Bravo (Director General of Aspire Academy), and Mr Ali Salem Afifa (President of the Aspire Academy Global Summit), it is an absolute pleasure to welcome our Fellows to the seventh edition of the Aspire Academy Global Summit, entitled “Aspire Fellows Meet Other Sports”. For this event, we made a live streaming platform available to everyone from around the world to join our Summit. As an opening remark for those who joined us for the first time, the Aspire in the World Fellows represents a community involving professionals from 50 top Clubs and Federations that regularly engage in promoting best practices in elite football performance. Since 2014, we built this community working and organizing different activities of which, without any doubt, the yearly Aspire Academy Global Summit is the pillar. Over the different editions of our Summit, our community met to discuss a range of current topics on youth and senior football sharing knowledge and expertise. In parallel to the organization of this important event, we realized Exclusive Interviews with world- class coaches and the Aspire Fellows Training focused on enhancing knowledge in specific areas inviting academics and top experts from different fields. Starting from 2018, we formed a Scientific Committee within our community with small groups from the Aspire in World Fellows gathering in Doha to develop a series of research studies investigating areas relevant to youth player development. Thanks to the effort and commitment, we have already finalized three studies involving all of the 50 Clubs and Federations by adopting a survey methodology approach. In 2021, we launched a new special feature on individual player perspectives, called Player Insight, with the objective of listening to the players’ voices on their experiences. They represent the main actors of the game, and it is paramount to learn from them. Over the past year, this new activity has generated 16 episodes so far. This content was fruitful to gain new insights on players perception of training sessions, strategies to recovery and experiences in the transition from youth to senior. Furthermore, we learnt about their approaches to nutrition, the dynamics within the dressing room, their views on leadership and relationships with the backroom staff. We strongly believe that enhancing the player performance requires understanding the players better from different perspectives. We can strengthen our connections and relationships to address what players need only by having such awareness. There was a lot of work behind the scenes of each Player Insight episode. Special thanks go to the Football Performance & Science Department and Marketing and Communication at Aspire Academy for their efforts to realize this new programme. Also, I want to express my gratitude for the support to the Aspire in the World Fellows from F.C. Zenit Saint Petersburg, Inter Milan, Club Athletico Paranaense, Juventus F.C., Real Madrid C.F., FC Porto, Club Estudiantes de La Plata, F.C. Basel 1893, Manchester United F.C., Atletico de Madrid S.A.D. and members of five Federations form Qatar Football Association, Italian Football Federation, Brazilian Football Confederation, Argentina Football Association, and Honduras Football Federation. You contributed enormously to allowing us to interview world-class players such as Romelu Lukaku, Leonardo Bonucci, Ali Al Moez, Dejan Lovren, Javier Mascherano, Thiago Silva, Pepe, Lucas Vasquez, Marcos Llorente and Scott McTominay amongst others. All the content from this and other activities from our community is available on our Aspire in the World Fellows website. This platform has a pivotal role in strengthening our network as a unique tool for knowledge sharing within our community. Here, we can surf a digital world full of content on performance, sports medicine, coaching, with more than 300 Exclusive Interviews and presentations by top-class experts from the 50 Clubs and Federations of our community. Narrowing the focus on the theme of this seventh summit edition Aspire Fellows Meet Other Sports. Why did we choose this topic? Why did we decide to move in this direction? I want to emphasize that our community has always been at the forefront of knowledge sharing over these years. Our Summit is unique for its concept of moving beyond the static format of modern conferences worldwide. It is not just about our yearly Summit, but it constitutes a continuous commitment over the years founded on knowledge sharing as a fundamental value for our community. Regarding the Summit itself, the combination of round tables and workshops provides a unique opportunity for experts and our Aspire Fellows to engage in open discussions. For this seventh edition, we moved a step further, and we brought experts from other sports to share their insights from different perspectives on performance enhancement. At Aspire Academy, we are lucky to have athletes from football and other disciplines that permits daily exchanges among them. The same can be said for coaching staff having the opportunity to share knowledge and learn from each other in such a multisport environment. Inspired by this concept, in recent years, Qatar Football Association and Aspire Academy succeeded in signing a Memorandum of Understanding together with