Aspire in the World Fellows Book - 2022

7 6 Every year is truly a privilege to welcome such a special group – coaches and scientists of some of the world’s most storied and successful football organizations – to Aspire Academy for the Aspire in the World Fellow’s annual Summit. It is the second time we host the gathering at Aspire Academy’s Football Performance Center, the home of both Aspire Academy and of the Qatar Football Association (QFA) National Teams, from the senior to the different youth teams. This year, this summit has a special significance for two main reasons. Extraordinarily, the summit is organized for the first time in collaboration with FIFA. Secondly, we are hosting this world-class event in the Academy, in Qatar, only 48 days prior to the kick off of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the first in the Middle East and the Arab World. You can breathe and live first-hand the anticipation, the energy, the passion of the world’s greatest football celebration as you embark on the Aspire Summit. Every year there are new topics, there is knowledge sharing, there are new discussions, there are new things that invite you to get together, not only for the Summit, but throughout the preceding 12 months. I always ask you: is this collective Summit Opening effort having an impact on what you are doing daily? Is it having an impact on football development in your federations, in your clubs? Is this innovative and forward-thinking network helping you be disruptive, do something that you were not doing before? When the answer to those questions is a “yes”, I am proud of the work you are producing as a group. On the other hand, if the answer is “no”, then I would be a little disappointed about what you have been doing together these past 10 years since you are the true and only owners of this process and only you can make something out of it. It is you who will determine whether this Aspire Fellows program and Aspire Summits have been and are truly meaningful. So, I encourage you to continue persisting and exploring. I would also like to take this opportunity to tell you about some things that intrigue me. I believe I have not shared some of these personal reflections in my remarks in years prior. I am referring to the co-existence in football of two parallel avenues: professional/performance vs. development/formative driven. These parallel avenues do not necessary always converge (on the contrary, they are often diverging) and sometimes can only be understood as a relationship of mutual exclusivity. That is, when focusing on one you often cannot nurture and expand the other. Such reality, always present, has come to mind in this specific Summit as you find yourselves precisely in the middle of both axes – the Aspire Summit taking place on the doorstep of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. One avenue is clearly the top of the football pyramid. That refers towhat will happen in Doha in 48 days from today – a World Cup. The World Cup is unquestionably the biggest sporting event on the planet. It is the competition where the world’s top footballers compete against each other. It is the tournament where the top coaches in the world show their skill. The universal event where the global community celebrate football in a festive yet ultra-competitive format. Fans, governments, corporations, everyone comes out to support their teams, their nations, their identities. Competition results, knock-out drama, and player performance and/ or heroics on the world stage drive everything and determine instant definitions of success or failure. So, the top of the pyramid is immediate competition and results oriented. There is little room for process, growth, development and/or exploration. Now, reality dictates that this elite, professional “avenue” of the football ecosystem sustains and supports everything else in this wonderful sport called football. This professional/performance driven show is what creates the economic engine that feeds the rest of the football universe and hence the development/formative axis. Every young player’s dream (and that of most young coaches and football professionals as well) is to train and grow so that one day they can arrive to the top of the pyramid at a World Cup, or in the professional teams of some the biggest clubs in the world. The development work comes, therefore, at the base of the pyramid. And it needs to exist for that work today is what will produce the elite of tomorrow. You can’t arrive to the top without nurturing and developing from the base. At Aspire Academy we continue our pursuit of excellence at this formative level. We insist and persist in trying to identify, educate and grow true vocational development coaches. And we do this because this type of coach is special and possesses a unique talent. For me, such coaches do not have an urgency to get to the top, but rather they are individuals who put their ego aside and think of the young football player and the institution they represent before their own career ambitions. World class development coaches need to be provided continuity so their work can be measured through full cycles. They need to have true passion and they need to know that the performance of a specific team they manage is just a means to supports each individual player project. For sure, we do not find these coaches too often or too easily. On the contrary, what often happens is that coaches are working in youth development but in reality, they are in a hurry to become a professional football coach. They are eager to jump from place to place, from Academy to club in search of an accelerated path for themselves. And often, once they find a new personal door opening up, they leave their youth team project, limiting the real impact or contribution they can have on any specific player’s growth. So, in my view, without all of you the ones who work in development as a goal itself, putting side before self, the top of the pyramid doesn’t exist bearing excellence in a few years. I urge you to keep going at it. And at the same time to question yourselves as to how you can be better at what you do. I’ll finish this section by sharing with you what for me is still very intriguing from the Aspire Academy perspective. I know you’ve touched on it in the past. It refers to mental performance of football players and teams. In my opinion, we’re not spending enough time and finding breakthroughs. I would hope that you find it within you to insist on this going forward. For any of our players and teams we spend countless hours individual and game related objectives. They understand the game. They show tactical structure. They develop technical ability. They demonstrate physical performance. But what is it that will allow us to see any given day, in one specific or high-pressure game that they are determined and absolute in control? As with anything else in life, in football too when anxiety takes over, all our capacities disappear. We have some elements in our programs at Aspire Academy trying to improve and be innovative on this. But it still motivates me to increase our ability to help the players transfer what is being trained to what really happens on the field during competitions, when the ‘lights are on’. I’ll leave you with this last thought. We work in the world of football where everything is so transient, and everybody moves so fast. That mobility, which is the nature of football, doesn’t allow to leave much of a legacy anywhere. The real substance of ‘we’ and ‘our story’ is generally not driven by what we tell the world in social media. It is rather achieved by what is done daily on the field, in coaching meetings, in mentoring sessions. And in all cases not by oneself only but through the help of others around and through the platforms and trust we are provided by our football organizations. So, I hope you find a place of challenge and comfort alike. We’re very proud that we have been given that opportunity and that patience at Aspire Academy to try to build a story – our story. It is entirely up to us to make the most of it. Ivan Bravo Director General, Aspire Academy