Why an Academy for extra sessions? The XVA philosophy

Sometimes it’s difficult to see the difference between a football club and a football academy. Because the meaning is so wide and we can find clubs called “Academy” and academies that have the words “Football Club” in their names, I would like to explain what XVAcademy is.

The XVAcademy is a football Academy where the players come to do extra training sessions to improve and play better with their clubs. I put all my energy into making sure the players have a professional and enjoyable experience as long as they improve their skills to be able to perform better in the next game.

Because our training is in small groups, I can coach individually every single player on all the concepts we are working on. This is the biggest difference between the club’s training and the XVAcademy training: my focus is exclusively on the player.

In the XVAcademy, the players don’t do rondos, possession games, phases of play… because our only goal is to improve the player individually, without getting into collective tactical situations that can be different depending on the team the player is playing. But the technical actions will be the same everywhere and the players should be able to master them to then make the right decisions in a more complex environment.

I want the player to be confident with himself/herself, with every decision he/she makes and every action he/she does. To achieve that, I give advice to the players every time I see something that can be better, but always from the huge respect and admiration I have for all of them because their passion, their happiness and their motivation pushes me as well to give my 150%.

I really believe in positive feedback as the best tool to make the players improve and to transmit the message. Because there is no 100% right answer in football (as you can solve almost all the situations using different approaches), I barely use the word “no” or “wrong”. I value the efforts the player makes to find a solution for a problem in the pitch, and from there, I try to help him/her as much as possible to have more resources the next time, or try to master what he/she knows already to be quicker.

With a positive environment, I believe that the players are more open to learning and less concerned about their mistakes, which is the perfect scenario to improve the skills and enjoy what they do, which is the first priority for me. And this is the philosophy we follow in our programs, camps and clinics.