Giuseppe Zappellaformer assistant and interim coach of Juventus Women at the end of last season, was present in Houston at the Juventus Academy to talk about this beautiful project. His words taken from tuttojuve.com.
ABOUT THE PROJECT: “Juve is present here in Houston as in all the academies in the world, our job is to support them all. The main activity is to give children from all over the world the chance to wear the black and white shirt, then we take great care of the methodological aspect: we are on site, we support the coaches with the method studied in Italy and we think that it can be good for all our academies. The principles are the same for everyone, namely tactical, technical, mental and social. Many children, no offense to their parents, will not become professional players, and our goal is to be 100% available to help them become better people and good players.”
ROLE OF FOREIGNERS IN ACADEMIES:“ We don’t scout abroad, that’s not our purpose. This must be very clear, even if we give many possibilities of connection with all our projects: going to Turin, having a training experience, going to Vinovo, going to Continassa, to the Museum and to youth sector training. And then there are rules dictated by FIFA. Our aim is to develop their talent, then they will play wherever they want. Maybe one day, with the right age, they could return to Juve. The invitation I want to make to families is to bring them to play in the Juventus Academy, because we can satisfy all the expectations one can have for a football school.”
ON THE BLACK AND WHITE EXPERIENCE: “I thank Juventus for the opportunity granted, because first of all he gave something extra to be a coach. It was an experience that I missed, the girls were all top players. Today women’s football is developing significantly and quickly all over the globe, Juventus tries to keep pace and has been the forerunner in Italy among the big clubs. It was a wonderful experience, managing a women’s team is different from that of a men’s team and I wanted to try this.”
ON HIS ADVENTUREA: “It started a long time ago, I was in Vietnam and I traveled for Juventus. As you get older you make choices, I like to travel and I would like to go back to work abroad and that’s why I agreed to do it with the Academies”.
COMPARISON WITH US FOOTBALL: “Their women’s football was born many years ago, well before us in Europe and they are further ahead in this. Here kids play high-level sports from an early age. Their skill is that they have so many kids who do it, unlike us who can dream about it. They can work on profiles of female athletes with the aim of making them become footballers, while in Italy there is less choice and what we must try to do is to give the same opportunities as men. Up to the age of 12 they can play with boys, then it becomes more difficult due to the distance of the various academies. The older generation like Girelli, Bonansea, Rosucci, Gama made their debut in the first team almost immediately, but perhaps they needed a different process which is what Juve is trying to do today with the U15, U16, U17, U19″.
INVESTMENTS:”Juve needed competitors, Roma arrived and Fiorentina, Inter and Milan were already there. Today we have a good level championship, obviously the more competitive there is, the higher the level of Serie A rises. And the players are more motivated to come, in order to raise the competition.”
HOW THE PLAYERS ARE CHOSEN: “There are always many interesting ones, they start training with the first team and start to keep up with the older players. You start observing them and understand if they can already continue in black and white, or there is a need to leave on loan. The passage is that of Spring, they are often aggregated and it is the same thing that happens with men. The whole process takes place in Juventus, without having to worry about whether to play or not. If you go on loan, it is clear that there could be this risk. Here, however, Juve is aware of whether to play 10 minutes, 20 or the whole match. We have seen it, remaining on the male theme, with the various Yildiz, Fagioli, Savona, Miretti”.
U23 WOMEN? “Juve is already doing a lot, I don’t think there is a need for a women’s U23 team. The project is very large and I believe that the company knows what to do in the immediate future, also regarding investments. Stadium? It’s nice that Biella, which has made many sacrifices and made us feel at home, is the city that hosts both the NG and the Women’s matches. Then I believe that Juve, as a big club, will intend to build a house; it will certainly do so as has already happened for all the big European clubs.”
