In the last few weeks the German Minifootball Association (DKFV) started their preparation for the miniEuro 2015 in Vrsar. For the first time in their history, they´ve got partly-open castings for upcoming internationals. The main aim for the three pre-scouting is to get a high-quality mixture of current squad-players and those who wish to become one of them. After the pre-scouting there will be an end-scouting shortly before the miniEuro, where the new national squad will finally be determined.
Since every new contender for a place in the squad had to hand in a detailed application, the coaches were confident to having picked some very promising players for the first two scoutings in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia and Goettingen, Lower Saxony.
To have a fair comparability between all the players that are being scouted, the coaches try to set the same priorities in every single training session. It all starts with a test of the coordinative and technical skills, because “many players underestimate the physical demands in minifootball, especially referring to coordination” declares the coach of the German national minifootball team, Marc Mueller. “There are so many quick changes of direction, the players always need to be agile on a minimum of space. That is why we take special care on testing the coordinative skills of the players”.
Since those first exercises serve as an intensive warm-up as well, the coaches could subsequently gain a little impression of the players´ skills on the pitch afterwards. “Right there you could see that some few players are not able to play on such a high level as it is meanwhile in the EMF. It must be clear that, if you´ve got three current national players and a few of the same strength or even better, there must be some players that will not make it into the squad”, said Mueller after the scouting in Bochum.
After the first playing session there has been a lunch break paired with some tactical instruction on what the coaches request their players to do in certain situations. This should, on the one hand, impart the coaches´ understanding of the game, on the other hand also sharpen the senses for what the upcoming requirements in Croatia in September.
The training session in the afternoon consisted in Bochum, as well as in Goettingen, mostly of different forms of play, where Mueller and Assistant-Coach Sebastian Maak had a close look on how the individual players behaved in which situations and which tactical knowledge all of them have.
“Who listened closely to the tactical instructions? Who is able implement those in his own game and to find solutions in different situations of play? Those are only a few questions that we coaches try to answer in the afternoon sessions”, explains Maak.
Head-coach Mueller declared himself very pleased with the first two sessions. “Without revealing too much we can right now say that we will see some of the new players at the end-scouting for sure. The high level of both first scouting events was very impressive. We are sure that we will have a clearly improved squad in Croatia this year!