A year ago, the DFB started its prestige academy project with the groundbreaking. The new building is also a symbol of a new way of thinking in the largest sports association in the world. After a phase of humility, the announcements are now a little more researched.
Frankfurt / Main (dpa) - Even with Joachim Löw, Oliver Bierhoff sometimes reaches his limits with his extremely distinctive conceptual thinking.
"Jogi is more of an intuitive person. He tends to let the day come to him. That is a challenge. If I tell him, we should call from 10 a.m. to 10.15 a.m. And he says: Let's see how the day goes begins, "Bierhoff said recently in the" Leadership Talk of the DFB Academy ". As director of the academy and national teams, the former goalscorer tries to prepare the DFB for the future with ideas and modern concepts.
The symbol for this is the academy in the Niederrad district of Frankfurt, the basic outline of which, exactly one year after the groundbreaking, has always seemed more robust in front of the skyline in the main metropolis. The completion of the multi-million project is planned for 2021, when the academy will become a common place for innovation, future planning and the training of the various national teams.
"We have created a whole new driving force for us at the DFB, which really goes into development and research in order to make practice better. It is wonderful to see how this gradually connects," Bierhoff describes the Current status. The DFB officials like to call the building on the site of the former racecourse a "milestone" and "lighthouse project". The goal is clear, especially after the disastrous 2018 World Cup in Russia: get back to the top of the world as quickly as possible.
In addition to Bierhoff, head Tobias Haupt is primarily responsible for concepts and "establishing the academy as a seal of quality in the world". Last winter, numerous Bundesliga managers and DFB representatives traveled to the USA to speak to executives and get input from Silicon Valley. A few days later, retired basketball star Dirk Nowitzki came to talk about his experience in the US industry at the Leadership Festival.
"Permanent learning from others, learning from the best: This is something that we live very intensively at the DFB Academy", describes Niederbayer Haupt, who studied sports management, wrote a doctoral thesis at Hannover 96 and later in Ismaning helped build the football institute. Specific starting points are reforming coaching training, mentoring for young players and using the expertise of successful ex-professionals to be passed on to the next generation. The first management course, in which a certificate is to be acquired in one and a half years of mini-studies, also begins in September.
When the DFB started the construction of the prestige project with the groundbreaking in May 2019, those responsible presented themselves somewhat humble. "We were a little bit dozed off because of the success," said Bierhoff, who, according to DFL boss Christian Seifert, describes as "product manager for competitive football DFB". Today the announcements and the demands sound a bit more research. Bierhoff says: "We are team players, we are pioneers, we want to work like a world champion. My job is to orchestrate everything."
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Bierhoff on the talk