The Merkur CUP 2020 is on ice. Nevertheless, the Book of Values is supposed to illuminate the essentials of sport with stories from youth football.
Landkreis - And then Manni Schwabl tells the story of the mommy who would love to see her boys at a larger club: "They have such a great stadium," she said and, as Schwabl suspects, even in the VIP Lounge at Prosecco : "It only comes in when the boy is playing Bundesliga".
As President of SpVgg Unterhaching , who takes care of the youngsters intensively, Schwabl has seen many crazy parents, but emphasizes that the vast majority are "totally reasonable" when it comes to their kids. You have to be a bit crazy if you want to give the boy the best education.
Schwabl tells of parents who sacrifice hours on the highway
Schwabl tells of parents who sacrifice hours on the highway to get the child into training and make the dream of professional football dream as long as possible, of moms and dads who subordinate the whole family life to football, who are committed to the club and if only with cake baking for the next tournament.
It is the few vultures that ruin the reputation of an entire species. “Emotions,” says ex-professional Sebastian Kneißl , who is now taking care of talent development, “Emotions are absolutely essential, parents have a completely different relationship to the game than we coaches.” If they are steered in the right direction, there can be positive energy for everyone involved: "The more you involve mums and dads in the work, the stronger the feeling of togetherness becomes." Gratitude, Kneißl demands, should parents feel, "after all, they let us coaches do the most valuable thing they have: their child. "
"The more pronounced the focus on success, the more degenerate fair play"
A lot of explosiveness would certainly be taken from the relationship between coaches and parents if the over-ambitious fathers and mothers were brought up with the statistics that show how few players, even trained at youth performance centers, can later make a living from football. "The more pronounced the focus on success, the more degenerated fair play becomes a fictitious guide to action in competitive sports," said sports scientist Gunther Pilz when he examined the attitudes of youth players and youth coaches.
Kneißl even finds it exciting when there are also unpleasant parents
Kneißl even finds it exciting when unpleasant parents are involved: "They bring pep to the point." In order not to get tired of it, the young coach would have to be everything: a strong personality, a professional, a great speaker, educator, psychologist, fatherly friend. But isn't that too much to ask of a youth coach standing in front of the boys after a long, hard day's work? It can be done. When he gets support from the parents.
And he gets it. Most of the time, Manni Schwabl said. But there are also others who dream of prosecco in the VIP lounge while the son celebrates triumphs on the grass of the arena below. However, if at all, that will only be experienced by those who have accompanied their child responsibly and who have not harassed them out of misunderstood ambition.