MADRID, 28 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
LaLiga has announced this Thursday the creation of a National Plan for the Optimization and Improvement of Canteras, a project that will involve the clubs of LaLiga Santander and LaLiga Smartbank and which was presented during the VI Meeting of Canteras in Pamplona.
As explained by LaLiga, this plan, which is now coming to light after 6 years of work, “collects the strategic areas and spaces for improvement to take national grassroots football to a new level” and it has been possible to carry it out thanks to ” to the collective effort of the clubs” that make up professional football in Spain. It is “a turning point in the history of Spanish grassroots football”, which was also presented at El Sadar, chosen as the Best Stadium in the World 2021.
Over the last six years, LaLiga has worked with the clubs to find spaces for improvement and professionalization in Spanish grassroots football through sessions such as the Youth Quarry Encounters that have been organized since 2016. This plan has been created from there set in which we will try to optimize resources and processes to try to increase competitiveness and the level collectively.
The National Plan for the Optimization and Improvement of Youngsters is related to the new ‘Impulse Plan’, as both encourage investment in infrastructure and technology, aspects that affect both the first team and the youngsters of the clubs.
The manager of LaLiga Sports Projects, Juan Florit, was very happy with the project presented and with the work that has been carried out in the organization for years. “At LaLiga we have expressly committed ourselves and taken responsibility for being part of the achievement of the clubs’ goals by formalizing this project”, he commented.
“The areas and indicators that make up the plan arise from several years of study and analysis, both individual and collective, carried out from LaLiga, and the achievement of the objectives is planned in the long term, highlighting qualitative elements ahead of the quantitative: We are committed to quality and sustainable growth through an ambitious but realistic vision”, explained the manager.
For his part, the director of LaLiga Competitions, Luis Gil, believes that “the element of overall vision is the key to the Plan”. “Working collectively, much greater growth will be achieved for all grassroots football by uniting the strength of all those successful individual initiatives that the clubs have been carrying out in recent years,” he said, highlighting the willingness of the clubs to collaborate and share their knowledge for the benefit of Spanish football as a whole.
A PLAN STRUCTURED IN FIVE PILLARS
The Plan has five strategic areas, whose evolution can be measured through a series of indicators for which medium and short-term objectives will be established. These areas are infrastructure and resources, comprehensive player care, development and transfer to professional football, the training model and transfer to competition, and the structure and development of professionals.
In reference to infrastructure and resources, much emphasis is placed so that the teams can improve their sports cities to equip them with the best technological tools, in addition to the software created by LaLiga Tech, LaLiga Academy Manager, as well as a boost to the use of ‘ big data’ in the lower categories.
Another point of interest is the training of players from different facets beyond sports, that is, both the academic part and the psychological aspects or mental health care. LaLiga and each club will define objectives for players who are studying both Baccalaureate and university studies, something that the organization has been doing since 2019, when it launched LaLiga ProPlayer to offer study and sport scholarships to Spanish grassroots sport players to be able to go to universities from the United States.
Regarding the development and transfer to professional football, it is sought that Spanish clubs have sustainable development “through their youth academies, the detection and retention of talent in Spain” and “a greater financial rationality in the transfer market”.
LaLiga also puts the emphasis on the methodology of the Spanish academies, both in the philosophy and in the training plan that the clubs have and that forms an important part of the identity that each team has.
The fifth and last pillar is more focused on the professionalization of youth academies, placing more demanding requirements for the training, specialization and stability of technicians, a task that has already been worked on in recent years through LaLiga Training Hub, a space where professional football clubs share their knowledge and experiences.
The Plan comes at a time when the Spanish quarries are already a benchmark worldwide. According to studies by CIES Football Observatory for the year 2022, LaLiga is the first European competition in minutes played by its youth squads and, last season, 7 of the 10 European clubs with the most minutes played by their youth squads were Spanish.