Five local clubs signed a collaboration agreement with Italian Serie B side Brescia Calcio. This agreement will see Brescia Calcio sending over their coaches to conduct training sessions, scouting and trials for young players registered with these clubs. Technical and administrative staff will also be offered the possibility of travelling to Brescia to gain further training and experience.
The nurseries of Hamrun Spartans, San Gwann, Swieqi United, Kercem Ajax and Xewkija Tigers signed this agreement on Friday during a press conference at the Intercontinental Hotel during which the objectives were explained.
Brescia Calcio are renowned for their outstanding contribution towards youth football and rank amongst the top clubs in Italy in this field.
Present for the press conference were Dott Fabio Coroni, President of the Brescia Calcio Youth Sector, Brescia Calcio representatives Dott Giorgio Abeni, Letterio De Grazia and Edward Psaila. Officials of the local nurseries were also present.
Psaila explained that after proposing the affiliation between SS Lazio and Floriana last year, this time a new project is being launched together with Brescia Calcio thanks to which the local game will benefit as they will have the opportunity to work hand in hand with one of the top clubs in Italy at youth level.
Massimo De Paoli, who is responsible for the Punti Brescia, boasts a long career of coaching at youth level and players like Andrea Pirlo and Roberto Baronio were among those brought up by him at the club.
Letterio De Grazia thanked the local clubs and nurseries who joined this programme. He explained that the project was launched several years ago by the Italian club and its main objective is to strengthen the affiliated clubs through coach education, courses for administrators, scouting and summer camps.
Dott Giorgio Abeni said coach education was of utmost importance for improvement. Under the leadership of Professor De Paoli, the project aims at having all affiliated clubs and nurseries follow the ‘metodo Brescia’ starting from nurseries up to the senior teams. In fact, administrators also need to follow developments in the technical sector.
Dott Abeni admitted that since his first visit to Malta, he witnessed remarkable improvement in local youngsters. He said that the Blu Camp – the summer camps organised by Brescia – will be the meeting point for coaching education and also scouting for the young players.
He concluded by saying that thanks to this agreement, the five local clubs and nurseries are officially joining the Brescia family.
The president of the Brescia Calcio Youth Sector, Dott Fabio Corioni, explained that the club has been focussing on youth football even when this was set aside by other Italian clubs. He said Brescia have always been pushing young players. The club tries to pass on the message that by playing football, children unite and while staying away from bad habits, they gain values which are important for human development but also for the development of a good player. He said talent was a good starting but one has to puts his mind in focus in order to become a good footballer
Corioni said Brescia always gave opportunities to its young talents and over the past year, four of their players joined Milan, Inter, Juventus and Napoli.
As regards this project involving five Maltese nurseries, Dott Corioni is hopeful that it will not only help in the development of better players but will also help local clubs improve.
As part of this agreement, training sessions were recently conducted at the the Victor Tedesco Stadium, the San Gwann Football Ground and the Xewkija Ground by Brescia Calcio coaches. The following players have already been selected for a trial in Rome in April, where the local lads will be accompanied by another group of selected youngsters hailing from around 30 other nurseries from across Europe.
1999 category: Kurt Attard (Hamrun Spartans); Jeremy Busuttil (Hamrun Spartans); Jurgen Grech (Hamrun Spartans); Owen Micallef (San Gwann)
1998 category: Alessio Magro (San Gwann); Jan Tanti (San Gwann); Andreas Vella (San Gwann); Kieran Bugeja (Hamrun Spartans)
1997 category: Andre Cachia (San Gwann); Dean Sciberras (San Gwann FC); Stefan Stojonavic (San Gwann FC); Dayle Borg (Hamrun Spartans); Luke Bugeja (Hamrun Spartans); Joyfred Farrugia (Hamrun Spartans); Jake Grech (Hamrun Spartans)
Brescia Calcio will also continue to monitor the progress of other players registered with these clubs and other similar trials are expected in the future.