German training style vs. youth football players from China

A football team aging between 9 and 13 from Jiangsu Province's Zhangjiagang city in eastern China have a short-term training program at Berlin Football Talent Training Center (Fussball Talentschmiede Berlin) in Germany in August 2015. [Photo/people.cn]

BERLIN - A documentary film by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has recently brought the "battle" between Chinese and British education into the forefront of social media debate, with several teachers from China experimenting a four-week Chinese teaching style in a UK middle school. Culture shocks and ideological conflicts are found everywhere in the documentary.

Also as a part of Europe, Germany may have some minor differences with UK in educational philosophy, yet is enough to greatly inspire the Chinese youth football players and their coaches receiving a typical training program in Germany, a football nation, for a very short time.

A head coach, accompanied by two assistant coaches, leads the football team aging between 9 and 13 from Jiangsu Province's Zhangjiagang city in eastern China to Berlin Football Talent Training Center (Fussball Talentschmiede Berlin) for a short-term training program in a sheer German manner.

It has been a great eye-opener, not only for the Chinese kids, but rather for the coaches.

Head coach Xu Hongshun told Xinhua that the German-style teaching is rendered effective and tactical. Even dozens of methods are applied in teaching them how to pass a ball.

Apart from the advanced tactics, what impresses Xu most is the smile-oriented pedagogy.

"In China, kids always face great pressure in the football training from the beginning to the end. Some may have fears. However, the praise-criticism ratio during the training is set by the German coach here as at least 7:1," said Xu.

On this point, German head coach Oliver Minow said: "A Quality Plus Joy mode has been adopted in our teaching. As a coach, I never put pressure on them. It's important to make them feel comfortable and joyful physically and mentally during the training. "

German Coaches would rather choose to stay on the sideline without interrupting the kids in a football match, let alone shouting at them: "You've done wrong!" "You! Do this way," or "No, that's not right," unless something really serious happens.

Such free reign given to the youth players serves to protect their self-confidence and improve the coordination capabilities, on their own initiative, in a team.