Recently, Zhou Haibian, the head coach of Shandong Taishan's U15 red team, shared his profound insights in the field of youth soccer training in an interview with Soccer News.
In this year's domestic youth soccer tournament, Zhou Haibian led the Luneng Soccer School U15 red team (despite the absence of some of the main players, but supplemented with a number of players from the yellow team and the U14 team) successfully ranked among the top four of the U15 group, and the team is currently preparing for the upcoming quarterfinals.
Talking about his return to Luneng Soccer School, Zhou Haibian said, "Returning to Luneng Soccer School feels like returning to my long-lost home. The only change is that the campus is now bigger than when we were there, and the facilities are more professional and modernized. For me, this place is full of affection."
During Zhou Haibian's career, he has been involved in youth training alongside foreign coaches and has worked with numerous local and foreign coaches throughout his career. Talking about his coaching philosophy, he emphasized, "Given that they are still youngsters, I believe that they should follow the laws of soccer development. I prefer them to master some complex soccer skills, whether it's passing or organizing attacks, they should focus on complexity. Because of the complexity of the skills now, they will be more composed when facing simple tasks in the future. Although some youth teams play a direct style of play, which is not undesirable, I still believe that they should learn to play with complexity, otherwise, at higher levels of the game, many players may struggle due to a lack of options."
Talking about leading the team to participate in the youth league, Zhou Haibian said: "The purpose of participation is mainly to exercise the children, rather than the pursuit of results. Indeed encountered a lot of difficulties, during the provincial games, so we are 07 red, 07 yellow and 08 red team merged to form a team to participate in the competition, initially with only 13 players. Although the 10 players who had previously participated in the Provincial Games returned after entering the Round of 16, they were physically and mentally exhausted, so the Round of 16 was not ideal, but the final result was not bad and we managed to advance to the Round of 4."
"I still say that I don't put too much emphasis on results and prefer the players to improve in the game and play the tactics I wish to impart. At the moment the team as a whole is tidy, the exact dates for the semi-finals and finals are yet to be decided and we won't be training specifically for these two matches, I still hope to raise their level through training."
Talking about his expectations for the young players, Zhou Haibian said, "I hope they can play football happily. Since taking over this team, I also recalled my own experience when I was in the youth team, and I can feel that there may be some stereotypes in Chinese soccer youth training in terms of cultivating children, and even letting them develop a solidified mindset. I'm a relatively open-minded person, so I hope to teach children who are happy and joyful, who stand on the pitch every day and enjoy the game with fun, rather than treating it as a task or something they have to do for the sake of soccer. I want them to keep improving themselves that way."
