Newly appointed Technical Director of the Ghana Football Association Bernhard Lippert says he feels very positive in his new role.
The 58-year-old German, a FIFA expert in instructing and training coaches and coach trainers started work two weeks ago, having flown into Antalya, Turkey to watch the Black Stars play against Mali and Qatar.
Until this appointment, Lippert was Technical Director of the Association of Football Federation of Azerbaijan (AFFA), a position he occupied for 12 years.
Bernhard Lippert has outlined a number of programmes to develop the game in Ghana. He touched on national football philosophy, talent identification and more.
This is what he told ghanafa.org
On reception in Ghana
I visited a lot of African Countries but now am in Ghana and I can say it is a positive feeling about the lifestyle. Everything is calm and friendly; I can also feel the people are supportive. I had a long discussion with the General Secretary and professor Mintah where we exchanged our opinion about the future of football so in the moment everything is positive and now, we have to start work.
On structural development
Football is not so difficult; it is same everywhere but we only have different kind of organization, structure and different kind of culture, education which is very important to develop a country’s football. We have to find out the DNA of this country, which means we have to develop our national football philosophy which I cannot decide alone, so I need the help of the people in this country to define the DNA of the country and then follow a structured way through which youth football will be organized and bring it through the youth national teams to the top.
On talent identification
There are lots of departments which have to be developed and it starts with children in the school (grassroot football) which must be better organized. Football in schools or festivals should be able to produce the best talents between 10 and 14 years. We need an early talent identification and so we have to define the most talented children within this age and train them in a holistic way to find out the best talent. We have to also write down programs for all youth national teams to develop them step by step and if we follow this way, I am sure we will be successful.
On how to streamline Coaching in Ghana
This has to be adapted to the cultural education and that all coaches have the same sense of football and want to develop the players in the same way. I made a research and I realized that we need help when it comes to infrastructure, manpower but the most important thing is to structure and organize everything which is my main target in the next two years.
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