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Kenya, the ladder to soccer excellence.
@CarolRadull @MikeOkinyi @Nmwendwa
Kenya, the ladder to soccer excellence.
Case study of Iceland.
Iceland with a population of around 331,420 people qualified for UEFA Euro 2016 after a qualification campaign which included home and away wins over the Netherlands. The island nation has tilled the volcanic soil and reaped the benefits of high coaching standards, volume training and player preparation from the isolated ecosystem of thin, volcanic soils.
Infrastructure
In 2000, the KSI (governing body of football in Iceland) decided to overhaul the league system and infrastructure, with a heavy emphasis on improving the facilities available to young players. As the result of a federation initiative in partnership with local authorities,7 full-sized and 4 half-sized indoor soccer fields have been built along with 25 outdoor turf fields and 150 smaller pitches.
“Now we can train on good facilities all year round. We are getting better at getting the ball and passing the ball. The overall technical ability of our players is improving. The skills are getting better,” says Arnar Gunnarsson.
Coaching
Around the same time as the facilities initiative, KSI began hosting UEFA A and B license courses, giving local coaches opportunity to earn the highest qualifications in Europe. All the clubs in the top 2 leagues undergo a club licensing system where coach education for all their coaches is mandatory and the clubs get fined by KSI if they do not fulfill the coach education requirements. The licensing structure has done a great deal to standardize the level of instruction players receive, and in general, the more qualified coaches a country has the better that country is at soccer.
Sigurdsson says, “The level of coaching in Iceland is at a very high standard now. Every club now has a team of well-educated coaches for each of their teams, at every age group. Of course, it would be no good to have great football facilities if there weren’t qualified coaches to guide the young players.”
Scouting and giving players chances
Iceland has a scouting system that works throughout the whole island. The uniform approach, organization, and the concerted effort to register those turning out for clubs ensures player pools are tracked and monitored. In addition to identification, a functional and thorough scouting network is in place to make sure players do not slip through the cracks.
In order for a generation of players to maximize their potential and compete, the environment in which they play has to not only been created, but it has to accommodate the lifestyle of the people. Iceland with its harsh winter conditions and isolated location in the north Atlantic has taken the initiative in creating the setting for its players to thrive in year-round.
“Promising players get their chance very early on here, and we regularly see 16-18 year olds performing in most teams in the top divisions, if they’re good enough, they play for the first team,” notes Sigurdsson.
A combination of excellent facilities and a legion of qualified coaches, along with the country’s size making it easier to mobilize all assets, have seen the nation climb 100 places in the FIFA World ranking in 5 years.
“When you learn to live the game, then you go out and some extra.”
Borrowed from, LIFE AS STRUGGLE: HOW ICELAND BECAME THE WORLD’S BEST POUND-FOR-POUND SOCCER TEAM
Corruption
“Never mind the milk, comrades!" cried Napoleon, placing himself in front of the buckets. "That will be attended to. The harvest is more important. Comrade Snowball will lead the way. I shall follow in a few minutes. Forward, comrades! The hay is waiting."
So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm- “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”
― H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy - “Schools train you to be ignorant with style [...] they prepare you to be a usable victim for a military industrial complex that needs manpower. As long as you're just smart enough to do a job and just dumb enough to swallow what they feed you, you're going to be alright [...] So I believe that schools mechanically and very specifically try and breed out any hint of creative thought in the kids that are coming up.”
― Frank Zappa - As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 22, 1855
- This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
- If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
- I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light. –Mary Gardiner Brainard, poet
- To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us–and He has given us everything. –Thomas Merton, writer and poet
- "My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts"
(Isaiah 55:8-9).
- “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Strenuous Life - “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt - You can say sorry a million times, Say "I love you" as much as you want, say whatever you want, whenever you want. But if you're not going to prove that the things you say are true, then don't say anything at all.
Because if you can't show it.
Your words...don't mean a thing. - Nobody is perfect, and nobody deserves to be perfect. Nobody has it easy, everyone has issues. You never know what people are going through. So pause before you start judging, mocking or criticizing others. Everybody is fighting their own unique war!
- The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time.
Meditation on the Divine Will