The Next Generation Sports (TNGS) are a sports consulting company and international football academy that specialise in developing young talents across the world in a high-performance environment.
Participants who have attended TNGS camps have been selected for clubs such as West Ham United in the Premier League, Villarreal in La Liga and Toronto FC in the MLS. Alongside this, players have also been chosen for the England and United States National Teams.
Based in Valencia, the company has developed athletes and coaches over the last 10 years in territories such as Sweden, USA, South Korea, Japan, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Bermuda Islands and many more using their own methodology.
This methodology includes a strong emphasis on educating young talent on abilities that will make them an important player in a team and also on an individual basis.
Improving the ‘soft skills’ of young players, such as creativity, leadership, adaptability, problem-solving and decision making is prioritised across the board by coaches at the academy.
Using an example according to the TNGS website, the creativity of players is tested through various technical, tactical and psychosocial exercises to challenge and prepare them to resolve situations in-game and improve their overall game intelligence.
Decision making is encouraged through visual coaching strategies which are implemented through the use of modern learning tools, to help youngsters immediately understand and learn how to read and interpret proposals to make appropriate decisions.
Adaptability, which is a key factor between being a successful player or not, is encouraged and drummed into players in a tactical sense, so they are aware of when and how to put a certain tactic into practice.
The Academy was forced to be adaptable itself in the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and change the way in which they connected and worked with players.
Coaches were not only concerned about players’ physical wellbeing but also their mental skills when it came to self-motivation, discipline and dedication.
In response to dealing with this predicament, through the use of technology, TNGS created innovative NG Virtual Camps. This was a concept that blended sports training exercises and soft skills exercises for new talent to overcome during the challenging period.
Players would conduct weekly sessions, with the TNGS coaches providing youngsters with guidelines through personalised Zoom calls.
TNGS coaches have worked in top clubs all over Europe and have obtained their UEFA Pro Licences. Some of the academy’s coaches work at La Liga clubs Levante UD and Villarreal CF, with others having played at Valencia and Real Madrid.
These aspects make them specialised in high performance training and talent development, with their video calls for the online camp focusing on the following three areas:
- Soft skills sessions: Organising exercises and providing knowledge on how to develop the mental abilities of players so that they are able to reach their maximum potential in this area
- Technical sessions: Teaching the concepts of the sport which have defined Spanish football over its history
- On the field: Initiate team activities that develop challenges so coaches are able to evaluate factors such as creativity, empathetic communication, cooperation and much more.
These sessions, that were completed in the virtual camp, were a perfect scenario to educate young players on a variety of matters, including tactical concepts, game intelligence and technical and physical aspects in multiple situations during a game.
“The TNGS virtual camp was an amazing experience for me. It was informative, well organised…it was not only about football, it was about mentality, how to be a good person, things that are crucial in life, success, and school,” a student of the program explained after experiencing the opportunity with other players of various cultures.
A list of other details from the TNGS website on their methodology for teaching players can be found below:
- Individualized training to strengthen the player’s effective and quick responses based on the tactical principles of the game.
- Application of Visual Coaching strategies for reading, understanding and decision making in the field.
- Match and training analysis to improve self-knowledge and self-confidence.
- Creation of a profile and individual technical report that is reviewed monthly.
- Specific plans for preparatory periods, holidays and free time that complement the role of the player
- Establishment of weekly objectives for the development of self-determination and task orientation.
- Cater for all specific needs: Physiotherapy, Sports Psychology, Nutrition.
For more information about TNGS click here.
