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Kevin Betsy article

Started by Bassey the warrior, October 28, 2021, 09:45:38 AM

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Bassey the warrior

Great article about former Fulham player and youth coach,  Kevin Betsy. He played under Keegan and Tigana and then brought through the likes of Sessegnon,  Elliott, but also Eze and Maja, who I hadn't realised were in our academy. Very complimentary about working for and learning from Tigana and from working as a coach at Fulham.

He went on to work for the FA taking on various youth coaching roles and working with Sancho, Saka, Foden, Bellingham et al. Now managing Arsenal U23's and from the sounds of the article, is one to keep an eye on as a future top manager.

https://theathletic.com/2916366/2021/10/27/kevin-betsy-how-guardiola-and-keegan-helped-shape-arsenals-under-23-head-coach?source=user-shared-article

Count Flapula

Quote from: Mitrovic the warrior on October 28, 2021, 09:45:38 AM
Great article about former Fulham player and youth coach,  Kevin Betsy. He played under Keegan and Tigana and then brought through the likes of Sessegnon,  Elliott, but also Eze and Maja, who I hadn't realised were in our academy. Very complimentary about working for and learning from Tigana and from working as a coach at Fulham.

He went on to work for the FA taking on various youth coaching roles and working with Sancho, Saka, Foden, Bellingham et al. Now managing Arsenal U23's and from the sounds of the article, is one to keep an eye on as a future top manager.

https://theathletic.com/2916366/2021/10/27/kevin-betsy-how-guardiola-and-keegan-helped-shape-arsenals-under-23-head-coach?source=user-shared-article

Would you mind please cutting and pasting the article on here so non subscribers can read it without having to pay/sign up? Cheers.

bog

As I read that Eze was in the Fulham youth set up? I wonder why he was let go? Declan Rice was also turned down.

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fulhamfan

Quote from: Count Flapula on October 28, 2021, 10:39:23 AM
Quote from: Mitrovic the warrior on October 28, 2021, 09:45:38 AM
Great article about former Fulham player and youth coach,  Kevin Betsy. He played under Keegan and Tigana and then brought through the likes of Sessegnon,  Elliott, but also Eze and Maja, who I hadn't realised were in our academy. Very complimentary about working for and learning from Tigana and from working as a coach at Fulham.

He went on to work for the FA taking on various youth coaching roles and working with Sancho, Saka, Foden, Bellingham et al. Now managing Arsenal U23's and from the sounds of the article, is one to keep an eye on as a future top manager.

https://theathletic.com/2916366/2021/10/27/kevin-betsy-how-guardiola-and-keegan-helped-shape-arsenals-under-23-head-coach?source=user-shared-article

Would you mind please cutting and pasting the article on here so non subscribers can read it without having to pay/sign up? Cheers.

+1

Andy S

I haven't had to sign up I've just clicked on the link and read it

Bassey the warrior

Quote from: Count Flapula on October 28, 2021, 10:39:23 AM
Quote from: Mitrovic the warrior on October 28, 2021, 09:45:38 AM
Great article about former Fulham player and youth coach,  Kevin Betsy. He played under Keegan and Tigana and then brought through the likes of Sessegnon,  Elliott, but also Eze and Maja, who I hadn't realised were in our academy. Very complimentary about working for and learning from Tigana and from working as a coach at Fulham.

He went on to work for the FA taking on various youth coaching roles and working with Sancho, Saka, Foden, Bellingham et al. Now managing Arsenal U23's and from the sounds of the article, is one to keep an eye on as a future top manager.

https://theathletic.com/2916366/2021/10/27/kevin-betsy-how-guardiola-and-keegan-helped-shape-arsenals-under-23-head-coach?source=user-shared-article

Would you mind please cutting and pasting the article on here so non subscribers can read it without having to pay/sign up? Cheers.

Kevin Betsy is telling The Athletic about the coaching influences that helped him on his journey from former professional footballer to Arsenal's under-23 boss. Not that anybody eavesdropping would necessarily know that from some of the topics of our conversation, which include everything from wheelchair basketball, to university dissertations, to the Olympic diver Tom Daley.

"I like to learn," Betsy says. "And I have always liked to learn from as many people as I can."

Such an outlook goes some way to explain why Betsy, 43, has not been afraid to do things differently since leaving the Football Association to replace club legend Steve Bould at Arsenal. He already seems a shrewd appointment, with Arsenal sat third in the Premier League 2, winning six of their opening nine fixtures to sit just one point behind leaders Manchester City.

Arsenal fans would do well to watch the under-23s in action ​​— and not only because results have been so positive. They also do things their own way. A large number of youth teams closely mimic their first team system, often for pragmatic, short-term reasons. But Betsy's Arsenal are their own side, utilising either a 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 shape in possession, in contrast to the back four deployed by Mikel Arteta's seniors.

Betsy says that's because style is more important than a system when it comes to playing for Arsenal.

"The formation is only one section of the game," he explains. "If you watch a game of football, the formation will only be visible for maybe three or four minutes out of 90. So for us, the most important is the playing style which with our under-23s and first team is pretty much identical.

"We have played the same formation as the first team in two games this season, but at the moment, it's more about individual needs why we're playing another formation. The fundamental thing is the style."

It helps that Betsy has a number of young players talented enough to play in that style. Elegant midfielders Charlie Patino and Salah Oulad-M'Hand are given license to drop deep to kickstart attacks, while central defender Omar Rekik is frequently encouraged to drive forward with the ball, meaning the young team's formation is forever interchanging.

It is a demanding system for inexperienced players. But Arsenal expect big things from their talented under-23 team and Betsy is accomplished when it comes to developing exciting, raw prospects.

"One of our missions is to ensure the academy is the most caring and challenging in the world, so we have to make sure that our programme and how we coach reflects that," he says. "My role is to make sure every player matters and put those pieces together at the right moments."

He arrived in north London from the FA, where he worked with various England youth sides, including groups of players born in 2000 (Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho, Callum Hudson-Odoi) and 2001 (Bukayo Saka, Curtis Jones). But he spent far more time working with the group born in 2003 after a change in model saw the FA keep head coaches with specific age groups for longer periods of time. This is where he first coached Patino for England Under-15s, as well as Jude Bellingham, Harvey Elliott, Liam Delap and Jamal Musiala, who is now a full German international.

Betsy previously worked with different England youth sides (Photo: Getty Images)
Betsy previously worked with different England youth sides (Photo: Getty Images)
Betsy quickly garnered attention for his impressive work at the FA — but he had to work hard to get there. "It was probably the toughest interview process I will ever experience in my life," he laughs. "There were different parts. One was about your coaching philosophy, for example, so we were shown a video and then suddenly I was presenting to top people: the likes of Dan Ashworth, Dave Reddin, Matt Crocker, Aidy Boothroyd.

"There was a practical element, too. I thought it would be about football, but when I got there I was told I had 30 minutes to prepare to coach wheelchair basketball! There are also FA coaches at clubs all around the country watching your sessions, so they have intelligence on you as a coach. They have seen your practices and watched your teams, so every single moment is an interview."

Betsy enjoyed a long playing career and was part of the ​​Fulham squad that earned promotion to Division One in 1999 and then to the Premier League in 2001, even beginning his nascent coaching career while at the club. Stints at Southend United and Wycombe Wanderers were key, too. He also won seven caps for the Seychelles national team, having previously featured for England C. But Betsy knew even before retiring that he wanted to move into management, undertaking a degree in sports journalism and broadcasting that saw him go on research trips to the likes of Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Ajax, Sparta Prague, Santos in Brazil and AZ Alkmaar.

His dissertation topic? 10,000 words on youth development in football.

"I had two study visits to Bayern Munich and I was able to watch two of Pep Guardiola's sessions. From the energy and passion it was evident how he was a master of tactical detail. I also met Marijn Beuker, AZ Alkmaar's director of football, on another visit, as well as Edwin van der Sar, who was the academy technical director at Ajax and somebody I played with at Fulham.

"There were two main takeaways from Ajax. One: their focus on 1-v-1 domination and expertise was phenomenal. Second: the use of multi-sports. They had different activities to improve the mobility of their players at young ages like judo, ballet and gymnastics to help football movements. I took some elements into my academy work to make players more efficient movers."

But it was other colleagues at Fulham who first inspired Betsy to consider a career in the dugout.

Betsy playing with Fulham in 1999 (Photo: Getty Images)

"Kevin Keegan signed me (for Fulham) as a young player from non-league," Betsy says. "He would spend time after training in one to one sessions with players who were trying to make a name for themselves. For someone who had won the European Cup, it was so powerful for him to take time with players and help them improve individually. That helped shape my learning in terms of one to one coaching."

A year after Keegan left to take on the England job, Frenchman Jean Tigana took charge, along with Christian Damiano as his assistant manager. Both helped to shape Betsy's fledgling coaching philosophies in a significant way.

"Tigana was very forward-thinking when it came to nutrition, for example," he says. "The training programmes were never generic and they were very individualized. There was a real clarity in the way he wanted to play and trying to play that way in the second-tier really was eye-opening.

His assistant, Damiano, was just as important. Having coached Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet's age group at the prestigious French national school, Clairefontaine, Betsy eagerly picked Damiano's brain on the minutiae of coaching.

"One of the things he said to me when I was at Fulham was 'you have to learn the art of coaching in its purest form'. When I went into coaching quite early, that was very much in my head. He was way ahead of his time in terms of how he approached sessions and how he communicated with players."

There is a pleasing symmetry, then, in the fact that it was at Fulham that Betsy started his coaching career. He worked as Phase Lead for the club's young players between the ages of 12 and 16, overseeing the progress of the likes of Ryan Sessegnon, Elliot, Josh Maja, Ebere Eze, Djed Spence, Omar Richards and Elijah Adebayo, all of whom have gone on to enjoy successful playing careers with some of the best clubs in Europe.

Betsy also singled out those who left football for praise, such as the musician Josh Lakwata, the actor Munashe Mwatsiya and Felix Norman and William Morarek, who both moved into the military.

The club's decision to move him back to the under-13s rather than retain him in the Phase Lead role was another significant development in his journey. Sceptical at first, Betsy now believes the move paid dividends. "At Fulham I was able to work with lots of different types of boys with very different experiences," he says. "And that was the best thing that ever happened in terms of my coaching.

"The diversity of the players we have in London is vast. In our academy we had lots of players from inner-city London with diverse backgrounds: kids from African, Asian and Caribbean backgrounds, plus a lot with white backgrounds from the rural areas of Berkshire and Surrey. And those experiences have helped me to deal with different types of people."

While at Fulham Betsy also learned to look at sports outside of football when developing his ideas on how to coach young talent.

"I will always remember how we went to watch Tom Daley train and how much that helped," he says. "Jane Figueiredo was his coach. She is the guru of diving coaching. And one of the biggest things I took out of it was the standard of individual coaching: how she broke down the different skills Tom would require to deliver when it comes to competing.

"The first part of the session was around foot patterns, the use of his arms and different apparatus he would use inside the gym.

"The individual development and training plan she put together for him was out of this world. That helped when I was going into academy coaching to shape individual training plans on a macro and micro cycle. Whether it's a skill, tactical or psychological thing, you break it down in really small chunks and that was a big learning for me."

Betsy speaks with both knowledge and a fierce passion on the nuances of youth coaching. But one obvious question remains. Given the success he has enjoyed with England and now Arsenal, when does he see himself moving into first-team coaching?

He's uncertain. "One day, if the journey is to be a first team coach or head coach at first team level, all that experience and knowledge I've gained along the way, hopefully will help me be successful in the next venture," he says.

"But the joy and pride of seeing each and every person develop is what gives me the most satisfaction and drives me everyday."

He is in no rush. But the journey so far suggests that, when the opportunity arises, Betsy will be ready.


RufusBrevettatemyhamster

Very insightful piece. Kevin seems like a down to earth, highly intelligent guy. Useful player on his day.
All the best to him.