Another hot day in Pressbaum but everybody was relaxed from a nice trip to Vienna the other day. So the coaches started fresh into a session about ‘special shots’. Their eyes started to sparkle in fascination and enthusiasm as where showed Taufik Hidayats special shots.
The players at the meantime did some ‘double defence’ practice. But then it was also their turn to learn some ‘special shots’. And for sure this was one of the coaches most exciting sessions and the player afterwards enjoyed it at least as much as them.
Another crowded lunch for all players and coaches but the staff was invited by the major of the town for lunch. This meant a bit of air outside the camp for them. For this occasion, we got also visitors from Badminton Europe Council: Tom Bacher (president) and Joao Matos (vice-president) came to visit the Summer School and join the staff at the lunch. They stayed on till Saturday to get an impression of this years event.
After another small group sessions in the afternoon it was time for the legendary ‘Summer School football’ – evening. The players-team playing the team of coaches and staff. Both sides were fighting hard as it is the honour to win this important match ….
Some impressions of the different participants:
Thursdays at Summer School are usually very hard. Players are getting tired, especially after the Mendrek-style training from Wednesday but also from socialising and so on. The heat in Austria does not make it any easier. All good reason to plan the coaches/staff verses players football match on Thursday evening.
In the morning session the players worked on doubles defence while the coaches were having a ‘special shot’ workshop. This workshop was split up in 2 different approaches towards the word ‘deception’. This included deception caused by playing with changes in speed and direction as well as deception as in trick shots.
As throughout the week, the coaches were very active and asked a lot of questions. Various shots were explained as well as key points determined so the coaches could look structured to the players when they went later on court to correct.
Before I mentioned that trick shots were also in to the session. Kenn copied the Taufik-move great but got big competition from Robert Wetherell ( England ).
The second part of the coach education was the on-court assistance while the staff picked out some of the deception strokes of the theory session and progressed them from technical approach to tactical use.
The players session ended like the coach education with the trying of various trick shots. The players had lots of fun trying to execute the shots. Matthew Carder (Scotland ) was clearly used on doing these shots, it is just a matter of using them less….
But remember the words of Kenn Lim ; ‘ Do not try this on court’
Like Monday and Tuesday the afternoon was filled up with the small group sessions where the coaches are in charge of running the training.
The biggest thing was yet to come... Traditionally there is a football match between coaches/staff and players. The players seemed very convinced that they had a good chance but I must say the coaches/staff team was one of the strongest I have seen in the last couple of years. Usually the intensity drops from the second half on but all of the evening training from the coaches and staff seemed to pay off. There was little fall back and although the players tried hard , the victory was clearly on the coaches/staff side.
Peter Mouritsen ( Denmark ) was the referee of the match and managed an impeccable game. He had the game all under control.
After a 3 – 4 loss the players dripped off as the coaches enjoyed the taste of yet another victory in the history of Summer School Soccer.
by An Soenens (Belgium), staff-coach