Let’s Play: Young Boys Football Club

text and images by Mustopha

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A new team is on the horizon, working tirelessly week-in week-out to conquer the world. It’s almost a year now since a group of boys, managed and mentored by Coach Dan, gathered to build a future together.

It has been a year of spirited growth and determination. An exponential growth that has seen the team secure a new playing ground away from the sandy school-field where it initially started out.

The players have gone through rough patches, bleed on the field, taken injury, and every time they have picked themselves up and faced the opponents. There is no time to waste for a greater goal is still ahead.

Coach Dan

Coach Dan is the strength and ever present back-bone that supports the team. He is a player-manager who embodies skill and experience. Both of which he wields effectively to manage the logistics of the team and curb the ego of the players. On the field he orchestrates as a midfielder; playing just behind central strikers of the team. When you see those deft passes that split defenses and confuses their sense of reasoning, then you know Coach Dan is at work.

His acts are to show, by action, what he expects from his players.

After rigorous training sessions, the team has come to accept his football philosophy: trap your ball, find your man, release. Everyone on the team knows this mantra by heart, it’s probably one of first things you learn on joining the team. It’s so simple an idea that opposing teams are left wondering if Young Boys F.C. has been training for 10 years. It’s an idea of football that can be likened to what 2017/2018 Premier League Champions and former Barcelona manager, Pep Guardiola preaches. It’s like tiki-taka but with a leather force. A simple, relaxing, and entertaining play that draws lots of goals and gladdens the heart of fans. Even those who don’t know the team have said they enjoyed game.

Fun fact, one of the players once told the coach about his former team in South Eastern Nigeria. He was explaining how compact and silky that team played. The picture he painted on that day stayed with the team for a while, and once Coach Dan got the chance, he visited that team and trained with them for a week. When he came back, the team was better for it. He introduced some trainings we to help build stamina and agility. This is one of the ways Young Boys F.C. has learnt from other teams to build itself.

Training Session

The strength of the team has been in the training. 4 times a week, 52 weeks of the year. No breaks, no surrender. Often times, prospective players show interest in joining the team but seeing how rigorous, thorough, and encompassing the training is, many run away. Those who stayed have effectively become better players.

A lot of the trainings is focused on getting the players in shape; physically, mentally and emotionally for any situation they may be faced. When you are prepared for the worst scenario — extra time, penalty shoot-outs, or even being several goals down — the team is trained to never relent.

Work together. Win together. Loss Together.