The German Football Association (DFB) will have built a new academy in Frankfurt am Main by the end of 2018. It’ll be a modern training centre for all facets of football in Germany. DFB.de took a look around Europe – from Madrid to London, to see how the other big footballing nations are set up.
Whilst some have built theirs in a new town in the suburbs of a big city, the others have looked to be isolated in the countryside. Football performance centres in Europe are so different to the football that gets taught there. England opened “St. George’s Park”, their national football centre, in 2012 and it is situated in the middle of nowhere. Managers and players get to train on 130 hectares of land, which is surrounded by lakes, woods and footpaths in the West Midlands, halfway between Birmingham and Nottingham.
Clairefontaine a good model
The performance centre in France, Clairefontaine, serves as a good model. It was opened in 1988 and France became World Champions ten years later after winning the World Cup in their own country. The English invested £100 million into their breeding ground for talent, which took 17 months to build. Plans began back in 1975 however other projects, such as the construction of Wembley Stadium in London, took precedence. St. George’s Park was finally built and contains twelve pitches, five of which have undersoil heating and floodlights, a decompression chamber, a hydrotherapy area, a huge sports medicine and sports science department, an Olympic sized swimming pool, five gyms, a Futsal hall and a 60 metre track, as well as its own library with football literature.
The Spanish, World Champions from 2010, are situated close to their capital city. The “Ciudad del Fútbol”, which was built in 2003, lies 24 kilometres south west of capital city Madrid. It is spread over 12 hectares and is not just the headquarters for the Spanish Football Association and the museum for the national team, but it also contains a sports hall, accommodation for players, a meeting and conference complex and a medical centre, as well as five football pitches and an eight lane running track. Two pitches have covered stands, which are capable of holding around 1400 spectators.
Top talent on site
The Italians, who won the World Cup most recently in 2006, are also situated in the city with their performance centre “Coverciano”, which is located in the district of Florence, coincidentally the same name as the city to which it is a part of. All of Italy’s national sides from U15s upwards have been training there since 1958. The top talent in the country make the use of four football pitches, a multi-function gym, a swimming pool, two tennis courts, a library, a conference room and a hotel with a restaurant.
The best players from across France also get the use of their performance centre. Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka and William Gallas are just three examples of players who have passed through the “Centre technique national Fernand-Sastre” in Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines, which lies around 50 kilometres south west of capital city Paris. Clairefontaine is the central training centre for the French national team and the regional training centre for players between 13 and 15 from the Île-de-France region. The entire complex is 56 hectares big and is where the French team stayed during the World Cup in France in 1998, which proved to be successful.
Clubs to follow suit
In other countries in Europe, such as Austria and Scotland, plans are under way to build football academies. Turkey has a performance centre – the “Hasan Doğan National Teams Camp and Education Facilities” in Istanbul, which opened in summer 2014 and took 450 days to build.
Many clubs are following suit in relation to their national association. Real Madrid opened the “Ciudad Real Madrid” in 2005, which is spread over 120 hectares of land just north east of the capital. Along with the ten training pitches (three for the first team and seven for the youth teams), the centre also contains sport and fitness rooms, a press and VIP area, a referee’s dressing room, a clinic, restaurants and a weather station. The Alfredo-Di-Stéfano stadium has a capacity of 8,000.
Football and ice hockey under the same roof
In Austria, footballers and ice hockey players train under the same roof. The Red Bull football and ice hockey academy was opened in 2014 in Salzburg. 400 players from both sports train there and 140 live on site. The centre contains seven football pitches (including artificial pitches, real pitches and one indoor pitch), two ice rinks, all the necessary training and recuperation facilities and 92 bedrooms.
Manchester City built the “City Football Academy” right next to their stadium in the east of the city. The training centre, which cost £200 million, is spread over 32 hectares of land and plays host to 450 footballers. The youth teams of the Premier League club train on the twelve football pitches on offer, with a further four available to the first team. A stadium with a capacity of 7000 was built in order to hold youth team games.
created by mmc/fs
The German Football Association (DFB) will have built a new academy in Frankfurt am Main by the end of 2018. It’ll be a modern training centre for all facets of football in Germany. DFB.de took a look around Europe – from Madrid to London, to see how the other big footballing nations are set up.
Whilst some have built theirs in a new town in the suburbs of a big city, the others have looked to be isolated in the countryside. Football performance centres in Europe are so different to the football that gets taught there. England opened “St. George’s Park”, their national football centre, in 2012 and it is situated in the middle of nowhere. Managers and players get to train on 130 hectares of land, which is surrounded by lakes, woods and footpaths in the West Midlands, halfway between Birmingham and Nottingham.
Clairefontaine a good model
The performance centre in France, Clairefontaine, serves as a good model. It was opened in 1988 and France became World Champions ten years later after winning the World Cup in their own country. The English invested £100 million into their breeding ground for talent, which took 17 months to build. Plans began back in 1975 however other projects, such as the construction of Wembley Stadium in London, took precedence. St. George’s Park was finally built and contains twelve pitches, five of which have undersoil heating and floodlights, a decompression chamber, a hydrotherapy area, a huge sports medicine and sports science department, an Olympic sized swimming pool, five gyms, a Futsal hall and a 60 metre track, as well as its own library with football literature.
The Spanish, World Champions from 2010, are situated close to their capital city. The “Ciudad del Fútbol”, which was built in 2003, lies 24 kilometres south west of capital city Madrid. It is spread over 12 hectares and is not just the headquarters for the Spanish Football Association and the museum for the national team, but it also contains a sports hall, accommodation for players, a meeting and conference complex and a medical centre, as well as five football pitches and an eight lane running track. Two pitches have covered stands, which are capable of holding around 1400 spectators.
Top talent on site
The Italians, who won the World Cup most recently in 2006, are also situated in the city with their performance centre “Coverciano”, which is located in the district of Florence, coincidentally the same name as the city to which it is a part of. All of Italy’s national sides from U15s upwards have been training there since 1958. The top talent in the country make the use of four football pitches, a multi-function gym, a swimming pool, two tennis courts, a library, a conference room and a hotel with a restaurant.
The best players from across France also get the use of their performance centre. Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka and William Gallas are just three examples of players who have passed through the “Centre technique national Fernand-Sastre” in Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines, which lies around 50 kilometres south west of capital city Paris. Clairefontaine is the central training centre for the French national team and the regional training centre for players between 13 and 15 from the Île-de-France region. The entire complex is 56 hectares big and is where the French team stayed during the World Cup in France in 1998, which proved to be successful.
Clubs to follow suit
In other countries in Europe, such as Austria and Scotland, plans are under way to build football academies. Turkey has a performance centre – the “Hasan Doğan National Teams Camp and Education Facilities” in Istanbul, which opened in summer 2014 and took 450 days to build.
Many clubs are following suit in relation to their national association. Real Madrid opened the “Ciudad Real Madrid” in 2005, which is spread over 120 hectares of land just north east of the capital. Along with the ten training pitches (three for the first team and seven for the youth teams), the centre also contains sport and fitness rooms, a press and VIP area, a referee’s dressing room, a clinic, restaurants and a weather station. The Alfredo-Di-Stéfano stadium has a capacity of 8,000.
Football and ice hockey under the same roof
In Austria, footballers and ice hockey players train under the same roof. The Red Bull football and ice hockey academy was opened in 2014 in Salzburg. 400 players from both sports train there and 140 live on site. The centre contains seven football pitches (including artificial pitches, real pitches and one indoor pitch), two ice rinks, all the necessary training and recuperation facilities and 92 bedrooms.
Manchester City built the “City Football Academy” right next to their stadium in the east of the city. The training centre, which cost £200 million, is spread over 32 hectares of land and plays host to 450 footballers. The youth teams of the Premier League club train on the twelve football pitches on offer, with a further four available to the first team. A stadium with a capacity of 7000 was built in order to hold youth team games.
