6 October 2008

Youth Scheme gets underway

Supporting young footballers on their path towards maturity, helping them to understand the meaning of the sport experience inside Juventus' Youth Academy: this, in extremely synthetic terms, is the objective of the training programme presented today by Ciro Ferrara, head of Juve's Youth Sector, and Gian Piero Quaglino, Dean of the University of Turin’s Psychology Department, at a meeting held in Palazzo Badini (where the Department of Psychology holds its theses discussions), in Via Verdi, in Turin.

«We take care of our boys – Ciro Ferrara explained - we not only try to make them become great footballers on the pitch, but also try to pass on a series of values that can accompany them in their day-to-day life too».

Dialogue and confrontation are the foundations of this series of meetings which will involve all the boys, from the youngest to the Youth Team, obviously concerning different themes according to the age bracket. There will be at least four talks scheduled up until March, with the topics being: relationships with others, motivation, how to manage one's emotions, group identity, the meaning of one's sport experience and health education. The topics are included in four main thematic areas: the Motivational Area, with Giampaolo Montali (former Coach of the Italian volleyball team, and an expert of training and group management, who’s also on the Juventus Board of Directors); the Sociological Area, in the hands of Professor Gennaro Testa (sociologist, formerly a consultant to the Italian Football Federation); the Psychological Area, managed by Maristella Fantini, Barbara De Marchi and Antonella Donatone, psycho-therapists specialized in matters concerning sport; and finally the Medical Area, where the talks will be given by Bartolomeo Goitre, Paolo Gola and Luca Stefanini, members of Juventus' medical staff, supervised by Dr. Riccardo Agricola.

The programme begins this year, but interesting future developments are already planned, as demonstrated by this agreement with the Department of Psychology.