FC Nordsjælland's Revolutionary Approach: Interview with Flemming Pedersen
“That’s why we are successful in Nordsjælland at developing young players because we are not only teaching them to play the game, we are also teaching them to understand the game.”
Luis Llopis, current Real Sociedad goalkeeper coach and former Real Madrid goalkeeper coach, said “FC Norsdjælland reminds me a lot of Barça, especially in their game model, how they approach the game, and their work with their academy.”
That’s quite a compliment from someone who knows the Barça style extremely well.
And he’s not wrong. There are lots of similarities between the Danish club and the Catalans, especially during the time when Barça’s storied academy, La Masia, was producing countless talents for their first team, with the likes of Iniesta, Busquets, Pique, Messi, Xavi, to name a few. In fact, in 2012, FC Barcelona made history when their starting 11 against Levante were all La Masia graduates. This doesn’t happen often and it’s something that FC Nordsjælland has been working towards since Flemming Pedersen, current First Team Manager and former Sporting Director, joined the Danish side in 2006. As he has stated in several interviews, the objective has always been to win a title with 100% of players from their academy.
They aren’t far off from achieving that incredible percentage. In 2017, 19 of their 29 players on the roster had spent at least three years in their youth academy. In the process of developing players for their first team, they have produced 40 professional footballers born between 1992 and 2000. It’s an outstanding statistic for any club, even more so for a club of their size. Incredibly, they are also the youngest team in all of Europe with an average age of 22.4. All of this while competing in their domestic league every year. They have not finished below the 6th position of the table in the last four years.
So how are they achieving so much success? I spoke with Flemming Pedersen (First Team FC Nordsjælland manager) to find out.
David: I wanted to start a little bit about your career path to give us some insight to see where you’re coming from. One thing I noticed you started coaching very early since you were 18? How did that come about?
Flemming: It was because I didn’t make it myself. I played in the best under 18 league in Denmark and then I found out I would not be good enough to make the step to the professional league. Because I started too late in a professional environment so I waited until I was 16. But I moved from amateur grassroots to more professional football and that was just too late. So my body physically was not prepared to take this at that time. And then I had a younger brother, eight and a half years younger than me and I started coaching his team or helping his coach, so I started as an assistant coach the first six months in 1982.
David: Most coaches, especially at the elite game, probably don’t start coaching until maybe when they finish their career, maybe into their thirties. Do you think that gave you an advantage as far as gaining experience so early on?
Flemming: Definitely. When you are playing you are not thinking about the so many details in the game and you’re thinking more about yourself and your own development. When you step to the other side as a coach then you start to think much more about the whole game. In my experience, it would be very good for professional players also to take coaching education because in my experience, I have worked with several very experienced professional players who I have had as assistant coaches and they have always told me “Wow why didn’t I know all this while I was playing myself. If I had just known all this then I would have been a much better player.”
That’s why when we’re speaking about player development, as a coach you are responsible to teach the players about the game and that’s why we are successful in Nordsjælland at developing young players because we are not only teaching them to play the game, we are also teaching them to understand the game. So most of our players now, we also give them a coaching education. That’s a very important point that most clubs are missing.
D: Do you think that is what sets Nordsjælland apart from other academies?
F: That’s one thing. There are several other things. I know there are other things that I know differentiate ourselves from other normal academies.
D: Perfect. Why don’t we start talking about Nordsjælland academy and what you have started to do there, or maybe it’s been done since you before you arrived. You mentioned that, and I’ve seen the big point you always make in interviews, is you try to prepare them in 10-12 years what would take 16 years in other academies. Is that right?
F: Yes, we give them 10-12 years education before we sell them. So not before they go into the professional game because before they go into the professional game the average training age in Nordsjælland is 7-8 years. So when they have been playing 7-8 years in the academy they are ready to go into the first team, then they are in the first team 2-4 years before they move on to bigger clubs in Europe. But our aim is when they are 21 years old playing in the Superliga, they should play like they are 27. That’s the meaning behind this sentence.
“Playing football is a constant decision making process. The more options you have in each situation, the longer your decision making will take. So we decrease the players’ options so they can make quicker and better decisions.”
D: That makes sense. Why don’t we talk about how you can speed this process up, what are the things that you think, and maybe you don’t want to go into detail but maybe some general thoughts, but what are some things Nordsjælland does differently in terms of developing players long term that is speeding up this process?
F: First of all, we have to find out what kind of game do we want to play and of course this is related to the style of play. Because the game is so complex and if you want to teach everything then you’re not teaching the players anything. So first you have to work from a context, so find out what kind what kind of context that is, and that means what kind of football do you want to play?
In Nordsjælland we have analysed the development of the game, and when the aim of our club is to develop players to the highest possible level then we need to play a game like they do at the highest level, for example in the Champions League. So then we look Champions League games and we have built our style of play from ‘to win a game we need to score’. Many club teams build a style of play from how to defend. From our opinion, that’s the wrong way to do it. How do we want to score? We know 85% of all goals are being score in the danger zone. We also know that the development of the game is when you get closer and closer to the goal, you create more and more open chances. So what should we do to create these chances? Where is our assist areas? How can we get into these assist areas and all of this.
So we just reduce the complexity of the game and not choosing to train to all kinds of different situations in training but have selected the most important situations to train. So we make the game simple for our players. And then we build on more complexity again. So it has a lot to do about this decision making process. Playing football is a constant decision making process. The more options you have in each situation, the longer your decision making will take. So we decrease the players’ options so they can make quicker and better decisions.
D: I’m just going to ask a question that I’ve received in terms of when I talk about style of play. The question that I always get is, aren’t you constraining players too much in a certain style of play or perhaps leaving players out who don’t fit the style of play?
F: Yes, there will always be risk for this but you have to make choices. There are certain kind of players that will not fit into our style of play. So for example, you can say players that have their strengths in duels and are not that mobile, they do not fit into our style of play. They have find another club with a style that suits them. The first question, it’s an advantage to constrain players because you need a clear systematic structure because without structure it is very difficult to develop creativity.
D: That’s a good point about creativity. It’s something that seems counterintuitive but makes perfect logical sense. You see it in other fields, when you constrain an individual to a certain number of resources or what’s available to them, they have to be creative in how they go about solving the problem. It’s counterintuitive because you think they need more options to be creative, but in a sense when they have more options they don’t have to look as hard for or work as much for a solution. Is that about right?
F: Exactly. I think there have been some studies, for example, in the US when selling ketchup. If people want to buy ketchup, if they go to a shop with five different kinds of ketchup compared to a shop with three different kinds of ketchup, they buy more ketchup when there is three options because they have too many options, in the end they decide not to buy anything.
D: *Jokingly* So football’s like selling ketchup?
F: *Laughing* Yes, that’s right. But when they are young we create drills with two or three options because then we make sure the players get the right amount of repetitions because like anything in life, if you want to improve no matter what, you need to have repetitions. And that’s the trick, if you play a game with 20 different options all the time, then maybe after an hour one of the options you have done twice, or you have done all the options twice. So you have not really been good at anything because you haven’t had the amount of repetitions so you have been training one hour but it has been a waste of time.
D: I’m going to ask you a question because I don’t want anybody to misinterpret the word repetitions because I think you’re talking about is repetitions of situations rather than repetitions technical skills —
F: —No! No! I am talking about playing football. I am talking about 5v5 and you can create 5v5 game and 5v5 drills where you simplify the game. So a lot of the same situations will happen and then the players are getting better.
“So when we give feedback to our players, it is never feedback on their outcome. It is feedback on their intention.”
D: So you’ve mentioned a lot about young players. For example, you’ve got your style of play, you know what it should look like at the highest level, you’re comparing yourself to Champions League level players or teams, how do you bring it down to the level of a 12 or 13 year old? What age does Nordsjælland academy start?
F: We start at 10 or 11 years old.
D: Perfect. So let’s talk about 10 and 11 year old players. How do you bring the style of play down to something that is still working towards that style of play at 10 years old but isn’t obviously giving them everything?
F: Yes, the first thing is problem solving. We should try to solve all the problems or situations in a constructive way. So for example, if you are under pressure, instead of kicking the ball away, there is always another solution. So making a feint, a kicking feint, a Cruyff turn, and try to solve this problem without just kicking the ball away. So that’s the first very important step. So when we give feedback to our players, it is never feedback on their outcome. It is feedback on their intention.
D: So obviously this requires, in my opinion, a high level coach to be able to decipher whether the intention was correct or not, do you think that’s true?
F: Yes, that’s true and a good relationship among the players and the coaching staff of course.
D: So then my followup question would be, obviously we’re judging the intent of the actions rather than the result, is that possibly the same as trying to measure the potential of player rather than the performance because it would be very easy to choose the best player because they’re effective in their age group however, perhaps there are other players who have more potential, and perhaps this comes back to intentions, and they know what to do but perhaps physically they are not as developed or maybe they are missing a technical action that they are still mastering and that’s why their intentions aren’t successful. Is that something that you talk about, the potential versus the performance? The performance at the weekend over the long term potential?
F: Yes, we always speak about potential. And David you are spot on here because if a coach can’t see the intention of the players, he can only see the outcome, then he’s not a good talent developer because it’s all about potential. Also, even most of the players first team, they are between 17-19 years old, more than half of our group, and this is still potential that we’re developing. Of course, they also have to perform at the weekend but we are focused on potential more than performance.
D: Is it difficult to find the right coaching staff to be able to implement this kind of methodology?
F: It’s extremely difficult. First of all, when we hire academy coaches they have to be interested in the game and have a big big passion for football and for player development. And if they have this passion then we bring them into our environment for six months where they work for 3-6 months for free to see if they have the potential. If the coaches have the potential and then after six months we will give them a job. First as an assistant coach and the later on as a head coach for a team.
D: Do you find sometimes, as we’re talking about the potential versus performance of each player, do you find the ego of a coach can get in the way of the long term development of a player?
F: Yes, I agree.
D: What advice would you give or how could you perhaps change the way of thinking of a coach who takes it upon the themselves for the team to be successful in terms of results even when they’re are 10-12 years old?
F: We have our own internal coaching education and we also have coaching sessions where coaches meet every 14 days in an hour and half and then we have a topic. The topic could be how a coach is behaving on the sideline during a game. Then we evaluate each other and discuss these things. Because it’s a big part of our coaches development that they also get feedback and that they use each other to be better.
D: That makes perfect sense.
“We are developing in detail our style of play all the time because when we look at the academy we have to look five years ahead of time because again in five years time the game will be even faster.”
F: This can only be done if you have clear frame, for example a clear style of play and a clear behaviour framework based on values. What kind of values do we have in the club and all this. Because when you have this then it’s much easier to discuss things and give feedback.
D: I think that makes more to the point that when you don’t a clear style of play or an endpoint for the club in mind, it leaves it very open for coaches and players which therefore, like you said, yeah you’re practicing, if you’re practicing everything or they’re training different things at 12 or a different coach trains different things at 14, it’s almost like it wasn’t worth it or you weren’t practicing at all.
F: Exactly. Exactly.
D: How important is consistency in everything you’re talking about coaching education and also making sure that we’re consistent with the style of play as the players develop through the ages, how do you make sure you maintain that consistency?
F: Yes, by trying to keep our coaching staff intact, developing our coaching staff, and all of this creates an environment where the coaches really want to stay work for us. We are developing in detail our style of play all the time because when we look at the academy we have to look five years ahead of time because again in five years time the game will be even faster. So we need to develop competences in the academy players that they can use in five years.
D: Is that difficult to do?
F: It is quite easy when you keep studying the game and you keep analysing all the details in the game, and when I am speaking about the game what I mean is Champions League games. I look for repetition, I look for situations that occur again and again. For example, it is always interesting to see tactically the Liverpool 4-3-3 pressing versus Napoli. Two years in a row Liverpool and Napoli have played in the group stage and Ancelotti used what I call the 3-2 build up against Liverpool last season and Liverpool struggled to solve this. After 20 minutes in Napoli this season, when the game was a little more controlled then Ancelotti used the 3-2 build up again, and Liverpool could still not solve it. It was interesting to see what Liverpool had learn from last season to this season and this is just a little example. You could see they tried to press a little higher and the only succeed in twenty minutes by doing this. Then they were back to last season’s game and it ended as bad as last season.
D: That’s such an interesting point. Obviously the importance of watching and genuinely studying the highest level players and highest level teams because it gives you a blue print to what it should be. But the point I just realised, perhaps in a lot of places we’re developing players for the game that is now, so by the time that they get there they are five years away from the game.
F: That’s what I mean!
D: That’s so true! I had never thought of that. We have to almost foresee what football is going to need, what kind of player, what kind of style of play, and I don’t think very many clubs do that.
F: I agree because, again, most clubs it’s all about the weekend. But we are doing this in our academy and since we are very young an academy, we started in 2006, where we started our academy with only two teams (U16 and U18). We started with this style of play, we started our foundation, the style of play foundation in 2006 and have kept working on but with the same principles, with the same overall principles as in 2006. We have worked our way down from U16 and now we start when they are 10 or 11 years old. We sell three to five players every season for nine to ten million euros all together. Those are players that have been in our academy since they were 10, 11, 12 years old.
D: Has there been a crop of players that have gone through the whole academy by this point? Have you seen the success in what you guys have done?
F: Not the full success yet because our players need to do even better at the highest level in Europe. So let’s take some of our academy players that have been there since before they were 12. So we sold Mathias Jensen to Celta Vigo. Also, Stanislav Lobotka also came from Nordsjælland but he was a player that we bought from Slovakia, so he doesn’t count. But Mathias Jensen is an academy product and has played ten years in Nordsjælland before we sold him to Celta Vigo but he didn’t make the impact at Celta Vigo. I know he had three coaches in one season. There was a lot of problems in the club and I know now he is playing for Brentford in England. Mathias Jensen is from 1996.
We also sold Marcus Ingvartsen. Marcus Ingvartsen is also 1996 and he has been playing in Nordsjælland since he was five years old. He sold him to Genk in Belgium but he didn’t succeed and after two years Genk sold him to Union Berlin and now he is playing for Union Berlin and he is in the starting eleven so he is on his way.
And then we have some other players. We have Victor Nelsson. He’s from 1998. We sold him this summer but he wanted to continue playing in Denmark so FC København bought him but still for four million euros. And this summer he sold Andres Skov Olsen, he’s born in 1999. Nelsson and Skov Olsen both started Nordsjælland when they were 11 years old. Skov Olsen, we sold him to Bologna in Italy. He has game time in all games. He’s not in the starting eleven yet. He has had one game now as a starting eleven player but normally he comes in from the bench. Many more will come. I could mention other players of course.
“We have to develop players that can understand the game, that are game readers.”
D: It obviously shows your academy is developing players that others teams want, and at the end of day, it’s a market for good players who can impact games and that seems that’s what you guys are doing very well. Do you think we could talk a little bit about your training exercise portfolio? Is it a large portfolio, curriculum? Are there many many exercises that you do over the course of the season, especially at the younger age groups? Why don’t you tell me about the training program?
F: We have a curriculum for all of our age groups and this curriculum there are technical/tactical parts, more individually based, then there is style of play parts, then there’s mental parts, and physical parts. Everything needs to be integrated in the exercises. So in an exercise there will always be a physical purpose, a mental purpose, there has to be a style of play purpose because that’s the context and there must be individual technical/tactical purpose too. Another part of the curriculum is style of play knowledge. So as I said we also develop coaches while they are playing. So they have style of play theory lesson, analysis lessons in our style of play.
D: At what age do you start the style of play analysis piece?
F: When they are eleven.
D: Do you see this as an integral part of the curriculum?
F: That’s very important because, again, we have to develop players that can understand the game, that are game readers, because we cannot, like in England, they have a lot of players. They are more natural athletes. There are many more boys and girls than in Denmark. Especially because we are a little club in Nordsjælland so we don’t have a big area to pick players from. The most difficult things to train is it’s very difficult to develop a child if they child doesn’t have athletic skills from the birth. For example, quick fibres, quick muscle fibres, then it’s difficult. It’s difficult to make a slow player quick. But what we can do is to make this player quicker in his head. So the cognitive training is so important.
“We don’t have any drills. Not any single drill which is prepared for the coaches. We don’t have a book of drills that you have to do. Our periodisation, our tactical periodisation we do it from the style of playbook.”
D: Along side the style of play analysis that you do with the young boys, you tie that into the training session so they see it in theory and then they practice it, is that correct?
F: Yes, yes. And I can get back to your question. I have visited a lot of clubs and all clubs they have a lot of drills. We don’t have any drills. Not any single drill which is prepared for the coaches. We don’t have a book of drills that you have to do. Our periodisation, our tactical periodisation we do it from the style of play book. So let’s say that we want to train the players build up phase one, then we have animations. What kind of situations do we want to occur in our build up phase one? And then it’s up to the coaches themselves to develop these drills. And the coaches are there together in our big coaching offices so they are also helping each other, preparing their training, and preparing training drills together with other coaches. All of our trainings, all of our teams from U13 to Superliga only train at our stadium. All trainings are filmed from five different angles. Everyone can watch each other’s trainings on the platform called Hudl.
D: After the training, is there time for the coaches to reflect individually or as a group to improve training?
F: Yes, normally after training the coaches do the round up with the players on the pitch with reflections and so on, and then the coaching staff go in and sit and do an evaluations. In the Superliga team, we have feedback meeting evaluations and feedback meetings every afternoon at three o’clock with my staff. We are eight coaches. Then we do the feedback and prepare the next day’s training. They know what to do the day after.
D: I love your answer that there are no drills, that every coach has to take it upon themselves to create a session. It allows for the coaches creativity to come out and to express themselves in a training session because it would be very easy for you to give them a training session. But at that point, just like it would be for a player, it would be robotic. You could find any coach who could run a session. So I think in this way, you have coaches who want to participate, who want to be better, and to create sessions and then reflect upon and have feedback from their peers. I think then that shows to the players because obviously they see the passion from the coach and that translates to a better environment in the long run. Is that something that you thought consciously or did just organically develop in this way?
F: I think developed organically. But you have to keep in mind, I made my first style of play book in 1992, and I have worked this way since 1992. Myself and then when I came to Nordjælland in 2006, I already had this experience. It was a very good way to work and then I just integrated it in FC Nordsjælland together with my colleagues at that time. But again, if you have a clear purpose you can make fantastic football drill, but if you don’t know the purpose it doesn’t matter. When the purpose is there; what do I want? What should we train today? What do I want to get out of this? Then you design the drill.
D: Well I don’t want to take up more of your time Flemming but I think it’s been very insightful and, as always, I think your experience working in all ages and understanding long term player development, it’s already started paying off for Nordsjælland, and I think it will continue.
F: Hopefully!
D: I am sure of it! Again, I appreciate you taking the time today.
F: No problem David.
“But again, if you have a clear purpose you can make fantastic football drill, but if you don’t know the purpose it doesn’t matter.”
