Auckland Football Federation, with the endorsement of New Zealand Football, is giving coaches the opportunity to learn more about Verheijen and his coaching style next month when the Dutch professional football expert heads Down Under to host its next Coach Network Event.
The Auckland Football Coaches Network event will be hosted by Auckland Football in conjunction with World Football Academy (WFA) and will be held at Bruce Pullman Park, Papakura on Sunday, 21 July.
Verheijen specialises in periodisation and conditioning in football and has an extensive background in international coaching with a number of FIFA World Cup and UEFA European championship coaching appearances to his name.
AFF football development officer Steven Dillon says the opportunity to bring Verheijen to New Zealand was too good to pass up.
“Once we learned of this opportunity we partnered with Cvetan Ivanov the football development manager of FC Twenty 11 in Christchurch, to bring Raymond to Auckland,” Dillon says.
“In hosting the course, along with Cvetan and World Football Academy, we are able to give football coaches, and the wider sports community in New Zealand, this wonderful opportunity to learn from someone operating at the top of their profession.
“Coaches will be exposed to a level of expertise we rarely access in New Zealand. Raymond has been part of a wide range of top level coaching environments, working with some of the best players and coaches in the world.
“Any coach who attends the event will get the benefits and insight from that level of experience in elite sport.”
The workshop will be a basic course in periodisation in football with periodisation being the term given to the planning of all football activities, from training to games, over the course of a season. It will detail how to develop football fitness through football games, avoiding the accumulation of fatigue, maximising player freshness and aiding players to remain injury free using three key themes – football conditioning exercises and games, periodisation models, and team and individual periodisation models.
“Elements of the course topic of periodisation and conditioning are already touched on within workshops we run as part of the New Zealand Football Coach Education Pathway. So while the concept in general will be familiar to some, it is certainly an area where we can broaden our knowledge,” Dillon says.
“Raymond’s course will use modern coaching techniques to highlight the importance of periodisation models in the planning process of coaches and players will ultimately be the ones to benefit from that increased knowledge base.”
Dillon says this event is part of a larger coach education plan at AFF which is gathering momentum.
“In 2012, we had 750 people through our coaching courses and already in 2013 we’ve seen over 400 coaches attend our courses,” he says.
“By securing Raymond to deliver this particular event, it underlines our intent to deliver the highest quality coach education opportunities we can for our coaches. Interest has been great so far and we hope to be able to attract a large number of coaches from around the country, from a variety of sporting organisations, to what I am sure will be a highlight of the year.”
The AFCN Basic Course in Periodisation in Football led by Raymond Verheijen is being held at Bruce Pulman Park, Papakura on Sunday, 21 July from 9.30am-4.30pm.
For more on information on the workshop or to register visit www.aucklandfootball.org.nz

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