Lessons we can learn from the Dutch

Three World Cup finals, including the 2010 episode in South Africa and one Uefa European Championship in 1988, speak for itself why this small country of 16 million population is one of the top football countries in the world.

Hopeless is the only way to describe the system we have in Thailand, a country of 66 million people, where passion for football is no less than in any other part of the world. And when I asked some football gurus and my companions on this trip, they laughed and said, “You’d better ask something that we are more comfortable to answer.” With that kind of response, I had no further questions.

Let’s get back to the briefing by KNVB officials. One of the reasons that make the Dutch youth development programme so functional is the tight cooperation between KNVB and professional clubs. Each club must have a youth development programme, an individual youth development programme (designed for a particular player) and a talent scouting system in their area.

“The idea is we cannot lose a talent. If we lose a talent, it will affect the championship game against other country. So clubs and KNVB are responsible for the quality of team Oranje. It’s like the right and left hands work together, not separately,” van Loon explained.

A total of 350 scouts work for KNVB. The scouting starts at the under-11 level but the first selection of the KNVB is the regional selection for the under-12, then the under-15 for the national team. Professional clubs work with KNVB, which has 14 regional development centres to make sure that the right players are selected for the future Oranje team.

“When coaches select players, they go for the big strong ones so they can win matches. But we have to select players that will enable the Oranje team win matches. So we have to have specialists and experts in scouting work and talent recognition,” van Loon said.

During the weekend when we visited, there were six district teams competing in the under-15 category at PSV Youth Development Centre, which is part of a total 30,000 games competed all over the country per week.  These district teams have been selected from thousands of grass-root players from under-12.

At this event, van Loon as well as the scouts and coaches search for 60 talented players for the under-15 national team, (3-4 players per position). But in the end only one player makes it to the national under-16, under-17, u-18, u-19 and u-21 teams.

“Every coach, referee and scouting staff are there to witness me select players and I can tell them why I chose these players. I help these scouts to scout players while the professional clubs will be there to work with us too.”

In addition, KNVB Youth League features all age groups divided into Premier, Division 1, 2 and more. So players are placed according to their level, competing on a suitable size pitch. This, according to van Loon, makes the game more competitive and close.

“Winning 10-0 or losing 0-10 will make lazy football. If you win or lose by that margin, football will stop. It’s important to make all these age groups competitive so the bigger teams at the higher level will stay competitive as well,” he said. 

Van Loon ended his presentation saying that the youth development programme is a long process but it will ensure that the best from the grass-root level reaches the national team.

I was wowed by what I saw and couldn’t help wonder if this system had been applied to Thai football. It could have made a tremendous impact and changed the way we play the game. Too bad that the Football Association of Thailand boss was not there to observe it. And even if he were there, we wondered whether he would try to make any changes at all. If he had, Thai football wouldn’t have been the way it is.

The funny thing was this trip to Holland and the KNVB presentation was the idea of a Dutch gentleman, Ron van Oijen, the chief executive officer of AIA Thailand, who has so much passion for the game that he wanted us to see and perhaps learn how his country prepares children to become quality football players. And if a farang was so concerned about the future of Thai football, why aren’t we?