"Chris Milicich, former NZ soccer coach of the year and national Under-20 coach, is heading up the newly formed St Peter's College academy as well as taking the reigns of the First X1. He is quick to quash suggestions the academy has been set up to rival the work done by the likes of Kevin Fallon at MAGS or Fanny Hay at Sacred Heart. "It's for kids who want to be soccer players", he says. "It's about longterm development, it's not about St Peters teams winning. It's about developing footballers. The byproduct is that St Peters teams will get better by default. the learning curve for the players is strongly down the 'game intelligence' route c.f. at what would be a more traditional academy. "Game intellgence is better than skill development," he says. " I've stood on two sidelines at World Cups and our players just aren't smart enough."
The academy focuses on players in years 7 -10 and Milicich likes what he has seen so far from the 52 who are training four mornings a week. That number may be trimmed to 42. St Peters school has some 22 football teams.
- from yesterday's NZ Herald: School sport section.
Good luck Chris. You'll need it.