Youth

Teams

FE13 Stadt Nord Neudikids

FE12 Stadt Nord Neudikids

TRAINING PHILOSOPHY

Local opportunities for young footballers

  • To avoid long journeys to training sessions, children start off by training at their home club and in their own social environment.

  • Instead of making the children travel to Grasshopper Club Zürich, the club comes to them.

  • Grasshopper Club Zürich no longer runs teams for the youngest age groups (U6–U10). We believe children should play football in the local environment where they live and grow up.

GC as a partner for grass-roots football clubs

No-pressure football for children

  • Grasshopper Club Zürich has partnerships with grass-roots football clubs and endeavours to work closely with clubs from the local region.
  • Highly trained GC coaches offer child-friendly football training in specific regions. Coaches from the grass-roots football clubs have the opportunity to benefit from their expertise too through coaching development and training.
  • Grasshopper Club Zürich is known as an expert provider of children's football coaching and acts as a role model for development at this level in the local region.
  • Children should be allowed to play football without any pressure. Belonging to a high-profile club at this age risks creating false hopes, not least amongst the children's parents and those around them.
  • Coaching is usually based on a "must-win" mentality and takes little account of child-oriented training.
  • Potential talent is hard to spot at this level. What we see is what a child is currently capable of. It is not possible to carry out a reliable assessment of a child's talent until they reach the age of 11 or 12.