How do young people “end up” abroad?
Aivo Erkmaa: “Those who have gone abroad have put basketball first in their lives! Let it be said that none of them have dropped out of school. It is worth adding that, unfortunately, no school teaches how to cope in a foreign language and culture. The claim that everyone goes abroad is very wrong, because very few reach a contract with a foreign club. Clubs are looking for players who have the potential to reach professional basketball and the highest possible level ”.
Marten Lombiots: “There is no point in going to every club! I have heard that expression many times. I can tell you that not everyone is wanted there! Talented young people are sought at a very early age already. For this, foreigners have a separate occupation – scout. When we talk about youth scouts, their task is to discover promising young players from all over the world – more from Europe and Africa, though. Scouts usually work for clubs or agencies. How many scouts do our Estonian clubs have, whose task would be, for example, to look for tall players and bring them to basketball? This is another detail that we do not have due to the lack of resources. Even NBA club scouts watch European players who are only 14-15 years old. Nothing is left open or unclear in this area. Not only physical parameters and basketball skills are important, but also social background, personal qualities, etc. In order to reach the top of Europe or the world in your field, choices and decisions must be made very early for this profession”.
Estonia vs abroad
Aivo Erkmaa: „There are two different things in the activities of Estonian sports clubs – youth sports and hobby groups. The resources of time, money and infrastructure set their own limits for serious and perspective-oriented youth sports. Very few young people can do top sports. In today’s Estonia, the activities of children’s and youth sports are rather a hobby, for the activities of which the main money is distributed and on which clubs depend to a very large extent. All our youth sports are focused on the main money. We accept everyone who wants to play, so that it will bring more money and the club can somehow survive. The level of children in training groups is very uneven and the competition costs are usually paid by the parents. Youth clubs are funded by capital and tuition fees and supporters if they can be found. The cost of the competition and the equipment will of course be paid by the parent. You probably already understand that there is no sports-related choice.
Our clubs have limited resources for renting halls because they do not get hall times. You have to compete with many other sports to get your time. Very few have their own hall, which can be used indefinitely. Maximum use will be made of the few available times to ensure the necessary development for all training groups under limited conditions. When it comes to top youth sports, including player education, individual trainings are needed. However, these are rather absent due to the lack of hall times. Multifunctional sports buildings are not good for the development of top sportsmen. In a hall with three squares, groups of another sports are usually training on the other side of the curtain, the music they use may sound over your voice, or if there is a running circle around these three halls where people also train. Then there are too many distractions for both the coach and the players. If the hall time is limited to 90 minutes, you would like to make the most out of it anyway, but if there are distractors nearby, the concentration is disturbed. Good athletic results can be achieved in such conditions, but at what cost?
In foreign clubs, there is a “responsible of youth” or head coach, who is responsible for the entire activities of the youth block. The coaches’ resources and know-how are clearly in Italy’s favor. If there is a lot of randomness in the activities of our clubs, the work in Italy is done the opposite way – very specifically planned. Training quality, volume, intensity and individual approach. We add, that more trainers participate in the trainings, in many places trainings are filmed for analysis. If a 16-year-old participates in a mens’ team training, it does not mean that he or she does not participate in youth training. It’s just that you do the full training of young players and then the training with men follows. It’s pretty tough, but who resists, can become a player”.
Marten Lombiots: „What do we conclude from this? Maybe it only seems to me that when young people go abroad at an early age, it somehow has a negative taste to it in Estonia. In my opinion, the case should be the other way around – no matter how hard we work, the conditions in the big basketball countries are just so much better. This is definitely not a message to Estonian club leaders or coaches, that you would have nowhere to strive. On the contrary, we must be patient and build our system further. But it’s worth being open and raising your eyes above your toes – maybe we have something to learn from others? What can we transfer from the system to us? I want to say that our best sons need to get into good systems abroad. If 1-2 players move abroad every year, then we also have a lot of young players here to develop and teach. For some reason, there are not many great success stories of people who go from the Estonian Premier League to top clubs in Europe.
While abroad, it is always exciting to find out how their sports system works, how clubs are funded and ran. Me and Aivo – we have a good friend in Pistoia, Andrea Tronoconi, who is the “team manager” of the Serie A2 team there. Many thanks to him, as he is always ready to explain everything to us and make it all clear. These following lines may seem unbelievable to us Estonians, but this is the case. 25% of the budget of youth clubs consists of the parent’s wallet and 75% of the club’s supporters! This is the order of magnitude from mini basketball to the U16 team. The local government does not distribute the support (only a few areas), instead they have to pay the hall rent.
Another way to make money for the club is to raise players! In terms of club funding and the profitability of growing players, we will definitely make a separate post, but at the moment some thoughts to understand what makes up the composition of the teams, the competition and the good development of the players. Clubs have to pay a hefty sum for each player who plays in the men’s championship. For us, giving a player to the mud league (Series C Gold – league level IV) means 2,500 euros per player. In the Top League – Serie A, the amount is 12,500 euros per player. If the club raises themselves a player, they do not have to pay these fees. If the player moves on to another club in Italy, this registration fee will be returned to the club. So in Italy it is beneficial for the club to grow players! In Estonia, up to the age of U14, the player’s educator’s fee is 16 euros per year, and from there the boys’ fee for boys aged 14-19 is 32 euros per year! We will definitely stop on this topic and leave exciting information in the following posts as well. But now you can think for yourself that if an Italian club does good youth work, the club and the coach will also directly benefit from that”.
Completion and competition
Aivo Erkmaa: „Many people talk about it, but no one has yet said, where to go. Hugo Erkmaa’s journey in Italy began at the Padova Petrarca club – to get an idea, the city is 40 kilometers from Venice. Probably sounds better already! Here, we add a small clip, in which well-known clubs Padova Petraca played in the U15 Eccellenza series.
In Italy, it is important to have well put-together teams, which are dealt with seriously and in a timely manner. Many Italian clubs are not only looking for foreigners, but are bringing in additions from other regions in Italy. Good choice of members ensures the level and success of the team. Here I pay attention to the shape of the white shirts under the basket – this is a Livorno Don Bosco vs Siena Mens Sana U16 game.
With the team of Erkmaa Summer Course, we have participated twice in the prestigious Novipiu Cup for U15. We were the only non-Italian team there. In 2018, with boys aged 2003, when our team was essentially in the Estonian National team, we achieved the 5th place among 12 teams. The quarterfinals Erkmaa Summer Course vs Roma Stella Azzurra 61:84 can be seen HERE. A year later with the 2004 boys, with the absence of the so-called main five of the team, the result was 10th place. These games can be found on YouTube. The most difficult thing for the boys was the unusually fast pace and intensity of the game. Estonian championships are much slower.
The most important person in youth sports is the COACH. His professional qualifications, education, commitment, mental ability to reach players, especially tall players, teaching skills, the list can go on. Coach must have the ability to spot a talent. Unfortunately, the coach works with the children after the main job, there may be some exceptions. Obviously, everyone would like to work with elite groups, but that is not possible. The sports level of children is very different and what kind of quality can we talk about here. If we add small salaries or earlier scholarships, then it is clear what place a coach has in our society. Often the coach performs other duties in the club – bus driver, psychologist, accountant, educator, etc. The coach also spends a lot of time with the children who participate in the trainings, so the training is also distributed outside the play-field. In Estonia, a coach is not a teacher, instead he/she is a cultural worker, because the basis for the support for the salary of a coach paid by the state is the salary of a cultural worker, not the salary of a teacher ”.
Marten Lombiots: „When Aivo and I came up with the idea for a blog, Aivo said very well:” We talk about what we know. ” I understand that sometimes it’s cool for people to listen to entertainment shows like “Men Don’t Cry,” where sports journalists dissect a variety of current sports topics. But when people speak of things which they are unaware about, I feel my blood pressure rising. There are, in fact, also other thinkers, not just journalists. My question is – how many of these thinkers are actually specialists, and how many of them have actually traveled to Italy, met up and talked with the coaches of the youth clubs there, taken a nice seat and watched the trainings, went to watch the youth games? I dare to be very confident here and say that there are few people like this. So listening to their views on the level of Italian clubs, the level of youth basketball there? Or how they evaluate and compare the development environment and career opportunities there?“
Finally, one video about the “mud league” (Serie B – the third highest league level, where registering a single player costs 2,500 euros) – is actually a very hard temper for a young player.