It was our pleasure, our honor and obviously a great responsibility to welcome approximately 150 coaches and representatives from 64 academies across our city, who saw PAOK Academy General Manager Vangelis Pourliotopoulos and Technical Director Vassilis Mittas present a new approach and cooperation plan. Responsibility, because the development of know-how and methodology, together with experience, keeps PAOK Academy on its toes and makes it, in a way, obliged to share knowledge.

Vassilis Mittas and his associates, therefore, presented the cooperation plan between PAOK and all the private academies of the city. The invitation concerned the representatives of all amateur clubs and all the private football academies of the Greek Football Federation. The technical director of the PAOK academy analyzed the plan for the creation of training centers in Thessaloniki, in the form that they operate in the province. The goal is to select a small number of players in the ages of U11, U10, U9 from eastern Thessaloniki, respectively from the west, who – always in collaboration with private academies – will train once a week at the PAOK Academy until the age category of Under-12s, so that they can smoothly and gradually integrate into PAOK.

Professor of the Department of Physical Education and Sports of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Giannis Michaelides, analyzed the issue of speed in developmental ages, the technical director of the Under-7/8s to Under-12 sections of the PAOK Academy, Andreas Balambanis, presented PAOK’s annual planning with regard to the specific age divisions, and one of the PAOK Under-12 coaches, Grigoris Tzelis, analyzed individual tactics and 1vs1 in the ages from Under-10 to Under-12. Regarding goalkeepers, our young goalkeeper coach, Ippokrates Roumeliotis, spoke about the holistic training methodology.

After the end of the conference, the attendees watched, as our guests at Toumba Stadium, the PAOK – Αsteras AKTOR match.