Conference Report on “The development of young football-players: The training methods of Jean-Marc Guillou”.

A conference on, “The development of young football-players: The training methods of Jean-Marc Guillou”, was held on 25th January 2017 in the Aula des Jeunes-Rives at the University of Neuchâtel. The event, which was a huge success, was jointly organised by the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) in cooperation with Neuchâtel Xamax FCS. More than 300 members of the public attended and had the opportunity to listen with great interest to the two well-known keynote speakers who had been invited to speak at the event: Mr Michel Decastel and Mr Jean-Marc Guillou.

The official opening of the conference was made by Pierre Cornu, (President of the Council of the Foundation of CIES and Judge in the Cantonal Tribunal of Neuchâtel), who presented the two speakers and provided an overview of their respective career paths in Neuchâtel and Africa.

The event started with an introduction by Michel Decastel, who is the 1st Team trainer with Neuchâtel Xamax FCS. He invited the conference delegates to remember the fantastic years during which the club made their first appearance at European level. Also, through his speech, the locally gathered public got to know more about the main guest at this special conference - Jean-Marc Guillou.

And then, “the Master”, Jean-Marc Guillou was introduced. The former French international and ex Xamax player took to the floor and shared with the public his vision for football, as well as some secrets of his unique training methods.

He demonstrated with great skill that, as with a rough diamond, playing talent needs to be chiseled and tirelessly formed with specific exercises to allow players to develop good use of the ball accompanied with perfect technique to dominate their opposite number in each and every situation. Specific examples within Ivorian football were used to illustrate his talk.

It came as no surprise, that large numbers of world class players have come from his academy in the Ivory Coast. Players such as the Kolo brothers, Yaya Touré, Didier Zokora, Salomon Kalou, Gervinho and Gilles Yapi Yapo are all recent high profile examples.

Following his fascinating talk, Dr. Raffaele Poli, who is responsible for the CIES Football Observatory, chaired a Question and Answer session with Mr. Guillou so as to allow the large number of participants the opportunity to ask individual questions of Mr. Guillou.

Finally, Pierre Cornu closed the evening by thanking the invited speakers and the team from CIES for their work in organising the day. Furthermore, he recognised that the conference had not only helped to better understand the unique approach of such a football visionary, but it had also gathered many specialists and individuals who are passionate about sport from all over the world.

The full event can be watched again online via this link.

Also, you can view the articles and radio interviews for this event below:

Un adepte du beau football de retour à Neuchâtel / RTN
Jean-Marc Guillou se réjouit de revenir à Neuchâtel / arcinfo.ch
« La Côte d’Ivoire aurait pu gagner la Coupe du monde » / Le Temps
Jean-Marc Guillou : « La Côte d’Ivoire aurait pu gagner la Coupe du monde » / Africatime.com
Jean-Marc Guillou : « La Côte d’Ivoire aurait pu gagner la Coupe du monde » / lebabi.net
« La Côte d’Ivoire aurait pu gagner la Coupe du monde avec dix académiciens plus Didier Drogba » / connectionivoirienne.net
Football : la méthode Jean-Marc Guillou / RTS
Jean-Marc Guillou, que les moins de 20 ans… / canal alpha

To find out more about football or sports more generally, please see the various scientific publications of the CIES here.