alex

Alex had a day of rest before heading to Bayern Munich’s Sabener Strasse training complex for his training opportunity. When he arrived he found several thousand fans who were on hand to watch the first team prepare for it’s upcoming Bundesliga season.

Alex was taken to one of the many team rooms where he was introduced to the goalkeepers from the u16, 17 and 18 age groups as they were changing for the session. The group then went out onto the training field and began the session with some light running and stretching. The group warmed up with some hand-eye coordination work with a partner and 2 balls. From there the group moved on to various footwork and jumping exercises over 2 foot hurdles: 1 foot hops, high knees, sideways, and knees to chest. Next, the session progressed a series of diving exercises of a 3.5 foot hurdles that involved catching or deflecting thrown balls. At the end of the session was a cool down, but Alex was not quite finished as he was also invited to train the u16 Bayern academy team. Although still jetlagged from his transatlantic flight, and fatigued from the keeper training, he wanted to make to most of the experience, and accepted.

To warm-up, the group as a whole passed and moved with several balls, did some jogging, and played some possession. The main part of the session, which lasted about an hour, was an inter-team scrimmage during which the trainers would stop and impose restrictions such as one-touch and two-touch. He would also take time to explain to the players what could be done better. After a short break the team moved on to technical finishing that included one-timers from the 18, wall passes with a finish, and headers. The session concluded with penalty kicks and a cool down that consisted of 2 slow easy laps around the field.

When asked about the experience, Alex said, “The Bayern Munich training was the best experience that I have had so far in my soccer life. It will never fade in my memory and will always remind me what it will take to become a world class player.”

Such is the case of Alex Wimmer, a YPT Residence Program goalkeeper who, interestingly enough, not only has dual citizenship but, multi-citizenship. Alex was born in Philadelphia which, of course, makes him a United States citizen. His father Kurt is an Austrian national which gives Alex Austrian citizenship. Alex’s mother, whose parents are German, was born in England which gave her dual-citizenship which in turn was passed on to Alex. So…..if, when he gets older, Alex were to be good enough to be considered by all of the national teams mentioned above, he would have his choice of playing in the World Cup for the United States, Austria, Germany, or England!

Alex’s diverse heritage, and ability as a goalkeeper, makes him interesting prospect for European clubs. Alex has already been identified by the u16 Austrian National Team as a player they would like to keep an eye on and had been scheduled fly to Austria for a national team training camp a few weeks after the 2005 Residence Program.

Fortunate for Alex this year, YPT added a goalkeeping component to this year’s Residence Program when it hired Bayern Munich academy goalkeeper trainer Alex Bayer, a former youth professional with the German champion. Bayern Munich is home to arguably one of the world’s best goalkeepers – Oliver Kahn. When Trainer Bayer learned that Alex would be in the neighborhood in August, arrangements were made for him to train at Bayern Munich.

YPT works to do whatever it can to introduce good American players to professional youth academies abroad. Some European clubs, however, are reluctant to consider players from outside the European Union due to the sometimes stringent rules regarding how and when these clubs can sign one of these players. Even if an American player is good enough to be offered a contract by a European club, there sometimes can be very little a club can do to secure his signature. These rules are in place to protect and foster home grown talent in Europe.

However, there are some ways that can make it easier for talented American players to be considered a club in Europe, one of which is if either one of a players parents was born in Europe.