Alessandro Piovesanpresident of the Academy of Venice, has in recent days brought a focus on what the orange-greens work with the very young. These are the words of the former footballer, now a fundamental cornerstone in the lagoon project regarding the footballers of tomorrow.
What is the Venice Academy for those who don’t know it?
“It is the basic activity of Venezia FC, from mini chicks-little friends up to chicks-first kicks and therefore represents all the activities that Venezia FC does with young children. Then there are all the activities with the municipality, commercial and social activities, everything that has a relationship with the city on a constitutional level. I have been president since 2014 and initially it was only a role of representation and guarantee towards the parent company, then given the commitment and with the failure of the Korablin era I found myself managing a transition situation, I also studied the Academy phenomenon in the United States and I brought and adapted an American model to our football by developing all the commercial and service areas that revolve around the technical aspect which is the fundamental one. Today we have around 180-200 children, in addition to this we also have two football schools called H Farm and Astori, but we plan to also set up some other schools, we will bring our model of playing sports to schools. We launched the Futuri Leoni initiative by entering nursery schools also thanks to the contribution of our commercial partners and this was an added value, bringing qualified instructors and Venezia gadgets also helps to retain the fans of tomorrow as well as bringing the values of sport”.
Venezia FC is always very attentive to the territory:
“It is certainly a stone on which to structure the youth sector. The size of a tree depends on the depth of its roots are given by the Academy, we returned to training at Taliercio and together with the municipality we went to disadvantaged areas to bring the values of sport and this certainly created a certain sympathy”.
How satisfying is it to work with very young people?
“The sense of responsibility I carry within me is important, I know the area, the institutions, the companies that work with Venezia. Reliability and customer care are important, and being Venetian is a fundamental starting point if you want to work in the youth sector. Above all, children’s dream should be to play for their hometown team. I am trying to ensure that as many children as possible become part of the Academy from an early age because we have instructors who are the most qualified in the area and secondly we have to meet the child’s dream with the hope that the his dream is to become the Modolo, Pohjanpalo, Busio and Pierini of the moment”.
Finally, a thought on Vanoli’s Venice which is making an extraordinary journey and how Penzo can support this journey:
“I hope that in the next matches, after seasons with few spectators, there will be many Venetians to see Venezia. A city that has around 27 million foreign visitors makes it strange to me that they don’t come to Penzo, but it makes me even stranger when our people don’t come to support the team, especially now that it’s going well. It is important that everyone comes to support their city’s team and that they spontaneously come to sing and have fun, an important work has been done in the last six months, I want to underline this. While before the curve fans were the historic ones when I was there too, now there are many young people who come to have fun and sing, this must ensure that families also come closer and are less afraid of coming to the stadium, because Penzo is becoming a place for young people and fun. The team is giving us emotions this year. It would be nice if all the families came to the stadium. The Academy is an example, all the children come to the stadium and to the activities done with the players, an operation also supported by Vanoli and Antonelli”.
