TSG Wieseck: If the training is about everything

An edge layer in casting. There, on the wesecke, not far from the airfield, stands the youth conveyor center of the TSG. The club is named after a district, which in turn has the name of a small, south adjacent creek. The office consists of five containers. A typical amateur association, one could think of the bird's eye view, but what happens here in terms of junior work is rather untypical. If not even extraordinary.

• Everything for the player
• "Wieseck is like Bayern Munich"
• Significant NLZ criticism
• "These are young people, my god"

This is not alone that you have wellness and fitness areas here, a medical department, parent lounge and fan shop, not even because a team bus is ready, especially the lighter affiliation of the youngest teams is the clearest finger watch: U 19 such as U 17 of the TSG Wieseck play in Hessen's highest league, the U 15 in the Regionalliga, together with the NLZ offspring of large southwest clubs - while the 1st men's team can only be found at the county level. "An amateur association has only limited resources in place, money, at Manpower," explains Deniz Solmaz, athletic head and head of the TSG, "in most other clubs 90 percent of it goes into the 1st team and a bit of what remains for youth About. And with us it is exactly the other way around. " The TSG is a training company, he says, "Of course it would be nice to be able to keep the guys here. But if the resources are not there, I will always handle it as now." Specifically, this means: 90 percent of the players go to the A-Youth to larger clubs, "the last three years it was actually 100 percent". Whether Hesse or Regionalligaverein, in the circle, knew around the work that is done in Wieseck, "It is just with us".

Deniz Solmaz is the head behind the TSG Wieseck. Oliver Vogler

But the Pointe is about it: That's exactly what you want at the TSG: "I'll call themselves with these clubs. Say here, we have two top players in the U 19, when can they train," says Solmaz. "The players should realize that it's just about them."

Everything for the player

The 37-year-old must be briefly thinking as he should bring the concept of the association to a short denominator, though - or just because - they deal with this issue here. "We align everything-centered - what he needs, we will do. We want the best for the players, want to bring them up." In the optimal fall to large clubs. And that works: Bayern München, TSG Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt, Borussia Mönchengladbach - The list of customers of Wieseck talents reads like the WHO-IS-WHO of German football. "We realize how like these young talent centers take our players. You may not be technically trained in a technical way, but they are very clear with pressure. The knowledge, as honesty, how Hierarchy works," says Solmaz The criticism of the status quo of the vortex education closure, to which he sees his TSG Wieseck as a contra-point.

And what's different at the TSG? It is the personality development, which is in the foreground in his club, says Solmaz. This culture shows itself in the appearance of the TSG site: everywhere you have hanged there the slogan "feel free", "because we want the player to have room to unfold themselves and we are not rigidly pretending." It's about freedoms on and next to the square: "To say it a bit flat and provocative: We would like to have the Effenbergs and Kahns, which also have opinions, polarize their own decisions." You are strongly putting up organically forming hierarchies, players would be integrated and taken into account, especially as the communication is central to each other: "We are brutally honest and directly, we'll tell us everything we think. You just need the honesty If you want a human handling. This is getting used to some players and trainers at first. But with us there are these special feedback culture. "

"Wieseck is like Bayern Munich"

And this approach works: "We have no real competition in the circle and district," says Solmaz, "Our club doctor has expressed it that way: Wieseck is like Bayern Munich for the region. The guys want to be cool for them. " You compete in the future with the NLZ of FSV Frankfurt, clubs Offenbach and Wehen Wiesbaden, but many players can not lose in this direction: "Today the players say either I go to Eintracht, to Mainz, Schalke or Hoffenheim - Or I'll stay right here. " Here, the effect makes it clear, on which the association builds: "In the medium term, we benefit from the top players. A player who goes to Bayern Munich in the C youth brings us 20 new e-youth players " In the lowest vintages you are overrun, says Solmaz.

We realize when we play against NLZ teams, how quiet their players are. These are technical robots, technically high, but without personality.

Deniz Solmaz, sporting director TSG Wieseck

Of course, it could also happen that the betlass is too large on top players and results in a descent. "Then you have to push his own interests away," says the sporty ladder, but of course not completely without the performance ideas: The TSG also has fourth and fifth teams in the game, "to give our people from the district here offer ", up but it will be tight:" We never throw someone out of someone, but are always honest before the season and say if we see no chance for some1. But then say: if you want to go through it, then pull it out it through."

For 25 years already there is this special youth concept at the TSG. Solmaz has been at the time for 16 years and now mainly busy. Incidentally, he looks after, even A license holder, the U 17, with which he could rise in the Bundesliga this year. The over 50 other coaches are volunteers in the club. Over 100 teenagers have already made the leap to Profi-NLZ during Solmaz's term of office, training allowances that get clubs when players accumulate the first time in Men's professional football, playing a minority role for the approximately 160,000 euros. "Last year we had a little luck and there were five players at the same time. But it's more so that we have a relatively high contribution and many small sponsors, so we are more independent of it."

Significant NLZ criticism

SOLMAZ itself sees no reason why the TSG approach could get into wobble with a few unsuccessful seasons - on the contrary: "I have the hope that we are as a real alternative. I also believe that we are two years ahead, sometime The big scream comes: something must happen, this whole NLZ structure is not going. You invest as a professional club money without end, but there is nothing around. You take all the players all off, every decision and wonder that you are surprised can not make any decisions on the court. We realize if we play against NLZ teams, how quiet their players are. These are technical robots, technically high, but without personality - that sounds now flat-rate, but in 80 percent The club is that, "Solmaz does not take a leaf in front of her mouth. Too many adults, too much money in the system - all the loop to the players. "At some point, the player is totally round. Personality is interested in anyone anymore. Someone who has an opinion, someone provoked, creates himself with the opponent, with the referee - that's all of them, but that's all lost" he criticizes.

Of course, he coincides in a ridge of critics who target the reality behind the NLZ with a whole bundle of allegations. From the business on the back of children and adolescents, the speech, from merciless sorting, of standardization, lack of personality development, toxic mood, blind pressure, lack of grounding, control delusion, and that the coaches - even to get their progress - make success over development. "Scary" calls Solmaz what he has perceived in recent years. "But that's even good for us. The times are over, where everyone wants to participate. Sure, the top players still want that, but it's much less than five years ago because the image of NLZ has suffered - And unfortunately right too. " At the TSG, one knows the fact that it creates the fewest in professional football and wants to take this fact into account.

"These are young people, my god"

So are "community" and "humanity" favored terms in solmaz's vocabulary: "I have former NLZ players who have flown out of the boarding board because they came home late at their birthday and were drinking. But those are young People, my God, then you just go drink in the evening. If you are doing good performance at the weekend, then that's why it's, "he becomes clear. The social order to train responsible young people, the TSG wants to support also with extra-sporting activities: twice you have already visited with a group Auschwitz, visits to the criminal trailer are also on the program. "It's about conveying standards and values," says Solmaz. Traveling also went to Wembley, to Bernabeu and Camp Nou. In April, a group flies to New York for a week. Even coaches and officials wanted to show that they are needed and no interchangeable human material.

Luca Waldschmidt is the most famous ex-Tsgler. "If you play there, you belong to the best youth players Hessens and this spur is in the team. But you have no feeling of pressure. There is simply a healthy success hunger," the current Wolfsburg professional is quoted in the publication which the TSG introduces your self-image. Also John Patrick Strauss (Erzgebirge Aue), Sebastian Müller (Eintracht Braunschweig), Clemens Riedel (Darmstadt 98), Paul wants (Dynamo Dresden) once wore the Wieseck jersey. The contact with many former remains preserved. "Many also come to visit. For many, it's home," says Solmaz, who emphasizes to contact the players, who play in the 10th league, or not anymore. "Man has remained the same."

His work, he says, be stressful and time consuming, but incredibly fun fun. "It's just something great to take as a amateur club with the greatest to compete against them on the weekend. Most do not know where Wieseck is." That should change if the model actually makes school: in casting, on the wesecke, near the airfield.