Yasin plays football in a team for people with disabilities with Gregorio as his coach. Despite being very young, Yasin enjoys taking on responsibility and assisting Gregorio during the football training. Following the education, Gregorio hopes he will be able to include Yasin even more in coaching their team.

QUICK FACTS

The Tandem Education was established to promote equal opportunities for youth and young adults with a disability to move into football coaching. During the education programme one participant with a disability (Young Coach) links up with one participant without a disability (Tandem Partner) to form a ‘Tandem’.

Yasin and Gregorio are both from the DreamTeam of FC Basel 1893 – a team for people with a disability – and have known each other for some time. The experience of taking part in the Tandem Young Coach Education in Wedau (2021) has brought the two of them even closer together. Young Coach Yasin is proud of how he now went from being a player to a coach and was able to lead a training session himself. This development has also been recognised by his Tandem Partner Gregorio who was often pleasantly surprised by Yasin’s abilities.

YASIN & GREGORIO

 

Project: Central Europe, September 2021

 

Parent Organisation:

FC Basel 1893

 

Project Central Europe | Facts
0
Peer Young Coaches
22
Benefiting Children

MY STORY

Gregorio (Tandem Partner): I thought it was great to be here with Yasin and to develop as a team. Especially, the development of Yasin to see how he evolved from being a player to a coach during the training was great. I was surprised at some moments by his abilities and am very proud of how he masters everything.

Yasin (Young Coach): I am most proud that I was able to lead a training session for the first time. For example, I learnt how to set up everything before the training. So, in general I am happy that I got a feeling of what it is like to be a coach.

Gregorio: We have learnt to be patient with each other, to listen to each other better, and how to communicate together. Also, we now know how to plan, develop, and adapt a training together. We ask ourselves questions like “What worked particularly well? What didn’t work? How can we do it better next time?”

Yasin: It feels good to also understand the position of the coach better. I find it very interesting to learn more. And I realised what it takes to run a training. As a coach, I have to get along with the whole team, make sure we work well as a team and generally do a competent job to run a good training.

Gregorio: I already had a certain trust in Yasin as we have known each other for a long time. But [during the education] to further strengthen our trust, we did an exercise where we had to lead each other around blindly [one person blindfolded, the other person guiding]. At the beginning, I was a bit insecure because I didn’t know exactly what to expect. But he made progress during the exercise and in the end, it went very well. I can really trust Yasin, blindly.

Yasin: I think I have a great tandem partner in Gregorio. I’ve had a very great week with him. Mutual trust is very important to me when working as a tandem. And that we understand each other. For me, football is all about teamwork. And the teamwork worked really well during this week.

Gregorio: My goal is to involve Yasin as often as possible and in different ways in our training sessions. For example as an assistant. But of course, not during the whole training session because he is still a player. I could see him preparing and leading parts of a training session from time to time, for example the warm-up. I also see the possibility of him leading a training session for the very young children.

Yasin: What I like about football is that it doesn’t matter who you are. I don’t have to be Lionel Messi or any other professional player to play football. The level of performance doesn’t matter, because for me, football is about having fun. You are always moving, and you can always meet new people through football.

GALLERY YASIN & GREGORIO

Young Coaches

Our Young Coaches are community leaders and role models in less privileged societies. They commit themselves to support the children of their communities by conveying important social topics (conflict resolution, inclusion, HIV prevention, etc.) through football. Each of the Young Coaches represents a unique personal story.