Zsolt Kopornyik won a league silver medal with the NEKA U16 boys’ team, but for the new season the squad underwent significant changes.

According to the head coach, putting together the team will be a massive task, thus for the coming period individual skills development and long-term rewards will be at the forefront of his efforts.

 

„Due to the nature of academic training squads change every year, so this year I have to build up a team from scratch, since fourteen new players have arrived. This, of course, is not an easy task and poses a big challenge for me. I believe that only with structured and well-constructed work can you do the job and move forward.” Zsolt Kopornyikcontinued after having looked at the current situation:“The young players came from diverse club environments, where they received various workloads, so they do not perform at the same level. In the first months my most important task is to even out their differences attempting to create a team from many talented individuals. This will be a long process.”

During the pre-season the team took part in the Kanyó Memorial tournament and successfully arrived back to Balatonboglár with a silver medal.

“The tournament has been very useful and a good test for us, because I asked the organizers to put us into the tougher group, so that we could meet Hungarian, Swedish, Slovenian and Czech opponents. I think we got a picture of the boys, but there is a lot of work ahead of us.

Many of our new players need corrective exercises, core strength improvement, which is inevitable for conditional competency development at a later stage. At technical and tactical classes, we must also take into account their different game skill levels.”

It is hard to talk about the result to be achieved by the end of the season, the more so as this time the individual development will be in the centre of attention.

“The Western division of this age group’s championship is very strong, we have to compete against excellent opponents, and since the kids are only sixteen years of age, I do not want to put too much pressure on them. You cannot get a team to reach the top every single season, but the key is to stabilize our position and train at the right level. At the same time, if the boys are developing at the right pace, they can perform confidently in the championship by this spring” – summarised Zsolt Kopornyik this season’s plans.