Ethiopian Coaches Find A Home Away From Home In America
 

- By Joseph Schoenbauer, Saturday, April 21, 2007

In a two-week trip sponsored by the US Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Academy for Educational Development (AED), seven coaches from Ethiopia were given the opportunity to travel to America for the first time ever to witness US soccer from a coaching, playing and management perspective and to share in cultural experiences with American families that they would be staying with along the way.

The trip was broken up into two parts, the first a week in Washington DC where the coaches went through the required training in order to receive their US Soccer Federation National “D” Level Youth coaching licenses.  The training was led in part by Len Oliver, the Director of Training for DC Stoddert, who has trained over 3,300 coaches from over 62 countries, and was well received by each of the seven Ethiopian coaches, one of which was Tesfaye Woldegiorgis, a 69-year old goalie who has been coaching teams in Ethiopia for over 24 years.  He could be seen diving to make saves in goal during a number of the training drills!

In their comments following their successful completion of the week long training, they all noted, through a translator, that “The training has been very, very good” and that “our mixing with coaches from other places has added to our experience. We are very pleased.”

The coaches went on to explain that they had learned a number of things that they couldn’t wait to share with their players back in Ethiopia, from points on skill development, to goalkeeping drills, down to the big difference between our countries when it comes to preparation before games.

From Washington DC, they were set to move on to Richmond where they were to work with VCU’s SportsCenter and the Richmond Strikers youth soccer teams to further their education in sports management and coaching practices.  The Ethiopian’s were also excited at the prospect of being hosted by Richmond Striker families to get a healthy taste of some American culture.

Last but not least, the trip will continue back to Ethiopia, where a number of American coaches will be selected to travel to Ethiopia to go through a similar two-week training program.

For more information on Ethiopian soccer, please visit http://www.ethiopianfootball.com/ or search “Ethiopia” on www.fifa.com