They are living a daydream. 22 young girls aged 8 to 15 have been following a 100% female football course at AJA since Monday. Surrounded by educators / players from the AJA-Stade Auxerrois women’s team who play in Regional 1, these budding footballers, beginners or experienced, train until Friday, taking advantage of the beautiful facilities of the icaunais club. On the program: improvement workshops, games, discovery of the training center and meeting with professional players.
On the indoor synthetic pitch of the AJA training center, the young trainees are concentrated. Their coaches too. “Movement, the yellows! The greens, we move, we ask! Dana, you’re alone, lift your head before receiving the ball to take the information, and let go faster. Well done!” But the mines are especially happy. Like that of Jade, 13, “right middle” in young people at the AJA-Stade Auxerrois who could not miss this internship. Not the first one she participates in.
“It’s really good because you can meet other people, and you can improve yourself, even if you’ve never touched a ball!” – Jade, 13-year-old footballer
“I like to come there, because there are several girls, she says. There are some who come from other clubs that we don’t necessarily know, that’s also why I wanted to do this internship. We don’t know how they play, and we can learn from each one, for example on technical gestures. And since we’re together all day, of course, we make friends. “ And Jade, who would like to rub shoulders with the high level later (“Professional? Maybe!”), feels all the benefits that this internship brings him in football.
“It’s really good because you can meet other people, and you can improve yourself, even if you have never touched a ball. There are girls here who have never played soccer, they learn and it makes them want to play it again. In any case, I see that we progress more at this course than during a classic training every two days. Each day, we have a theme. The control ball for example. The educators are very nice and they know it! “ An internship happening “in the top” says Claire Deschamps, player at AJA-Stade Auxerrois for three years and also an educator. “From the first day, all the girls got on very well with each other. There is good group cohesion, while there are girls outside AJA-Stade Auxerrois who come from quite far away. are from Morvan for example. “
“We are trying to bring together as many girls as possible and change mentalities” – Claire Deschamps, player and educator at AJA-Stade Auxerrois
Primary objective : “That they have fun, and that women’s football develops as much as possible here. I come from the Paris region, and there are a lot more teams than in the area. It is also due to a lack population here, I think that plays a lot. We try to bring together as many girls as possible and change mentalities so that they integrate female categories as quickly as possible instead of staying in mixed clubs with boys. “ A situation already experienced by Claire Deschamps. “It’s not always easy. When they train or have to play, they have to change in the toilet and not in the locker room because there are no places for them. Some trainees have me. spoken, it still exists. It is these kinds of details that make girls want to join women’s clubs, to be together. We accept them with pleasure, at any level. At their age, it doesn ‘t matter. There is no selection yet. If we can recover any thanks to this course, it will be with great pleasure. “
“We’re still a professional club, continues Claire Deschamps. We have a great structure, and we can afford to be a pillar in the field of women’s football. “ And to attract, you have to make people dream. “We showed them the whole training center. I had fun looking at them, and they all had stars in their eyes, it was a crazy thing! We were just showing them a picture of the professionals, a youth classroom … They were amazed: ‘Wow, that’s too good!’ They are attracted to the setting, and you can tell they want to go down that road later. “ On Wednesday, the 22 young trainees met the players of the professional group of the AJA. Another magical moment for the little footballers, who each had the right to two places for the AJA-Pau on Saturday in the league.
Another goal of the internship: to show that the dream of one day rubbing shoulders with the top of women’s football is accessible, and that the AJA’s infrastructures offer the ideal framework to flourish in sport, but not only. “From the youngest, study sports sections in colleges can be integrated, continues Claire Deschamps. If you want to have a good training for later, you have to have the girls from the start. The advantage is that we have trained educators, which allows them to learn good basics, so that they can choose their path later. The advantage of being in a club like AJA is that they will be offered studies and professional training alongside their desire to continue playing football. It’s a whole package. “ Registration details for the next spring internship (in April) will be announced in December.