Inter Academy Japan steps into the future

TOKYO – Inter Academy Japan has taken another step forward with the inauguration of the first training centre entirely dedicated to the project.

Located in Fuchu, the centre is not only home to a brand-new Soccer School – the fourth in Japan – but will also provide a base for the country’s first Elite Teams programme, the pinnacle of Inter’s youth development methodology.

The Inter Academy Japan project was originally launched with the aim of training local coaches, then expanded to include the development of young footballers. The idea behind the programme is to train youngsters according to the Inter methodology without them needing to leave their home country, all the while adhering to the rules of football and international ethical standards.

The opening of the Fuchu (Tokyo) centre comes five years after the Inter Academy Japan project launched and joins other centres in Yoyogi, Sagamihara and Odawara. Attending the inauguration ceremony were Inter vice president Javier Zanetti, Inter Academy project director Barbara Biggi and Inter Academy technical director Marco Monti.

There are currently 300 youngsters between the ages of six and 14 and a team of ten local coaches in the Inter Academy Japan programme. The local instructors are overseen by Alessandro Zanato, one of the coaches from Inter’s wider youth football programme in Italy. Zanato is assisted by the project’s sporting director Shoji Jo, an icon of the Japanese game.

Starting this month, Fuchu will run the Soccer School activities that have seen Inter Academy go from strength to strength around the world since its foundation in 2008. It will also herald a further step forward for the project, representing as it does a sort of Inter Academy 2.0: the evolution from simple Soccer School to technical development centre divided by age.

The Elite Teams programme will launch in April with two teams – Under-9 and Under-15 – and with the aim of one day building up a full range of sides from Under-8 right through to Under-18. The Elite Teams programme will provide identical training to that given in the Inter youth academy itself, with the teams taking part in local tournaments to boot.