Academy

Why Birkirkara FC Youth Academy?

Birkirkara FC Youth Academy’s mission statement is to develop young, talented players who are both technically and mentally prepared to play for the Club’s Senior Team and the National Teams. This is no small challenge, as Birkirkara’s senior team is one of the most demanding on its players.

Our main emphasis is on quality rather than quantity focusing mainly on the player’s personal development. The Club’s philosophy is to have the Senior Team’s core made up of Academy players, who will be brought up in the club’s culture setting example to other players from other clubs.

Our Coaching Staff

Our Academy prides itself on having the best of the crop when it comes to its staff. All of the coaches employed by the Academy are qualified and licensed, bringing with them a wealthy mixture of experience and enthusiasm. All the coaches from Under 10 to the Under 17 have a minimum of UEFA B license, with the majority of the coaches still furthering their studies to attain more qualifications.

Each team has a team coach assisted by another coach to give as much individual attention as possible. These are supported by a physical trainer, and a goalkeepers’ coach. Furthermore we have a physiotherapist to help the players in their physical and development needs. A purposely built gym on our premises is also available to our players.

Girls Football and Birkirkara FC

Birkirkara FC was always on the forefront of women's football, being one of the very first local football clubs to have a women’s team. Being a pioneer in this area, the Club prides itself of various successes, having won all the local competitions on numerous occasions.

In the Academy we have well established girls’ teams for Under-12s, Under-15s and Under-19s; all teams participating in competitions organized by YFA and MFA.

Talent Identification Programme

Following a comprehensive review of the trials system at our Academy, we are launching the Talent Identification Programme for the forthcoming season 2020/21. Talent identification focuses on developing elite footballers for the future. Hence, our Academy will be working on searching young players who may not be elite footballers yet, but possess the physical and psychological attributes to eventually become one. We do understand that some of the players may have not yet developed, or been exposed to a high level of coaching, but show a high level of coachability, sensitivity to training and the motivation to learn.

From season 2020-21 the Academy will not opt to retain a limited number of elite players per age group. As such all the players we consider to have the skill, coachability and motivation to progress will be retained. We will communicate to the parents of any players which we will not retain the reasons behind our decision in a private and confidential manner. We will also assist them in finding another nursery or maybe another sport where they might show more interest. During the first weeks of September a selection of qualified coaches from our Academy will evaluate the players in the categories U10 to U13 while training at our training grounds. Such trials are open to all players born between 2008 and 2011. After this stage, each age group may be split into two groups which may vary in number, according to their skill level. During the season the coaching staff, at their discretion, switch players from one group to the other, depending on the progress shown and motivation.

The Talent Identification Program will focus on developing all players with particular attention given to helping the less skilled individuals catch up technically to the stronger ones. Thus, when they finish their growth spurt, we have a much larger pool of adequately skilled players.

We strongly believe that these are changes worth making to and will improve the valuable work of the Academy in recent years, and continue producing Premier league and National Team players.