Many boys and girls dream of being able to shoot and behead as well as Thomas Müller or Alexandra Popp. Certainly also the little ones from FC Deisenhofen’s “FuKi” football kindergarten, who meet every Friday for a practice session. Of course, they are still a long way from being able to follow in the footsteps of their role models, especially with shoe size 25. But progress is being made, logically in small steps, but as they say, some summiteers can already tie their shoelaces without outside help . The youngest are just four years old, the old warhorses are six. If the seed bears fruit, they could stand their ground at the 2035 Women’s World Cup or the 2038 Men’s World Cup.
But stop! That is not the primary goal of FuKi, as Dennis Petersen, head of the youth department at FC Deisenhofen, emphasizes. Instilling a desire for exercise in the children and educating them about sporting fairness in a playful way also plays a major role. And if a child leaves FuKi at the age of six and doesn’t join the youth club at FC Deisenhofen, preferring to do gymnastics, swim, do athletics or play handball in their free time, “then that’s fine with us,” says Petersen. It is a holistic sporting early education that the FuKi offers, in which, in addition to dealing with football, mobility, dexterity, responsiveness and social skills are promoted in particular. The motto: “You must be eleven friends” is upheld in Deisenhofen. One of the fixed rituals is that the children bow and fold their hands when they are greeted.
Every Friday from 2.15 p.m. there is a lot of activity on the artificial turf pitch of FC Deisenhofen. The three classes from 2016 to 2018, each with around 30 children, then start their 45-minute training session one after the other. While some parents used to be there on the pitch, they now have to watch from outside. That way, the kids could better focus on playing football, Petersen said. After warming up with a catching game, technique, goal shooting and a classic training game for small goals are on the program. It is played in any weather. In the ten years since he has been leading FuKi, only two training days have had to be canceled due to snowfall, reports Petersen, who runs the football kindergarten integrated into FC Deisenhofen privately at a monthly fee of 20 euros per child.
The enthusiasm is great in the soccer kindergarten of FC Deisenhofen.
(Photo: FC Deisenhofen)
The demand is enormous, there is currently a waiting list for the 2017 vintage. Petersen says that interest in football has increased enormously, especially among girls. Half of the kindergarten consists of girls. Do hopeful talents already emerge in preschool age? You can see when a child likes to move and whether it understands the game, “but not whether it can become a professional,” says the FuKi boss. Most of the children are Bayern fans, others rave about the lions, but also about Barcelona, Frankfurt and Nuremberg. Robert Lewandowski was the hero for the little ones for a long time, “now it’s Jamal Musiala,” says Petersen. And he couldn’t tie his shoelaces at the age of four.
In the series “My number” the SZ presents people every day until Christmas, in whose life a number has a special meaning – from 1 to 24 like in an advent calendar.