Coach Ayere Sylvester Reflects on What He Calls A Good Experience For Freiburgerweg FA in The Nationwide League One Division Two Season

“If I should go by the school standards, that’s 8/15, credit. I am really impressed with myself and the players though not too happy because we should have topped the group, just the little details we failed to work on as we are still a team in progress so to play at this level, they gave their all,” coach of Freiburgerweg FA told Sports247 as regards his scorecard for his team’s performance at the end of the season.

“We will go back to our training, creating chances isn’t our problem but the goal drought, we will put more effort and get it right. Generally, am happy with the players,” he said.

First league experience, second position in the group, two twins, two draws, one loss, and scoring a total of 14, conceding 7 were the statistical results of the team in the NLO2.

“The statistics, it’s a good one, a fair result inasmuch there are still more to do and improve on. Having previously played regional leagues, friendly matches and now playing a league with the verified license of participation, that shows that there is consistency and progression. It does make sense playing stagnant football, personally, I like to set targets and grow, so we have planned for this and our next target is how to get promoted to play NLO 2 and send some of the players to get more professional games. It gives the coaching crew joy as I don’t like keeping players for more than two years, they should go and meet other coaches, players and challenges,” Ayere said.

“This is a good platform for us as we having been playing at a local level, now let’s come and prove ourselves on a stage like this, and we have been able to show that we can go on more and more. With the whole organization of the league, to be honest, it doesn’t make sense when you play five games in seven days, at least players need to recover for 48 hours, the body is like a machine, so if they can’t do two days rest, the one-day interval is fair enough considering the hot temperature, situation of the pitch, sometimes this games we even play less than 24 hours. It’s a good platform for players to showcase themselves but I don’t know why it’s rushed and finish everything within one week,” he said.

Alongside recovery time for teams, he also cited cost and logistics as one of the major challenges for the organizers but feels it’s better to have a few teams who can meet up to the standard participate in a proper league format with good spacing, rather than have numerous teams and squeezing the fixtures into a limited time which can expose players to fatigue and injuries.

“As a coach, it’s good to take time out and watch other teams play especially being the coach of a state team, there are many good players around the world, so it’s good to watch out for these ones and give them a platform to grow more,” he concluded.