Lesotho Football Association (Lefa), in collaboration with the Dutch Football Association (KNVB) embarked on a high level coaching course for elite Lesotho league and national coaches aimed at enhancing the local coaches’ skills.
The course that was held at Bambatha Ts’ita Sports Arena from Thursday,13 July 2017, and came to an end on Monday,17 July 2017, and was carried out by two Dutch coaches, Johan Neeskens and Bert Zuurman.
Neeskens has led the Dutch national team to the World Cup Finals in 1974 and 1978. He began coaching in 1998 when he took the position of assistant coach for the Dutch national team during them qualifiers and finals of the FIFA World Cup. Since then, Neeskens has provided coaching or technical support to the Australian national team, FC Barcelona and Mamelodi Sundowns FC.
As for Zuurman, he works as head coach and technical director of Ozone FC in Bengaluru, India. He is an active participant of the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) WorldCoaches programme, having travelled to over 10 countries with the programme.
The WorldCoaches programme operates in Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, Suriname, Zambia and South Africa.
The course was organized by an African Clean Energy (ACE), a Dutch and Lesotho-based social enterprise. ACE Vice director, Alice Walker-Troostwijk stated that the course came at the right time for Lesotho football as the national pre-seasons are set to begin soon.
Zuurman said the WorldCoaches programme is meant for making football simple, attractive, accessible and enjoyable to as many people as possible, therefore he and his partner were happy for the chance to share their vision with prominent figures of the local football scene.
Zuurman added that out of that course they were to make the coaches improve their style of play that will lead to making football enjoyable.
“For Lesotho football society to produce good future soccer stars, I advice them to invest much on development. It is always wise to allow children to start being engaged in sport at the age of 5 – 6,” Zuurman said.
Lesotho Correctional Service (LCS) assistant coach, Shalane Lehohla, felt that they had learnt a lot from the course as he said they were now aware that good football doesn’t even require head cracking plans or technicality but should rather be taken simply