“Good job, guys,” says Nicolai Adam, pleased with the nearly 30 schoolchildren who are sat down in a semi-circle in front of him. “You had fun. That's the most important thing.” Adam is leading the camp in Florida together with Manuel Hiemenz, Uwe Bindewald and Karl-Heinz Körbel, head of the Eintracht academy.
Players have big effect
Körbel explains the key factors in the academy’s work: “When the players are here, it has a big impact. We can show the kids how the first team work and it makes the players accessible. Of course, we also like showing off the DFB Cup, which amazes the boys and girls.” Eintracht board member Fredi Bobic also stopped by and was happy to be included in the group photo.
The youngsters come from near the IMG Academy in Bradenton – not far from Tampa in Florida – but also from the state of Michigan, where Eintracht will be opening a new soccer academy in September in partnership with the Global Performance Academy (GPA). The morning before the historic DFB Cup win against Bayern Munich, Eintracht board member Axel Hellmann and GPA CEO Andy Kotsovos signed the contract to establish the start of a strategic collaboration.
The partnership includes the building of a general school offering the highest level of education as well a soccer academy, starting in autumn 2019. The academy will promote the footballing philosophy and values of Eintracht, accompanied by the slogan “German engineering of football”. GPA’s school campus is to be built in the Total Sports Park in Washington, Michigan.
