“The atmosphere on site was just great all weekend. It was really great,” ex-Bundesliga star Maik Franz couldn’t stop raving. In his function as managing director of the 11teamsports Academy, Franz drew a consistently positive conclusion from his first Mini World Championship.
More than 700 children ensured a real World Cup atmosphere on the grounds of the organizing Sachsenliga team SG Taucha 99.
On two tournament days – on Saturday the F-Juniors born in 2013 and 2014 and on Sunday the E-Juniors born in 2011 and 2012 – 32 teams each played their very own world champion.
As part of a small field tournament, each participating team was allocated a football nation in advance, for which the children started on the day of the tournament.
“Consistently positive feedback” after the first Mini World Championships at the 11teamsports Academy
This idea of a mini World Cup in the year of the World Cup in Qatar next winter really worked out at the weekend. Around 2,500 football-loving children, parents, coaches, supervisors and helpers ensured real World Cup fever at the Taucha facility near Leipzig.
“We are happy and happy that we were able to implement everything as we had imagined. Everything worked. The Mini World Cup was of a magnitude that had never existed here in central Germany before,” reported chief organizer David Reich from 11teamsports opposite to sport.de.
The 50 participating football clubs with their 700 children on the pitches gave “consistently positive feedback”, Reich continued: “The atmosphere this weekend was amazing!”
In addition to the sporting competition on the pitch, Maik Franz and his team from 11teamsports brought a whole range of other football attractions with them to Saxony. A five-meter football dartboard, a speed shooting facility, a goal wall and the sports goods retailer’s merchandise shop were “greatly received”, according to the long-time Bundesliga professional.
The first edition of the Mini World Cup, which was won by SG Olympia Leipzig for the country of Morocco in the E-Youth and by VfL Halle for the Netherlands in the F-Youth, is only intended to be the starting signal for further XXL tournaments for children and be teenagers. The next mini world championships of the 11teamsports Academy have been in the planning for a long time.
Franz plans 45 Academy Camps with 3,000 participants
In the coming week, Maik Franz, who once played for VfL Wolfsburg, Karlsruher SC, Eintracht Frankfurt and Hertha BSC in the Bundesliga, will start another project with his newly founded football school to get children even more interested in football in their free time inspire.
A whole series of so-called 11teamsports Academy Camps will take the 40-year-old through the whole of Germany over the next two and a half months.
“There will be a total of 45 camps, for which around 3,000 children have already registered,” Franz confirmed in an interview sport.de. He himself wants to be on site at as many camps as possible.
“We want to organize the best holiday week for the children and want to create experiences. That is our wish and our goal,” Franz continues.
The football holiday camps of the 11teamsports Academy are based on the pillars of football training, fitness training, mental training, nutrition and social responsibility.
The holistic training concept was developed by ex-professional Franz himself, fitness trainer Benjamin Kugel and sports psychologist Prof. Dr. Rene Paasch.
The 45 camps planned so far will take place in ten different federal states. Other events in the series are already being planned.