Michał Probierz, who defends Polish football training ideas against everything and everything, would have a hard nut to crack if he tried to prove that our football coaches do not differ from volleyball coaches.
- Michał Winiarski leads the team of Germany and Aluron Zawiercie in the Champions League,
- Michał Mieszko Gogol is the head coach of the Latvian national team,
- Mariusz Sordyl works in Ukraine with the team with which he immediately won the local league, and earlier he also won gold medals and domestic cups in the Romanian and Turkish leagues,
- Kamil Sołoducha helps Sordyl, and before that he worked for many years in the staff of the Finnish national team,
- Oskar Kaczmarczyk has also worked for the Finnish team,
- Jacek Nawrocki won the silver and bronze of the Champions League and three medals of the club World Championships (two silvers and a bronze) with Skra Bełchatów,
- Andrzej Kowal was able to lead Resovia to silver in the Champions League.
Yes, for years the men’s national team of Poland has been led to success only by foreign trainers. Yes, our women’s team also joined the world leaders, reaching the first World Cup quarter-final in years under the leadership of a coach from another country. Yes, our best clubs are mainly run by foreigners (although Piotr Graban shows his great side since he is responsible for Projekt Warszawa). Anyway, the above review shows that Polish volleyball coaches are a group that Polish coaches from other team disciplines can envy. And the Polish Volleyball Association has just served something that will help strengthen their position and educate new professionals.
The answer to odds out of nowhere
– The process began in 2009 and ended on February 7, 2023 with an entry in Monitor Polski – says the president of PZPS Sebastian Swiderski. It’s about announcing coaching qualifications in volleyball. The Minister of Sport and Tourism has just approved a project thanks to which Polish coaches will receive diplomas respected throughout Europe. The quality of the acquired rights is to be guaranteed by the Institute of Sport. And the way to get them is to lead not only through universities.
– Some time ago, courses appeared on the Internet out of nowhere and within two days you could undergo training for a volleyball coach. As a mother, I wouldn’t want to worry about where the diploma of the coach with whom I send my child to the camp comes from – says Marta Wójcik, a former Polish representative, who is now responsible for the Trenerzypzps.pl portal
After logging in to it, everyone will receive access to a lot of text and video materials from various fields – volleyball technique, but also psychology or physiology. Academies of Physical Education also have access to these materials. They cooperate with PZPS, but they will no longer be the only way to obtain coaching qualifications.
Droga Anastasiego, Heynena i Antigi
– We put emphasis on gaining knowledge in an informal way. Such Michał Winiarski has just walked this path. First, he studied as a second coach with Roberto Piazza in Skra Bełchatów, then the market quickly gave him a job. He had predispositions, just like Daniel Pliński [prowadzi Stal Nysę, a z młodzieżowymi reprezentacjami Polski zdobył brązowe medale MŚ i ME]. They both always watched the coaches and felt how it was done. It is enough that such people pass our training, they do not have to go to university – argues Alojzy Świderek, head of the Polish Volleyball Academy, and once a coach of the Polish women’s national team.
– In the old days, in the 20th century, informal education was neglected. Volleyball coaches were produced only in universities, in AWFs. And yet, many outstanding players from the national team did not have time to go to college and we lost many of them, even though they knew the coaching kitchen and had predispositions. The integrated qualifications system makes learning outcomes more important than the method of gaining knowledge – explains Świderek. And he adds: – Anastasi learned on his own, watching other coaches. Similarly, Lozano, Velasco, Heynen or Antiga, who practically won the world championship as a coach as a player [z Polską w 2014 roku, chwilę przed MŚ kończąc karierę zawodniczą].
Example from Great Britain
Świderek argues that the new way of educating coaches is better than the old one, and as proof he points to the success of the British, who supposedly followed this new way in preparation for the Olympic Games in London 2012.
– In 2013, I attended a coaching conference organized by the Institute of Sport. One of the heads of British sport said that before the Olympics in 2012 they checked how to train a good coach and the research showed that knowledge from formal education is 10 percent. future trainer skills at a good level that 20 percent. is the experience and skills that such a trainer acquires during meetings and training courses, while as many as 70% of is the knowledge that this man gains by working with other trainers, learning from them and modifying his experience on an ongoing basis – says Świderek.
– The Games in London confirmed that the British went the right way, they achieved great success there [oczywiście w dużej mierze też dzięki ogromnym nakładom finansowym na wprowadzenie do sportu nauki czy na najlepsze przygotowania dla swoich sportowców] he adds.
In fact, Great Britain finished third in the medal standings at that Games, behind only the USA and China.
Lots of knowledge. But not about the eye muscles
Of course, awarding coaching diplomas in a new way does not mean that PZPS will lower the threshold of requirements. On the website Trenerzypzps.pl you can get to know the material already presented on as many as 3.5 thousand. pages. The portal is a place where materials are constantly added by both union sources and the coaches themselves, as well as by people simply interested in volleyball, e.g. enthusiasts running their own pages about the discipline or social media channels. At Trenerzypzps.pl you can also look for a job in the profession and find a trainer who describes his qualifications and possibly boasts of his experience.
However, since 2016 there has been a website Egzaminytrenerskiepzps.pl – here PZPS gives access to materials that you need to master in order to pass the exam for a trainer. After logging in and purchasing access, the user has unlimited possibilities to perform trial tests.
Apparently PZPS in every area important for a versatile coach requires only things that are really useful for volleyball. – You don’t need to have comprehensive knowledge of, for example, anatomy to be a great volleyball coach. We provide knowledge of anatomy that will be useful for building a volleyball player, and we do not require, for example, knowledge of the structure of the skull or eye muscles – says Świderek.
The level will be supervised by the Institute of Sport, and this one is to be the highest. – The Polish qualifications framework corresponds to the European one. Now our trainers, having obtained our diploma, will be able to work all over Europe. No one will challenge their competence – sums up Marta Wójcik.
