My adventure with sport – interview with Damian, coach at the Aliplast Group’s Football Academy

Welcome to the first in a series of interviews with our Employees about their passions and interests. Enjoy reading!

Damian – captain of the Aliplast Football Team, Coach of the Aliplast Group's Football Academy and a long-time employee of Aliplast (complaints department). He holds a UEFA coaching licence.

Please tell me, Damian, when did your adventure with sport, specifically football, start?

Football has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My dad was a professional football player, and he planted this passion in me. My uncles also played football. I still remember the days when team captains would exchange pennants with their club's crest on them, my dad was team captain, and he would bring me one from every game – I remember having a whole wall covered with them.

What motivated you to become a coach?

As I've already mentioned, football has been in my life since I was a little boy. Even as a child, I dreamt of playing football at the highest possible level and becoming a coach after my career was over. And why a coach? Because a coach is the kind of person that makes you believe that you can make your dreams come true. You just have to work hard. This is why I stress to young football students that hard work equals success.

Tell us Damian how you work with children.

Working with children is a great experience. I try to pass on my knowledge, but also to teach and educate them. I think any sport is great. It gives a lot of opportunities, develops people not only physically but also mentally. As a coach I try to develop the children athletically, but I also put importance on educating them – to make them good and kind people.

Is this Aliplast Group’s Football Academy your first time working with children?

This is not my first work with children. I have been working at the Swidniczanka Academy since 2015, where I worked with children from the 2013, 2016 and 2017 years.

Your coach idol?

I don't have an idol at the moment who I follow and who is a role model for me. I value many good coaches, and I learn something different from each of them. There’s no one perfect person. You can take inspiration from different coaches and learn something different and new from each of them. At the moment I value two coaches the most, namely Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola.

Which team do you support?

I definitely support FC Barcelona, but I keep saying I'm all for quality football no matter who's playing.

Which league do you watch the most?

I think it’s Premier League because the games are very intense, making most of the games very exciting. However, La Liga, which is the Spanish League, is the most pleasing to the eye, as it is a technical football and you can see a lot of unconventional passes there and admire the technical mastery of some players.

Going back to the football academy, do you plan playing some matches?

I think it would be a very cool experience for the kinds. The problem, however, is that the children's friendly games are always played within a given age group, and our academy has children aged 6 to 13, that is, from several age groups, and this prevents us from playing friendly games against other teams. We can't play a match with 8-year-olds because it will be unsafe for these youngest 6-year-olds, while 10-13-year-olds may feel uncomfortable playing against children younger than themselves. In the future if there were at least 6-7 kids in one year group in our academy, then I am able to organise a team to play a match.