Breaking Down Walls

There are 4,502 miles of Bluegrass, rolling countryside and ocean between Paducah, Kentucky and Dortmund, Germany. It’s nearly a day-long journey by bus, escalator and plane from the Commonwealth’s rural western corner to Germany’s eighth largest city. Armando Guell — along with a handful of local players — made the trek to represent Kentucky in international youth soccer games against teams from Germany and Holland in April.

It was a learning experience for players and coaches alike, looking to break down preconceptions about the sport for young Americans and build up new ideas for seasoned coaches. There’s some poetry in that experience coming at a place called Die Gelbe Wand (The Yellow Wall).

Guell, known as coach Tico to most of his players, is part of the Kentucky Olympic Development coaching staff. Now in his third year with the program, Guell stays busy with teaching the sport, both at club level and as head coach for Paducah Tilghman High School’s girls soccer team. With ODP, he served as an assistant coach his first two years, picking up additional roles along the way and eventually becoming head coach for the 2001 boys team. This year he was named head coach for the 2006 boys and served as an assistant on the 2003 team’s recent trip abroad.

Several weeks removed from bratwurst and Brussels sprouts on a cool rainy day in May closer to home, he still smiles talking about the trip. There are a handful of other reasons for him to be jovial as earlier in the day

Pumas Futbol Club — the program he and friend Gerardo “Chile” Herrera have built up in recent years — earned a slew of wins at Kentucky’s Village Cup, one of the highest levels of organized competition for U11 and U12 club teams in the state. The event brings together clubs from across the Commonwealth, hundreds of players with different skills and styles working together. In many ways — Guell says — it’s much like ODP, which mixes When together kids who may have never played on the same team and asks get them to take on the best in their age group.

"It's really fun to see how different kids from different clubs can get together and play so well," Guell said. "But it's funny how club is different than ODP. You have a players who is center forward for his club team — getting all the scores — and all the sudden for ODP he’s playing center back because that’s how it fits for his characterists, his level, his blueprint as a player. That's why we have all the training: to get players comfortable playing positions they never have before. It's a learning experience for them as much as for us."

Originally, Herrera was also supposed to make the trek.

“At the beginning of the season they select the coaches to go to Germany,” Guell said. “They selected Chile to go over there with the other coaches. Out of all the ODP coaching staff, they select just a few.”

Herrera opted not to go this trip, with another coach taking his spot. In December, growing interest in taking both a 2003 girls and boys team led to an invitation for Guell to join as an assistant to Mike Dickey. Currently the Kentucky Fire Juniors technical director, Dickey is a former U.S. National

Team head coach for the U14, U15, and U17 Women’s National teams. According to the Kentucky Fire Juniors, “there are currently over 80 players in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) that have played under Coach Dickey. That impressive total also includes 9 members of U.S. Women’s National team that represented the United States in the Rio 2016 Olympics.”

Guell commended the man with more than 10 State Cup Championships under his belt.

“I was really blessed to work with him for a week in Germany and for months before getting prepared,” Guell said.

Two players from Pumas — Riley Skinner with the 2002’s and Josh King with the 2003’s — also went on the trip, each selected from state-wide player pools. All the participants made their way to Louisville March 28, then flew to Atlanta for a stopover before heading to Düsseldorf.

From Düsseldorf, the teams traveled to Dortmund, where the boys visited Signal Iduna Park and had the opportunity to spend some time at the team store of Borussia Dortmund, the home team. Because of how the training and travel schedules worked out during the week, the boys were able to spend time in downtown Dortmund and visiting area landmarks like the German Football Museum. They took time out of two-a-day practices to visit a local grocery store and stopped in at a few local restaurants.

The local culture took getting used to for some, such as carbonated water in place of the less bubbly tap-type and traditional meals that included heaps of mashed potatoes, pork, sausages, meatballs, Brussels sprouts and fish.

But most of the trip revolved around soccer.

“Everything over there is soccer related,” Guell said. “In Dortmund, everything is [in team colors] black and yellow. Everything. It’s insane. The cars, the stickers, everything. I was really happy the kids were able to experience that part of soccer culture that we don’t have here.

“It was pretty neat to see everybody representing Kentucky in an ODP uniform. The people from Germany were really nice. Almost all of them spoke English, too.”

The boys teams trained for three days before finally playing their first games on April 1. According to an account of events recorded by Kentucky ODP: “The 2002

boys lost their first international match 4-1 against [German team] SV Brackel. The first half was very sluggish as the players struggled with fitness and fatigue. Adjustments were made in the second half and the team played better. They pressed high and controlled the midfield better creating multiple chances but could not capitalize on them. The team maintained a 4-3-3 formation the entire game and was able to control the game with adjustments made in the second half. Overall, Coach Marcel was satisfied with the second half play as the boys were able to put into practice the adjustments that were made.

“The 2003 Kentucky boys ODP team earned a positive result in their first German International match against SV Brackel. They competed against a German team which consisted of boys born in both 2002 and 2003. Kentucky ODP was scored on by a penalty kick in the first ten minutes. They responded by scoring 5 goals in the 15th, 30th, 43rd, 49th and 52nd minutes. The final score was Kentucky ODP 5 SV Brackel 2. Kentucky ODP had superior ball movement throughout the match and defensively did not give their opponent time on the ball. Coach [Dickey] said it was an “overall outstanding effort by our team.”’

Both boys teams played opponents from Germany, then bussed to Holland to play a team there.

“That was kind of a treat,” Guell said. “They were able to see how — even though their countries are right next to each other — their styles are completely different. It was really neat to see that.”

Guell said the German style was very technical.

“You can tell how at a very young age they work with coordination with and without the ball so that by the time they’ve matured, it’s [easier]. Everybody is an athlete.”

The Holland team, meanwhile, was much more physical.

Kentucky players were also able to watch pro games. On the second day, ODP players watched Borussia Dortmund take on Wolfsburg at Signal Iduna Park, which packs about 82,000 fans (roughly 18,000 more people than the entire population of McCracken County) inside 75,347 square feet of concrete, steel and sweat. The facility is the largest soccer venue in Germany, with a fan section dubbed Die Gelbe Wand which holds about 25,000 fans. When everyone in the section wears yellow, it gives visitors an imposing impression; for BVB, it’s like having an entire city behind you.

On the field, the Kentucky teams had success. By the end of the trip, the 2003 boys and 2002 girls finished with all W’s, a first for Kentucky ODP.

“This 2003 boys team we brought is amazing,” Guell said. “Out of that team, I think there were about three or four players that professional clubs in Germany got their information to figure out something for them in the future. It was unreal.

“They got to experience first-hand that you never know who is outside watching. They were having so much fun that they didn’t realize that there were different coaches asking [about them].”

The coach shared in learning along with his players.

“We go over there to learn,” Guell said. “[Training] was right there with all the academy coaches from BVB Dortmund. It was good to learn their philosophies, their coaching styles. Educational-wise, that was the best part. When you get thrown into the cage with lions and have to figure out how to get out, that’s good.”

Guell said he was honored to be invited out of so many talented Kentucky ODP coaches, and plans to utilize what he learned.

“I’m always trying to implement everything I’m learning to try and bring it to [Pumas Futbol Club]. We’re trying to make this club bigger but in the slowest and fastest way possible to do it properly. Growing pains are something we deal with every season. In west Kentucky it’s not easy. It’s not easy to find coaches or parents that are willing to travel as much as we do.”

Guell hoped the Kentuckians who went took away the personality of the players they faced.

“Every single player on every team we played against, every one of them is playing for a professional spot,” Guell said. “You can tell how even the subs are leaving everything out there. In that culture, that’s all they do, that’s all they breathe. That dedication, I hope [our players] take that away. Sometimes I think they take it for granted. They forget how easy their parents make it for them, to be able to travel as much as they do. A lot of the kids we played in Germany, it’s not the same.”

Hopefully, that appreciation, education and dedication will be infectious with teammates back in the Bluegrass state, Guell said.

For more on Kentucky’s ODP program or a recap of the trip, visit online at http://www.kysoccer.net/programs/odp/