REACT Progress Update - July

Regional Coach Training” (REACT) is a project that is led by Baltic Football School and
implemented together with its partners FC Elva (Estonia), Siauliai FA (Lithuania) and
Valmiera Glass VIA/Valmiera FC (Latvia).

It has been more than 6 months since the project was put on hold due to the Covid-19 restrictions
but finally we are glad to say the project has resumed and some integral meetings have already
taken place.
On the last days of May we organised two meetings in Siauliai, Lithuania. The first one of whom was
supposed to originally take place in late September 2020 for the purpose of presenting the latest
version of e-platform. Eight months later the meeting finally took place and naturally a more
sophisticated and complete version of produced e-platform was presented. The updates from the
previous project meetings to make the platform more practical on day to day basis, to ensure intra-
regional network opportunities as well as to consider smoother integration into each country
individually were taken into account and now presented.
Following this, a seminar was organised for coaches from Lithuania around the topic of Health – The
Foundation of Youth Football Players Development. Within this seminar the practical application of
using the developed e-platform was presented and discussed with regional coaches to showcase
how to more effectively contribute to youth athlete’s development in a healthy manner.
Furthermore, CSKA Moscow academy coach Alexander Baumann shared his expertise on the
aforementioned topics by joining the seminar via video call and engaging in discussions with regional
coaches.
Towards the end of June, a meeting was organised in Valmiera, Latvia. This time around one of the
most renowned UEFA coaches Stefan Ristic from Serbia joined regional coaches from Latvia to talk
about his experience in player development and lessons learned throughout his years working at
such clubs like Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona. All those in the attendance could also hear about
how different cultures and regions require different approaches towards youth player training and
why tools such as the newly created e-platform allows to better develop new talents.

The next step for REACT project is to organise coach seminar in Elva, Estonia later this July where
another expert from football industry will share his learnings about youth player development. After
this event, a final conference will be held in Latvia in partnership with Latvian Football Federation to
share the learnings, discuss best approaches and conclude the project.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in Erasmus+ Programme of
the European Union for being so understanding and flexible around the implementation of this
project. In times like these when circumstances are changing so often it`s important to find solutions
that work for all involved parties, and we are thankful that we have managed to do exactly that.