At only 26 years of age, Serge Dinkota is the youngest Academy head coach. He just returned from France, where the Impact U13 did extremely well at the Tournoi Sans Frontières in Sens, finishing 11th out of 24 teams and imposing its style of play against many Ligue 1 teams.
But Dinkota won’t have time to unpack his suitcases. He will be part of the third generation of Major League Soccer educators attending the coaching course provided by the Fédération Française de Football and MLS since 2013. Wilfried Nancy and Philippe Eullaffroy have also completed this course in recent years.
“I always aim to get better and to learn, and I’m a curious person,” says Dinkota. “It’s been a dream, since I started coaching, to get into the French Federation’s development system, as I believe it to be one of the best in the world.”
It’s not a coincidence that Dinkota was chosen for this course. As a young educator, his open mind and his will to improve make him an excellent candidate.
The program will start Saturday in Clairefontaine, with theoretical classes on methodology and pedagogy. The curriculum will also be explained at that moment. Dinkota will then spend a week at the formation centre of En Avant de Guingamp, where he will follow the club’s technical staff and watch them work.
The FFF coaching course will last about six weeks, spread out over a little more than a year. In the end, coaches that succeed in their exams will be awarded the Elite Formation Coaching Licence.
“Beyond the licence, it’s mostly knowledge and the French expertise that I want to get from this experience, and I also want to grow,” adds Dinkota. “I’m excited to be exposed to all of this and I’ll return even stronger.”
