After a partnership was established between the Montreal Impact Academy and several amateur clubs, we talked to Antony Ramel, Technical Director of AS Hull.
What does this partnership mean to you?
It’s interesting for us for many reasons. It strengthens our club’s technical policy and the development project that we have for our players. Since the creation of the Impact Academy, we’ve had joint operations; players’ tryouts, obviously, and we send our best elements to the Montreal Impact.
We are proud and happy to become partners with the Montreal Impact, and we’re excited to keep working with the Montreal Impact coaches and benefitting from their expertise and skills. We had the chance, in the early years, to hold a training course in Hull. Wilfried [Nancy] and Yannick [Girard] came to Hull to train the ASH educators. Obviously, we hope that our players and educators will benefit from this type of activity again.
What aspects of the partnership are most interesting to you?
Days when we come to see what you do on the field, with moments in class talking about planning and programming work for youth, they bring a great added value. It’s worth every training course we can do, whether it’s here in Montreal or when people from the club come to see us in Hull.
What is player development like in Hull?
We are focusing on individual youth development. We have a 2,000-member club, with 1,700 under 18 years of age, so everything is directed toward developing young players. We don’t put too much into the results or the standings. If a U12 player has to play at the U14 level, we’ll play him there. It’s about working with convictions. We are happy when our players come to the Montreal Impact.
Why the Montreal Impact?
It’s what’s best in Quebec and it’s the flagship club in the province. It was obvious to us that we would jump on this opportunity.
