Reiner Fehl has been providing advice to parents for the Werkself since the autumn of last year. Before he started work at the Performance Centre, Reiner was well aware of the tasks relating to the Black and Red talents as he had already worked closely with the management at Kurtekotten during his time as a sports and biology teacher at the technical college in Opladen. Fehl is primarily responsible at Bayer 04 for communication between the parents and the staff at the Performance Centre.
The staff in the youth section at Bayer 04 have organised a range of workshops for the players at Kurtekotten for several years. For example, before Easter, Klaus Schenkmann trained the U12s and U13s plus their coaches in handling social media. After the Easter break there will be further workshops for the Black and Red youth players:
The management of the Bayer 04 youth teams have recently introduced a concept for workshops for the 200 or so parents of the youth players. "We want to provide them with optimum support on the relationship between sport and education," said Fehl.
That starts on Saturday, 10 April with the lecture on ‘Wounds and injuries in football – what parents need to know and what they can do’. This is initially designed to be tried out on the legal guardians of the U12 and U13 players. If there is a keen interest then it will be extended to other groups of parents. The workshops will be run by Bayer 04 physiotherapists Jonas Schmitt and Florian Kroder. The latter explained the content: "For us, it is primarily about communicating basic information and tips on possible injury scenarios. We will also explain and offer support for at home.”
Another aspect, according to Kroder, the process of growth with children and teenagers. The physiotherapist: "With some youngsters there are problems with growths under the kneecap. Unfortunately, very few people know about scenarios like that."
The parents of the Leverkusen U12 and U13 players will receive an email with information on the application process for the first workshop from the management of the Kurtekotten Performance Centre. Fehl is hoping there will be keen interest – and plenty of feedback: "I've been here since 1 September but, because of the lockdown, it has unfortunately not been possible to build up contact with the parents. We are looking forward to presenting a new offer with this first workshop, which is aimed at them."
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He knows the dressing room, the pitch and the club. But, above all, he knows the feeling of playing for the Werkself at the BayArena: Moussa Diaby is back in Leverkusen after three years. The lightning-fast winger has signed a contract with Bayer 04 until 2031 and he will once again wear the number 19 jersey. The left-footed player previously played for the club from 2019 to 2023, having arrived in the Rhineland from his native France as a promising young talent and eventually leaving the club – having established himself as one of the Bundesliga’s best attackers – to join Aston Villa in the Premier League. Now he has returned to Bayer 04 from Al-Ittihad FC in Saudi Arabia.
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