#684: Chatting youth soccer with the head of Gladbach's international academy

Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America

Adam Belz

Yanks Abroad, Sports, Youth National Teams, U20 National Team, Mls, American Soccer, Soccer, U17 National Team, Men's National Team, Usmnt, Us Soccer

4.7 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Vince and Belz sat down with Wolfgang Heilmann, who oversees Borussia Monchengladbach's "international academy," in the hours before Gladbach drew 1-1 with Mainz on Sunday (we saw a Scally goal). Most of the conversation is about youth development in general: how Gladbach's U9 team plays small-sided games on the weekends vs other clubs, why academy players are expected to be humble, and much more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer.
0:12.0	Today we're at Barusha Park in the western part of Germany, about to witness a G.O. Rana
0:21.3	masterclass, surely.
0:24.3	And we're sitting down with Wolfgang Heilman.
0:27.7	That's correct.
0:28.7	Great.
0:29.7	Great spelling.
0:31.1	Head of the international Borussia Munchenglaabakh Academy.
0:34.2	Wolfgang, thanks for having us.
0:35.7	Thanks for having me.
0:36.6	I'm very honored.
0:38.7	So, first of all, what is
0:40.8	the International Academy? Can you kind of explain
0:43.5	it? Because it's not the Academy here.
0:47.5	No, there's some, there's
0:49.4	a difference, right? So the Academy
0:51.4	here, maybe let me explain that first
0:53.5	in a couple of words, is really elite, right? So the academy here, maybe let me explain that first, in a couple of words,
0:55.1	is really elite, right? So we have in each year, or each age group, in each year we have one
1:01.8	team only. So we start with U9, and we have 12 players there, and that's it, right? So these are
1:08.4	already the best players of the region, or should be, right?
1:14.5	So it goes up to U-19 and even the U-23, which is a man's team,
	...

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