Dutchman returned to AAMI Park as technical manager this week.
Melbourne Heart technical manager John van’t Schip says he wants to breed a “total football” culture at the club.
The 49-year-old Dutchman returned to AAMI Park this week to front the establishment of a youth academy in partnership with Cruyff Football and has spent the past week in Melbourne with their international director Todd Beane.
It will lead to Heart’s current youth team being disbanded and the senior-most academy side playing in the National Youth League, with van’t Schip aiming to embed a playing philosophy similar to that of Barcelona’s into the club and watch it bleed through the ranks in the future.
“Of course, because you’ve seen the results in other parts of the world with the same kind of style,” Van ‘t Schip told the Herald Sun.
“But it’s not going to be happening overnight in terms of the process.
“That’s why it’s important that you can build the academy and you can work on the young boys getting through that pipeline to the first team and in the meantime continue to work with the first team on that kind of way of playing.
“There are going to be years when you won’t win championships but you’re going to produce players and producing good players is also one of the most important visions of the club.”
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