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Dirk Gilis Technical Co-ordinator Youth, KRC Genk


Do Genk have one philosophy which is adopted throughout the whole club? We have one vision from the youth centre. We have worked from this vision for eight years now. We have had many head coaches [of the first team] during that period but the board protect the vision of the youth centre and we can work how we want in our vision. We talk to the head coaches and when they have good ideas we will change some little things, but the vision stays always.


Now we have a new coach, [which we’ve had] for two years. He’s very interested in developing young players. Every day we send young players to train with the first-team and he always works with the vision of our youth players.


In our first team we have eight or nine players that have been developed in our youth centre.


How hard it is it to find talented players? In the 50km around Genk we know every player and we take a lot of players from this region. We then have scouts all around the country. We have a gentleman’s agreement with Anderlecht and Brugge that we don’t take players from their regions. We don’t lose players from our region to other big clubs in Belgium.


How important is it to recruit players who identify with the club? Those ‘little’ players [U8s, U9s, U10s] are the clubs supporters. When you have a player from over 100km away [outside of the Genk district] they don’t share the philosophy or the feeling for the club. We think it is important to work with boys from our district. It’s also important for the coaches of the club, who work hard with the players, to see players from the local community in the first-team.


How does the scouting system work? We have twenty scouts who watch games all over Belgium. The reports come into the club, where we have an information system website. We try to follow each team two or three times. When I get two or three reports from a scout about the same player, I send another scout to check. The player would then come and train with us for three weeks and play two or three friendly games.


“ It is important to work with boys from our district.”


How many practice hours do your players get? We work together with a public school and from twelve years old [U13] the boys from Genk train on Tuesday and Thursday [during school time]. They come to the club at 8.30am, they train two hours and then they go back to school. Genk pay the school, because for those two mornings they are not in class, they have to stay an hour longer [on the other days] than their classmates. Genk pays the teachers to give those lessons. Then in the evenings they train four times; so altogether two times in the morning and four times in the evening and then a match at the weekend.


This is just one system, because we also have other players who do not choose this school for their education. Out of 18 U13 players, 15 are in the [partner school] system.


What systems do the teams in the youth systems play? We play 4-3-3 up until U17 because we think it’s the best system to develop. U19 and U21 work three months with 4-4-2, three months 4-3-3. Each three months they take a different system. We think it’s important for players to be very strong in all systems. If a player doesn’t make it at Genk, he might have to go to another club and play in a different way. Also our first-team head coach thinks it’s very important for each player to play two or three positions in each system.


Is this the same with the younger age-groups? Up until U14 the coaches have to let the players play in a minimum of two or three positions. Then in the age- groups after this it’s always two positions.


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