The guest lecturer Thiago Bomfim Oliveira da Silva from Brazil has finished to give lectures in the Liepaja University (LiepU) study programme "Sport's pedagogy”. Thiago Bomfim is living in Liepaja for ten years, is passionate about football and wants to develop it, therefore he has recently opened his children football school “Brazilian Football Academy” in Karosta, where he has been teaching football for children from disadvantageous families.
At LiepU the guest lecturer was teaching the C category study course “Sport’s theory” about physical preparedness, sport’s history and sport in a viewpoint from a Brazilian teacher. „Teaching in Liepaja University was a fantastic opportunity, it is like to help to develop the learning process and that is very important for me. Students are making questions and they are interested in what’s happening, so it was very good. Unfortunately we had the time of corona virus when the lectures were held on Zoom, but the previously held face-to-face lectures and even the Zoom lectures were very good and positive. We had an interesting feedback from students. One more important thing that we discussed during the lectures was the question why does floorball is growing so much here in Liepaja and we had very interesting feedbacks from students. I think floorbal is going another way from the other sports like football, hockey, but nowadays many kids are getting interested in floorball.”
Discussing the thoughts about the future of Liepaja football, the guest lecturer admits: „It has another goals – it is not a business but it is a schooling. The main football in Liepaja is growing, but there must be developed a lot of things. For example, the local sport's academy for kids needs to develop a methodology, because they do not have it for so far. I believe the most important is to develop a Latvian football methodology, because the reality of Latvia is different from the reality of Lithuania. You train differently, you have different time for sun, different weather, but you must develop it for Latvians. Not to copy it from Belgium or Netherlands and that is the biggest challenge - to make people to think. I think that the future of Liepaja football will be like now. You can build one or two players that go to the Upper league, maybe one player will go to play abroad, but in this way you can also lose many talents.”
Thiago Bomfim has the football school “Brazilian Football Academy” where he teaches children to play football. It is a regional social project for children families who can not afford to pay about football in Liepaja, so then they come and he is teaching them. In winter they are playing in the 3rd Primary school, but in summer in Liepaja Technical school and he is very thankful to directors for their support.
Speaking about what does a good sport’s pedagogue should have, the guest lecturer admits that the full package is to have a strong leadership, good ethics and psychology with kids, as well as a good communication skills and the ability to always create and learn new things. „Latvians miss coaches who are creating things. You do not have a methodology or a book for Latvian coaches and players, so this is a great challenge – to create the local football science. We should build Latvian players and to recognize to which market we want to sell them as talents.”