How the Dynamo Sports School in Kaliningrad develops children's sports in the westernmost region

— Tell us about your school.

— Today the school is located in Kaliningrad and has a branch in the city of Gusev, as well as partners in the city of Sovetsk, who are starting active cooperation with our school. In Kaliningrad, the school is the flagship branch in terms of its level. We have children from the year of birth 2019. The oldest is 2008. The regional branches are much larger in number, but due to the fact that they opened less than a year ago, they are just starting their way in football tournaments.

— Your school actively promotes itself in the media by collaborating with local creative organizations. You even recorded a podcast. What is the use of this?

— Now, in general, absolutely any activity is somehow connected with the media. Therefore, we are always open to various kinds of collaborations – this is an opportunity to attract a new audience and provide entertainment content for an existing one. Brand awareness is growing, and the school is progressing accordingly.

— You often resort to non-standard formats of training and activities. For example, the mothers of your students participated in trainings in honor of March 8. What do such events give?

— Training with moms carries, in addition to the entertainment value, also a psychological motive. Moms get the opportunity to experience for themselves how many nuances and difficulties await their children in the training process. They also have new topics that unite them and improve mutual understanding between them.

— You mentioned that you have a branch in Gusev. Tell us, what is the peculiarity of the development of a school in a small town and was it difficult to recruit students?

— The trend of development of children's football in all regions of Russia is directed narrowly at large cities or regional centers. At the same time, a large number of children within the regions want to play football, but do not have such an opportunity. It is much easier to recruit children to such a branch than in a large city, because the popularization of football works very well here.

— Children from your schools regularly participate in competitions and friendly matches with other teams. How did you manage to achieve such a frequency of events and such involvement in regional football events?

— We play a kind of fair play: we treat all rivals with respect and try to build friendly relations. We never publish friendly games, as our task is to maintain friendly ties and continue to develop by playing with other teams.

— Does the Kaliningrad region have any peculiarities in the context of children's football relative to the rest of Russia?

— Yes, this is probably one of the most competitive regions in Russia. Children's football is at a very high level: children from the Kaliningrad region have repeatedly won All-Russian tournaments, they consistently play in the finals in the northwest for all ages. Several schools and institutions have more than 1,000 students in their assets, as well as a large number of schools with more than 200 students.  Relative to the city's population, a very large percentage of children are engaged in football.

— Your school actively cooperates with the club. Children participate in tournaments organized for Dynamo schools, visit the Dynamo Museum and other events. How does this affect the development of the school?

— Interaction with the club through a personal video for the city plays a huge role, just look at the views. The demand is enormous, this is a real information guide for cities outside Moscow.

As for the tournament, this is a cool event organized by the club, which gave a lot of emotions to children and their parents, and visiting the match and the club museum helps the child to model his goal – to become a part of Dynamo. 

The club should work as much as possible with the younger generation all over Russia, because this is a contribution not only to young football players – it is an investment in future fans who can become even a manager, even a sports doctor or a videographer, but most importantly – they will already be devoted to the club that has taken care of them since childhood.

— How do you see the prospects for your further development?

— We are actively analyzing the development of children's football and schools in Russia and within the region and see the prospect of scaling in one format or another. We want to make a great contribution to the development of children's and youth football in the Kaliningrad region and the country as a whole.