Schalke travel to USA for world's largest coaching conference

With 13,000 participants from all over the world, the Philadelphia-held United Soccer Coaches Convention is the biggest coaching conference on the planet. S04’s own Bodo Menze spoke at the event about the methods and tactics that go into making the Royal Blue’s academy one of the world’s best. “Our development program with the Under-17s has been received brilliantly in the USA – all the feedback we’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive,” said a very pleased Menze.

After Menze’s presentation, Markus Kaya put some training drills into practice with the D.C. United Under-17s and the director of their academy, Ryan Martin. The future MLS hopefuls were kitted out for the occasion, as they all wore the Royal Blue of Schalke 04 for the session. Bodo Menze was on hand to explain what was going on to the highly interested spectators.

There was also a lot of interest at the event from the American media about the progress of Weston McKennie. Menze answered a few questions about Schalke’s young American star, as well as loanee Haji Wright and Under-19 player Nick Taitague.

Menze and Kaya were present for the full five day coaching convention alongside big names such as Thierry Henry and the current assistant coach of the Belgium national team, and apart from representatives from the FC Bayern women’s setup, were the only German delegation at the event.