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Sports director of "Rapid Wien" Academy Peter Grechtshammer shared his impressions on the International Youth tournament "Spartak Cup":

- Our team took part in "Spartak Cup" with great pleasure. This youth tournament was organized at a high level and let us played against serious opponents.  We liked both: organization of the tournament and its format: we played 5 matches – a large quantity - with two 30 minutes times. All the games were full-fledged when you can see the rival’s style and the model of they play and compare it with yours one. This is the preference of Spartak Cup over the other tournaments, where the matches have short-cut format: for example, two 15 minutes times. 

- Only Rapid’s representatives on the eve of Spartak Cup firstly spoke about the came to get a great experience. Is it a part of your Academy’s philosophy?
- Academy’s philosophy is to educate and develop young players. The key aim for the club is to prepare a player and one of the character traits of a good player is a champion spirit. A victory is not the goal as an end in itself, but it’s important our boys know how to win, how to achieve it and just do. We’re trying to find the golden mean. 

- Rapid became the 6th on the tournament, it’s the bottom of the table. Is the result important for your team?
- For the footballers of U-17 category the result is really important. We’re not happy with the 6th place. But I want to mention we improved from match to match, mended our way during the tournament. We’re discontented with the first game when we lost against "Dinamo" Minsk, the other matches we played well enough though it not every time took a form of the beneficial effect.  Speaking about the result, we didn’t confine counting the points, such tournaments are very important for achievement of personhood. For the time being in Moscow our pupils became more confident, independent, they could learn something about another culture and new people.

- Whom can you stand out from the other team-opponents on the tournament?

- I saw practically all the matches. I liked "Monaco", very technic football in the performance of French school. I can mention the positive energy of Spartak during the games and the way they were focused on the team interaction.

- What experience did you get on "Spartak Cup"?

- "Spartak Cup" gave us a great opportunity to know more about the football of other academies, compare your work with the colleagues’ one, exchanged the views on the training process of the young players and to understand the key ideas they worked at. Once more I would like to thank my Spartak colleagues for the excursion and presentation, when they tried to be maximum open speaking about their philosophy and working process.  During our conversation we found out Rapid and Spartak have a lot of in common in their basement. We can’t rank our Academy among grandee; we have rather restricted access to information, that’s why we appreciate opportunities to enrich our knowledge about other academies’ work.

- What impression do you have after the tournament and working with Spartak colleagues?
- I like a lot the things work here and how "Spartak" implement the program working with young players. At times I faced with situations when the Academy is important for the club only in words and exist like the obligatory element of the structure. For Spartak Academy is one of the key components of the club. They appropriate funds on the young footballer’s preparation, they had perfect infrastructure and the serious accent is made on the player’s education. There is the proper full-fledged organizational structure (never before I met academy with their one press service, which paid a lot attention to the youth teams, usually news coverage is the club’s affair. Owing to all this Academy has opportunities to work at different social projects and develop partnerships.  

- Spartak Academy paid a lot attention to education. What about "Rapid" is it also very important for the Academy?

- Every academy’s staff member understands we’re preparing not only future footballers of the first team, but also we’re working at the personal development of every youth. All the pupils know our principle: you can’t be only a good footballer and not to study. We seriously stake on not only on education but on personal development entirely. Psychologists help us. By the way I spoke with Spartak Academy’s psychologist and his methods are analogous to ours.  

- For sure it’s the first time for your footballers in Moscow. How do you like the city? What are your impressions?

- It’s my second time in Russia. Firstly, it seemed people are very close. But after several days I understood I was mistaken, I met here very genuine people, friendly, polite and persons, who all the time are ready to help. In Moscow everything is dimensioned than in Austria. I don’t think boys were thinking about the expectation of the country and city on the eve of the trip, but I can say they’re absolutely delighted with they’ve seen.  Excursion about Moscow helped to know the city better; it was organized in our day off. Our pupils learnt about Russian culture and opened their mind.