Testimonials
What professional footballers say about SenseBall
Axel Witsel - SenseBall Brand Ambassador in China
Belgium international, has played for Standard Liège, Benfica, FC Zenit Saint Petersburg, currently at Tianjin Quanjian.
« I had the chance to discover SenseBall and its exercises. Even for me who is a pro, SenseBall allows to improve my ball mastery with both feet and accelerate my decision-making. I wish I had discovered it younger. For me, the practice of SenseBall must be included in all football clubs. The practice of SenseBall produces superior game quality. »
AC Milan
Cristian Brocchi, AC Milan Primavera coach
AC Milan have renewed their exclusive contract for Italy with CogiTraining-SenseBall for a third season. The spectacular progress enjoyed by their youth teams since working with the programme made this an easy choice. AC Milan Primavera, the club’s under-19 team, beat Real Madrid in the final of the 2015 Hamdan Bin Mohammed International Tournament in Dubai. During the press conference following the tournament, Cristian Brocchi, AC Milan Primavera coach said: "The success and the game quality of our team are in good part the result of the method CogiTraining-SenseBall that Michel Bruyninckx has taught me and that I apply with my group."
Dries Mertens
Belgium international, has played for FC Utrecht, PSV Eindhoven and is now at SSC Napoli. Elected among the 20 best players in Europe in 2011 by Spanish sports newspaper Marca.
Sport Voetbal Magazine: « At the Leuven Football Academy, you were trained by Michel Bruyninckx, a trainer you had already met at previous training camps. Bruyninckx trains young players innovatively; he even uses music during his training sessions. What does he do, exactly? »
Dries Mertens: « All the players were given a football on the end of a string with a handle, you had to hold the handle, juggle and kick the ball permanently with both feet. I am convinced I have mastered playing with both feet thanks to those exercises. Sometimes we did exercises to music so there was a beat urging the players to keep up the same rhythm. These training sessions are not to be underestimated! They are very difficult and demanding. And no one could lose the rhythm! »
Dries Mertens: « All the players were given a football on the end of a string with a handle, you had to hold the handle, juggle and kick the ball permanently with both feet. I am convinced I have mastered playing with both feet thanks to those exercises. Sometimes we did exercises to music so there was a beat urging the players to keep up the same rhythm. These training sessions are not to be underestimated! They are very difficult and demanding. And no one could lose the rhythm! »
R.S.C. Anderlecht
Dirk Gyselinckx, Technical Coordinator Elite Youth for all youth teams of RSC Anderlecht from 2005 to 2014
« In Anderlecht we use SenseBall in the “Golden age” categories. These players use SenseBall during week practice and receive exercises to do at home. They are also obliged to bring it to the matches in the weekend. When they are not playing they do exercises near the pitch to improve their capacities instead of sitting on the bench and watching the game. During the training sessions they always do 10 exercises with 100 repetitions (50 times with each foot). After some sessions we implement music and after six weeks we innovate implementing new exercises. The most important reason why RSC Anderlecht use SenseBall is that we want to create perfect two-footed players. Players love SenseBall and you can see the results every week on the pitch. »
Wesley Sneijder
Dutch international, has played for Ajax Amsterdam, Real Madrid and Inter de Milan, currently at Galatasaray.
« At the age of 7, like all the other young players at Ajax, I was given a football on the end of a string to practise with at home. “You must train every evening with both feet” the trainer would say, and that’s what I did. Without missing a single evening. Today I reap the benefits of all those extra training sessions. »
FC Metz
Bertrand Antoine, in charge of preliminary training FC Metz
« I particularly use SenseBall with 13-14-year-old players who have experienced a rapid and disruptive growth. They are really in difficulty in terms of coordination and SenseBall allows them to rectify things. We also work on stance, the top of the body, the use of the weaker foot... Among the 7-12-year-old, it helps with coordination and motor skills. With the older players, it is used for synchronization, the collection of information. For me it must be part of the educational material of the educator. »
Faris Haroun
Belgium international, has played for KRC Genk, Germinal Beerschot, Middlesbrough and is now at Blackpool FC.
« SenseBall greatly helped me to become a professional footballer. My first impression was: what’s the point in kicking a football on the end of a piece of string? I now know how precious it was and I can only recommend it to anyone who wants to improve his or her technique. When I started at Leuven Football Academy all I used my left foot for was to get on the bus. Today I can play with both feet equally well. »
AS Génération Foot
Olivier Perrin, General Manager Génération Foot Academy
Our academy hosts players from 12 to 20 years old. Our Senior Team (AS Generation Foot) plays in the Senegal Premier League. It is the current Senegal champions and will compete in the CAF Champions League (the African Champions League). Our players have been practicing SenseBall for 4 seasons. SenseBall is an excellent tool to improve its ball control and its weak foot. In addition to the playful aspect for the youngest players, the practice of SenseBall gives players better knowledge of their feet. It is particularly useful in boys who arrive at the club and who have a skills gap.
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What the press says about SenseBall and the CogiTraining method
Le Soir
The SenseBall company markets a training football linked to a handle by a rope. Developed by trainer Michel Bruyninckx as part of a research program at UCL, SenseBall allows young players (from 6 to 18 years old) to become ambidextrous and acquire a whole series of automatisms. This ball (associated with an online method and exercises) is now used in the youth academies of many Belgian (Anderlecht, Genk, Ostend, Charleroi ...) and international clubs (AC Milan, FC Metz, AS Monaco ...).
VTM Nieuws
Yesterday the Expo 'Goal! The Football Experience' has organised a unique football training session in Nekkerhal Mechelen. Red Flame Imke Courtois and the internationally renowned football coach Michel Bruyninckx gave an initiation to SenseBall, exclusively for girls. More and more professional football clubs such as AC Milan, FC Metz, Lille, Anderlecht, KRC Genk and Juventus, train with SenseBall. Dries Mertens, but also former Golden Boot-winner Sven Kums, are fine examples of Belgian players who trained at a young age with SenseBall and currently still reap the rewards.
Vestiaires
In charge of preliminary training in FC Metz, Bertrand Antoine is since this season the referent educator for the establishment of CogiTraining within the Moselle club, from the football school up to the reserve team. Vestiaires, the French magazine for football educators and coaches, has wanted to know more on this football training method already adopted by Anderlecht and AC Milan.
Le Soir
Those who watched the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup will have observed this strange choreography: children playing with a soccer ball on a string (rope). A bit like a jokari. These football dance steps were wonderfully - and quickly - synchronized to the rhythm of a symphony orchestra. Behind this achievement lies a Belgian: Michel Bruyninckx, international coach. This funny soccer ball is called senseball and is one of the tools used by Bruyninckx to develop a young footballer's skills with a key principle: everything starts from the brain! And his method pays out. Applied for about seven years in Anderlecht football club, the method allowed the youth team to beat their English or Spanish comrades; future champions of the best clubs in the world.
CNN.com
AC Milan, the club which has won the Italian championship 18 times and the Champions League 7 times is rethinking its youth organizational structure. From now on, the staff at AC Milan wishes to exploit the power of the brain. To do so, they turned to two Belgians - ex-Standard de Liège coach, José Riga, and pioneering youth coach Michel Bruyninckx – to steer the club’s development of its young players.
Sports Illustrated
Geoff Noonan, coordinator at Fulham Academy for 7 to 11 year-old players, has decided to order 150 SenseBall for his players after meeting Bruyninckx at a conference in May. « SenseBall helps open the hips, it’s good for crosses, volleys, and to improve the player’s weaker foot. It also enables children to train at home and helps them to balance the right and left-hand sides of the body. The idea of training at home is really useful - we’ve lost this culture in which children spontaneously play matches among themselves and SenseBall provides a means of replacing that. »
BBC Sport
When Germinal Beerschot and Belgium international attacking midfielder Faris Haroun began to train with Michel Bruyninckx, he couldn’t kick the ball with his left foot. Two years later, his club, Racing Genk, thought he was left-footed.
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