Inside Leicester City's academy: Producing talent, tough decisions and offering a future

Last month, The Athletic asked our Leicester subscribers what they wanted to read about as part of our Inspired by You series .

Ben B and Cam V , among others, asked for a glimpse at the clubs academy, so Rob Tanner has taken a look...

Along the sweeping corridor wall that runs opposite the rows of classrooms, meeting rooms and offices that house the Leicester City academy staff is an homage to their work.

There is a row of picture frames, each one housing a shirt bearing the name of an academy player who has made it through the pathway to the Leicester first team.

Advertisement Not all of them are Leicester shirts.

Those who have gone even further to represent their country are celebrated.

Emile Heskeys England shirt is at the start of the long line of distinguished graduates who have been developed through the system.

The academy has changed a lot since Heskey made his first-team debut in 1995 as more time and money has been invested into a vital lifeblood of the club.

Leicester has a tradition of developing players.

Peter Shilton and Gary Lineker are the most famous products of the old apprentice system, but in the last 20 years, Leicesters academy has become more productive.

Richard Stearman, Joe Mattock, Max Gradel and Andy King, the poster boy for the entire academy, have paved the way for future generations.

Liam Moore and Jeff Schlupp were followed by Ben Chilwell, Harvey Barnes and Hamza Choudhury .

Then it was Luke Thomas and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall who broke through.

In the last couple of years, Kasey McAteer, Ben Nelson, Will Alves, Wanya Marcal and Jakub Stolarczyk have followed the same pathway.

Some players have joined the under-21s from other academies and gone to play for the first team, but excluding those, some 21 academy graduates have made their Leicester first-team debuts since 2014-15.

The academys work has grown in importance during the clubs struggles with profit and sustainability rules (PSR) and relegation from the Premier League two years ago.

It will continue to play a big role in how the club strives to navigate a more difficult period after nearly a decade of prosperity.

In fact, the sales of Chilwell, Barnes and Dewsbury-Hall alone generated 120million ($155m) that can be banked as profit for PSR, making the academy and the work that goes into developing young talent a sound investment.

Emerging talents in the under-18s and under-21s, who sit seventh in Premier League 2 the division for the top academy sides in the country could be handed an opportunity this summer during preseason.

Manager Ruud van Nistelrooy has stated 15-year-old Jeremy Monga being tracked by several high-profile clubs in the Premier League and Europe will be included in his first-team preparations , while fellow winger Jake Evans has been among a group of players who have been invited to train with the first team.

When players make it to the senior ranks, it is the culmination of a long process and the ultimate purpose of the academy, which was granted category one status as part of the Premier Leagues Elite Player Performance Plan in 2013, but reaching the first team is not the only role the academy plays in a young players development.

Advertisement The goal is to equip players with the skills they need to succeed in life as much as on the pitch.

According to research conducted by the English FA in 2015, less than 0.5 per cent of the players aged under nine signed by professional teams go all the way to play for the first team at some point.

Since then, as my colleague Liam Tharme explained this season , things have improved with under-21 players receiving an increase in first-team minutes in five of the past six seasons.

This is mainly down to PSR, an increasing workload on players and Brexits effect on transfers , but also a general improvement in the level of academy players.

At Leicester, there are 52 full-time staff who work in a wide variety of roles and a total of 120, including part-time staff and scouts, who work within the academy, which has been able to grow significantly since the move from the old Belvoir Drive training ground to Leicesters state-of-the-art new base at Seagrave.

Paul Cheney, the head of the academy coach development, heads up the coaching team but there are also three full-time doctors, as well as physios, and performance support, which includes strength and conditioning, nutrition and performance analysts, as well as player welfare and psychology, and education.

Some coaches work with the pre-academy boys, aged seven and eight, but from the age of nine, when they are old enough to be registered, through to under-21s, there are 180 aspiring young players within the academy system, which is overseen by academy manager Ian Cawley, a former PE teacher who has been in the role since 2016 having started as the head of education.

The boys are invited to train twice during the week and on Saturdays, with a game usually on Sundays.

Between ages 12 and 14, they come in on day away from their schools for training sessions and video analysis, but also workshops on nutrition, cooking, time management, good social media practice and sports leadership.

As they get older, there will also be age-appropriate workshops around relationships and consent.

Advertisement Later on, there will be a refereeing workshop and the under-18s regularly referee younger-aged games.

Their academic education is not neglected on these days as they will do two hours during the day of work sent in by their schools and overseen by the four teaching staff.

The academy section of the main building at Seagrave has many of the same facilities as the first-team side, with gyms and strength and conditioning areas, but their programmes are carefully managed by their own dedicated staff due to the changing nature of their bodies.

Growth spurts can cause a variety of conditions, such as Osgood-Schlatter disease , and individual programs are tailored for such changes.

When the boys reach 15, there are two educational pathways.

The club has a partnership with Ratcliffe College, which Leicester funds, and some boys can go on to study for their GCSEs there while coming into Seagrave to train.

Others will be on a hybrid model where they will remain with their schools but will be released a few afternoons each week to train.

When they reach 16 and sign scholar forms (16-18), their education does not end there.

Academy scholars study a Level 3 BTEC Sporting Excellence and Professional (SEP), with some taking on the extended diploma, which is equivalent to three A-Levels.

Some will go on to do A-levels and under-21s are offered more courses in personal development with some even opting to do online degrees.

The plan is to ensure that the boys who do not make it as professional footballers will still have career or educational options.

Ultimately, the academy is designed to produce the best players possible and a pyramid of progression is used as the players progress, starting with the youngest age groups, between ages nine and 12, where the emphasis is simply on fun.

The motto is that the Leicester academy should be the most fun playground imaginable, but as the players move through the age groups, it gets a little more serious.

Advertisement They move to 11-v-11 at age 12, when it starts to look more like elite football, but each player will still play in multiple positions to enhance their understanding of the game until they get to the professional learning phase.

Between ages 18 and 21, it is about learning how to win and earning your shirt.

In fact, some in-game decisions by the coaches are designed to make winning harder to help build resilience.

Part of the education programme even stretches to the parents, many of whom will have been the players coaches at grassroots level before they join the academy.

The academy is at an elite level and often, the parents will need advice on how to handle that step up, including what to say to their children after a difficult game or training session.

The league rule is that players aged between nine and 12 must live within an hours drive of the training ground.

Between 12 and 14, that increases to 90 minutes but, with the addition of Ratcliffe College, recruits can come in from further afield, although Brexit has made it much more complex to bring in identified talent from overseas, as was the case with Stolarczyk, who was spotted in Poland and could not speak English when he first arrived at Leicester at under-16s level.

He went to Beauchamp College to improve his English.

The vast majority are East Midlands-based and have come through from the foundation phase, although the academy does pick up released players from other clubs, including Jayden Joseph, who Manchester City let go aged 16, and Amani Richards, formerly of Arsenal.

Joseph and Richards have been through the process of being released, the hardest part of the academy managers role.

The news, however, should not have come as a huge shock to the player.

Parents are invited to three feedback sessions per year, where the progress of their child is discussed.

When they get older, the players are also involved in those conversations.

Initially, a plan of improvement is drawn up but when the journey comes to an end, there will be options for the player.

The academy will circulate a video montage, approved by the player, to other academies or trial games will be organised for scouts to watch the players who will become available.

Some have also gained scholarships to carry on playing in the United States college system .

Advertisement Others, including Conor Anderson, have gone on to use their education to be successful in other fields.

Anderson, who spent 10 years at the academy, is now a director of an estate agents in Leicestershire.

Cleveland Taylor is the clubs professional development phase player care officer, who works alongside long-serving safeguarding and welfare officer Dale Bradshaw.

Taylor will stay in touch with the released player and his parents to check on his welfare and offer advice and support in whatever they choose as the next step.

There are clinical psychologists who can be called upon for counselling, if required, as part of the aftercare.

For many, it may be the end of the road in terms of playing for Leicester, but for some, it is not the end of their time within the academy.

Several of the current staff have been through the pathway themselves.

Over the last eight years, there has been a conscious effort to recruit former academy players to new roles.

Adi Yussuf was released by the club in 2011 and went on to play professionally for numerous clubs but has returned to work with the under-18s.

Eric Odhiambo, who signed his first professional contract at the same time as King and Gradel, is coaching the under-16s.

Matt Goodwin was in the academy system at Leicester but had to retire aged 17 because of a knee condition, but he is now their lead youth development phase coach.

Having graduated from the academy to become the first player to win the League One, Championship and Premier League titles with the same club, King is the greatest beneficiary of Leicesters academy system, and he returned this season to coach the under-18s before being promoted by Van Nistelrooy to his first-team coaching staff.

King is the academys greatest success story and now he is playing a role in finding the next generation that will emerge to continue the Leicester academy tradition and demonstrate the growing importance of homegrown talent.

(Top photos: Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6241514/2025/03/31/leicester-city-academy-products/