A life dedicated to football, first as a player and then as a coach, led me to seek out a new method of teaching. I had reached a point in my career where I realized that I needed to allow my inner teacher to develop and dedicate myself exclusively to the training of young players.
Later, as a youth coach at FC Barcelona, I realized that it was possible for football institutions to establish a training process for players that employs a strategic plan emphasizing certain objectives, and that it would be possible to create an institutional training policy that also takes economic objectives into account.
 
An institutional plan should enhance the performance and sporting development of the players. This is what success in the training process should look like: producing generations of players with a recognizable football DNA, who carry the institution’s biotype, and who are able to establish themselves among the elite. The objective of this guidebook is to share, in the simplest and most practical way possible, how to achieve these goals.
 
These are the basics of what I called the Argentine Development Method, the same one that I now apply as a developmental coach with City Group around the world. I am absolutely convinced that the technical and tactical development of players can be programmed. Therefore, this guidebook will provide you with the general and specific guidelines needed to transform the youth and lower division teams of a football club. It’s a practical guide that can be implemented during a coach’s first 100 transformative days in charge of youth development at any football institution.
 
JORGE “COQUI” RAFFO
 
 
Coqui Raffo is like a footballing father to me. I was 11 years old when I left Embalse, the city in Córdoba where I was born, and moved to Buenos Aires to join the Barcelona affiliate team there. Raffo was in charge of the project, and he immediately took me under his wing. I originally played as a center forward or right winger, but he helped me to find my true place on the pitch, first as a right midfielder and then as a fullback. Everything I learned about the position was taught to me by Raffo, who was convinced that if I added the specific knowledge of the fullback position to what I already knew as a striker, I would be able to excel. And so it was. Raffo's training method for youth football, what he calls "the Argentine Method", is fantastic. I saw it in the Barcelona affiliate team and then in the Boca Juniors youth ranks, where we were reunited. Everything I learned from him helped me to be rated as a valuable player, first allowing me to make my debut with Boca, then to play in Europe, and ultimately to be a part of Argentina’s World Cup winning team in Qatar. In this book, Raffo explains this method in detail. It’s an ideal guide for coaches who are dedicated to their craft, for all technical directors, for players, and also for lovers of this beautiful sport who are interested in knowing how an elite player should be trained.
 
Nahuel Molina