THE CHALLENGE
Applying a systemic approach to integrate and optimize the club’s dual career environment across the football academy, cooperation school, and boarding school.
OUR SOLUTION
We implemented a coordinated strategy built upon three foundational pillars: stimulating a shared dual career culture, improving process management, and fostering skill development for both players and practitioners. This comprehensive approach was underpinned by the design of the unique 96 Skills curriculum.
Provided services:
Strategy consulting, Programme design, Staff training, Athlete education
THE CHALLENGE
Applying a systemic approach to integrate and optimize the club’s dual career environment across the football academy, cooperation school, and boarding school.
OUR SOLUTION
We implemented a coordinated strategy built upon three foundational pillars: stimulating a shared dual career culture, improving process management, and fostering skill development for both players and practitioners. This comprehensive approach was underpinned by the design of the unique 96 Skills curriculum.
Provided services:
Strategy consulting, Programme design, Staff training, Athlete education
What the client says
"TWIN has inspired and helped strategize our new approach to foster youth footballers' performance in two areas: high-level sport and school education."
"TWIN has inspired and helped strategize our new approach to foster youth footballers' performance in two areas: high-level sport and school education."
— Sven Achilles ⋅ Sport coordinator, KGS Hemmingen/Hannover 96 Academy
DETAILS
DETAILS
Youth development programmes at Germany’s professional clubs are accredited by the national football association DFB and utilize a dual career model. A long-standing example is the 15-year partnership between the Hannover 96 Academy, its boarding school, and the DFB elite school of football, KGS Hemmingen. Since 2021, TWIN advises the programme’s strategic and operational development, leading to the creation of the systemic concept “Plan A”.
Plan A: Integrating the dual career system
The traditional view of a dual career as a mere fallback option fails to capture its innovative potential. By strategically merging football, education, and personal development, the dual career approach can significantly enhance on-field performance. Adopting this philosophy, we assert that the dual career is not a “Plan B,” but rather an indispensable element of modern, performance-oriented training models. This paradigm shift resulted in the launch of Plan A as a core component of the club’s overarching concept, “Der 96-Weg.”
Our initial focus was on elevating the club’s comprehensive support structure by applying a systemic approach. This strategy aimed to integrate the model’s prime functional areas into a single, cohesive, and communicating unit, which is essential for building a truly effective dual career pathway.
To enhance oversight and provide strategic guidance for system performance, we developed a tailored digital self-assessment tool for the Hannover environment. This tool was crucial for measuring performance across the programme and identifying four key developmental areas of the dual career system:
- Culture: Fostering sustainable cultural alignment, ensuring Plan A is understood, embraced, and implemented consistently by key system actors under the framework of "Der 96-Weg".
- Processes: Systematically improving governance and communication across all functional departments: football, the elite school of football, the boarding school, and related external stakeholders.
- Skill development: Promoting skills development for youth players and staff, concurrent with the professionalization of their services within the system.
- X-Factor 96: Communicating and visualizing Plan A and its Hannover identity as an experienced quality feature, both internally and externally.
96 Skills: Re-imagining athlete education for young footballers
Despite a shared commitment to holistic development, many dual career environments struggle with implementation, citing critical limitations in infrastructure, time allocation, and professional training. Addressing this challenge was a central objective of Plan A.
Alongside a series of training activities for club coaches and teaching staff, the core mechanism for driving player skill development was thus the design of the unique 96 Skills curriculum. Co-developed with the academy’s directors, coaching staff, teachers, boarding school educators, and sport psychological department, this groundbreaking subject is integrated directly into the educational schedule at the club’s cooperation school KGS Hemmingen.
96 Skills represents more than just a class; it is a strategic approach to athlete development. It is built on the idea that learning can be a form of training, professionalizing personal growth for young footballers in key areas of their lives. The curriculum, unique in German football, seamlessly merges athlete-specific personal development with off-pitch exposure and academic education. This comprehensive blend ensures players aged 15-18 are equipped for success both on the field and in spheres beyond the game.
In summary: We delivered a systemic strategy that resulted in the launch of Plan A, aiming to fundamentally shift the Hannover 96 dual career model from a “Plan B” to a performance driver in youth football. This approach integrated the club’s academy, school, and boarding school into a cohesive unit, focusing on refining culture, processes, and skills. The strategy is further cemented by the unique 96 Skills curriculum, a pioneering educational subject that ensures holistic athlete development and long-term success both on the field and beyond.