Flavius Andrisca
Founder
Radical Football
The Story
I am a youth football coach at the beginning of my journey.
But for me, a beginning does not mean a lack of depth – it means a conscious choice to walk differently. With more attention. With more patience. With more respect for what it truly means to learn.
I chose to come closer to the children, not to lead them. To observe, not to control. To create spaces where learning emerges naturally – from play, from relationships, from curiosity. Radical Football is the expression of that choice.
Radical Football was born from a question that would not leave me:
What if we designed training sessions by thinking first about the child – and only then about football?
It was a simple question, but one that carried life within it. And it brought many others along:
What does a child really learn when they play? What do they feel? How do they think? What helps them grow, build confidence, become autonomous?
This is how Radical Football took shape – not as a program or a method, but as a movement. A space for reflection, experimentation, and collective construction.
And from this vision, the Radical Football Conference was born – an international event that brings together coaches, researchers, educators, and leaders from clubs and federations. Not to validate ideas, but to challenge them. Not to convince one another, but to learn from each other.
The Heart of Radical Football
Radical Football is not a reaction – it is an invitation.
An invitation to see the child differently. To see play differently.
To see learning not as a task to be managed, but as a world to be discovered.
I believe every child deserves an environment where they are truly seen, heard, and supported.
A space that nurtures courage, sharpens critical thinking, allows creativity to unfold, and lets adaptability grow naturally through experience.
A place where children are not asked to imitate, but empowered to explore.
Not to obey, but to feel. To sense. To choose.
Our intention is to shape learning environments that are alive, relational and meaningful.
Where children don’t simply perform, but inquire.
Where learning becomes a journey of awareness,
not a routine to be mastered, but a landscape to be navigated, with all its uncertainty, complexity, and beauty.
The Football Celebration
The Football Celebration is not about trophies. It’s about joy.
It’s about children playing freely, without fear, without shouting from the sidelines, without pressure.
It’s a space where children can explore. They can make mistakes. They can create.
Without being labeled. Without being compared.
It is our way of saying that the game, first and foremost, is joy.
And true learning happens when that joy is kept alive.
On development and learning
Children do not learn in a linear way.
They grow in rhythms, not in steps.
Not all at the same pace. Not all in the same way.
Because learning is not a formula, it is a living process: fluid, relational, often unpredictable, always unique.
Children learn through experiences, through doing, sensing, failing, trying again. That is why, we focus not only on what children do,but on how they learn, why they learn, and who they are becoming in the process.
We care about the quality of their journey, because in every small moment, a future self is quietly being shaped.
Community
Radical Football is not just a concept. It’s a community.
A network of people who believe that football can truly educate.
It includes coaches, parents, educators, researchers, academy leaders –
not because they follow the same approach, but because they are guided by the same values.
It is a community open to those who believe in children.
In their rhythm. In their potential.
In their right to learn with meaning, and with dignity.