IFAF WORLD TEAM COACHING STAFF ANNOUNCED

World team MVP Hampus Hellermark (Photo: Van Tran Ngoc)

The International Federation of American Football has announced the coaching staff that will lead its World Team against Team USA at the annual ‘Team USA vs. The World’ event in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday, February 2, 2011.

The coaches represent a total of eight countries – Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, Mexico and Sweden – and four continents from among the 59 countries governed by IFAF that play some form of American Football.

The annual international competition will feature a World Team of teenage football players also spanning as many as four continents playing against America’s Under-19 National Team, composed of current high school seniors (class of 2011). Both teams will field a 45-player roster.

The 2011 Team USA vs. The World game will be played at Austin’s Westlake High School’s Ebbie Neptune Field at Chaparral Stadium.  In 2010 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the World Team showed that international players are able to compete on the gridiron against their counterparts from the United States, losing only 17-0 in a game saw USA held scoreless until the final play of the first half.

World Team Coaching Staff

Leading the World Team will be head coach GREG MARSHALL, who took charge of the team’s offensive line for the 2010 game.  Marshall is the head coach of the University of Western Ontario Mustangs and was a Grey Cup winning running back and head coach in the CFL.  He led his Western team to the 2008 Mitchell Bowl and the 2008 Desjardins Vanier Cup.

Another veteran of the 2010 staff WARREN CRANEY will again serve as defensive coordinator for the World Team. The Montreal, Quebec, native is the head coach of York University having joined the Lions in 2010 from Concordia University, where he spent seven seasons as the defensive coordinator and three before that as the defensive line coach.  Craney was defensive coordinator of the Canada junior national team that won a silver medal at the 2009 IFAF Junior World Championship.

PAUL MANERA is the World Team offensive coordinator, a role he also holds with the Australia Outback senior national team.  Manera was a three-year letterman at the University Of Hawaii from 1989 to 1991 playing at offensive tackle and was an Academic All Western Athletic Conference selection in 1991.  He served as a student assistant coach at Hawaii and has also coached in the Japanese X League with the Recruit Seagulls in Tokyo and extensively in his native Australia.

Special teams coach OLIVIER MORET returns for a second stint as a member of the World Team staff.  Moret coached France to seventh place at the 2009 IFAF Junior World Championship and third place at the 2008 European Junior Championship.  He was the director of the French Pôle Espoir, which ensures young players can continue their academic studies while playing American Football.  In 1987 Moret was a founder of the Amiens Spartiates, one of the most successful clubs in France.

Defensive line coach SALOMON SOLANO was on the staff of the Mexican team that took fourth place at the 2009 IFAF Junior World Championship and also returns in the same World Team coaching capacity he held in 2010.  In 2008 he was a member of the Baltimore Ravens practice squad and has represented Mexico as a player at the junior national team level.  He was the defensive coordinator of his alma mater the University of Tamaulipas in 2009.

The defensive backs will be the responsibility of TUOMAS HEIKKINEN who is currently the head coach of the Finland senior national team.  Heikkinen has coached tackle, flag and women’s football in his native Finland and was head coach of one of the country’s most successful club teams the Helsinki Roosters.  He has also been a defensive coordinator with club teams in Finland and the Czech Republic and played at the highest level of the game in Europe as a defensive lineman.

EDGAR ZAPATA, the offensive coordinator of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) Tigres will coach the World Team quarterbacks.  Zapata has an extensive youth and junior coaching background and has also served as offensive coordinator with ITESM CEM in his native Mexico and has coached quarterbacks with UDLA-Puebla in Mexico.

The running back duties will rest with HIROKI UNO, the head coach of Rikkyo University in Japan.  Uno has been at the helm at Rikkyo since 2009 having previously been the university’s defensive coordinator for three seasons and has coached in the Ivy Samurai Bowl and three college all-star games.

Coaching the World Team offensive line will be STEFAN BJORKMAN, who has established himself as a successful OL coach with one of Sweden’s top club teams the Stockholm Mean Machines, winning seven national championships.  During his playing career, Bjorkman was selected as part of the Operation Discovery program as an offensive guard with the San Antonio Roughriders of the World League in 1991 under head coach Mike Riley.  While the Swedish senior national team defensive line coach he won the 2003 and 2008 European championships and fourth place at the IFAF Senior World Championship in Tokyo Japan in 2007.

Completing the offensive coaching staff, JAKOB DIEPLINGER will oversee the wide receivers.  The Austrian is one of Europe’s prominent wide receivers, starring for the Swarco Raiders in his homeland, where he has won the coveted Eurobowl championship.  He represented Austria at the 2010 European Championships and was named to the All-Star first team having scored two touchdowns as Austria won the tournament’s bronze medal game.  In addition to coaching with the Raiders, he is the Offensive Coordinator of the Austrian junior national team and works as a full time athletic youth director for the Raiders, Austria’s most successful youth organization.

The World Team will also feature an ongoing player development system for talented athletes who have the potential to represent the World Team in future years and will come under the supervision of Development Team Coordinator TIM ENGER.  The Canadian has been employed at Football Alberta for the past 21 years and has developed several programs including the Senior Bowl High School All-Star Game, the Bantam Bowl, football’s participation in the Alberta Summer Games, and Minor Provincials.  His coaching experience has spanned all levels of the tackle game and as a head coach his teams have won eight league or Provincial Championships.

NICLAS CARLSON from Sweden will again serve as the World team strength coach having been responsible for the standards of the IFAF World Team players’ weight, strength, speed and power for the 2010 game. He will work with all nominated players in the World Team program to ensure their physically prepared for Wednesday, February 2. Carlson works on strength and conditioning initiatives for the IFAF Educational Development Program and on National Development Programs for the national teams at all levels in Sweden.

The World Team player roster selection process involves a series of nominations made by the 59 IFAF member federations.  The World Team coaching staff will announce their player selections during December.