What are you coaching motivations?
Hi Everyone, welcome to another edition of the Coach Insight newsletter. This week we have some inward-looking questions to ask yourself, player-led sessions, a how-to on the false nine, free content, and how Spain is looking to develop their next superstars. Enjoy….
The Top Ten
A philosophical start this week with Todd Beane asking 5 questions to clarify your coaching. I’ve picked this one as if you’ve never done an introspective like this before I highly recommend you do, answers to these questions can help guide you when things aren’t great whether that’s because it’s becoming too much, a sense of insecurity, lack of progression, etc.
Next up is something some coaches will find scary, player-led sessions. This blog post from the FA learning website goes into detail about how you can apply it and some of the benefits you may see because of it. Are you brave enough to let go of control and allow your players to choose and lead parts of your sessions? https://community.thefa.com/coaching/b/youth-club-football-blogs/posts/the-benefits-of-player-led-sessions
In a now-deleted tweet, but I happened to get a screenshot. Insight into Steve Kerr’s (multiple NBA championship-winning coach, including this year) core values. The most interesting for me, keeping score, we can sometimes be afraid to keep score or have competition but as I’ve said previously child-led competition is fine, it’s our adult version that is harmful to children.
Another FA article, this time shows how those whose teams are transitioning into bigger formats can help their players adapt more quickly. https://thebootroom.thefa.com/resources/coaching/making-the-step-from-7v7-to-11v11-football
Something to ponder here from Tom Hartey. coaching strengths instead of weaknesses. How do you feel about that? is it that simple? Personally, I think, amplifying strengths, and ensuring weaknesses aren’t detrimental to performance.
Have a read of this article from David Garcia about language and football. The language you use not only affects the way you think and perceive but also the people around you. How are you ensuring there is clarity in your language to your players and in turn their language to each other. https://www.itsjustasport.com/home/better-language
Manchester City won the English Premier League last season without playing a traditional number 9. So if you’ve ever wondered how you play with a false nine like them, Coaches CV outlines the principles behind it, the advantages, disadvantages, and some examples of different false 9’s https://www.coachesvoice.com/cv/what-is-a-false-nine-explained-messi-kane-firmino-fabregas/
A video from an American football coach talking through, what I would say is accountability in coaching. If a player isn’t progressing, is it just that they’re not good enough, or have you done enough to engage and find a way to bring it out of them? It’s easy to say the former, I wonder how many players we could help by just going that little bit extra for them?
Free content alert! This time from the CoachTopia team. They’re giving away their Small-Sided Games handbook. Always nice to get some ideas for the upcoming seasons.
Always interesting to see how other countries are updating and applying their youth coaching. We recently saw Germany outline how they’re going to improve their system and now it’s the turn of Spain and their academies. The training Ground Guru team takes you through how they're trying to create a Spanish revolution! https://trainingground.guru/articles/la-ligas-plan-to-further-strengthen-its-academy-system
That’s it for this week. Thanks again for joining, as always if you know anyone who enjoys our content, please share using the buttons below, have a great weekend and week.
