Mike Trusson – FA Coach Educator
Chris
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Posts by Chris
PROGRESSIONS AND CHALLENGES WHEN COACHING SOCCER – PART ONE
May 15th
Last summer I was invited to a football and soccer coaching seminar in Portugal to present a lecture on the need for football coaches to ensure there are challenges and progressions in their soccer training sessions.
To improve the enjoyment and development process for players, it is important that they have the opportunity, initially, to achieve success in the football training session. That they have lots of realistic, match like scenarios to practice the skill the soccer coaching session is promoting. This will increase and develop the players’ confidence and self belief.
But, after a suitable period of time, the players will need be tested and challenged, so that their enjoyment, learning and decision making process and technical execution under increased pressure are challenged.
This is where challenges and progressions become so important in training players. The challenges need to be suitable for the age and ability of the players and need to be judged by the soccer coach as suitable for the needs of the coaching session. By developing challenges and progressions in the session, a coach will be making the session more enjoyable and challenging for the players and assist in their learning and development.
Too much of a challenge so that More >
Why is the English game and their players considered technically inferior?
May 14th
Football and soccer coaching structure in English Football
Imagine a situation where students go to school and there aren’t enough schools, classrooms, facilities and a lack of qualified teachers who can motivate, inspire and teach the students. Would it come as any surprise that the whole education system would suffer and that students would fail to gain an adequate education and that the country as a whole would suffer.
This is the situation we find ourselves in at the grassroots level of coaching football.
Children can no longer play jumpers for goalposts football on the streets, or in the parks, unsupervised. Socially, the world has changed and that can’t happen any more. But, these kind of informal small sided games are where players develop their love and enthusiasm for the game and through a natural self learning process, develop and improve their football techniques and skills.
So what is the answer? We need more qualified football coaches, who in the first instance, can safely organise and facilitate small sided games for any and all young players who want to play, not only a grassroots clubs, but also at schools, in school holidays, at the parks and clubs around the country.
A programme like this would More >
Are Diving Soccer Players Cheats ?
May 12th
I’m sure for many football fans the sight of players blatantly diving, rolling around and generally play acting as well as running up to referees brandishing imaginary cards to try and get fellow professionals sent off is nauseating. It also sets such a bad example for all the young players who play the game. It is something the “beautiful game” should be will rid of.
But these things are still happening, week after week. The football authorities have managed to impose a rule that players are now automatically booked for taking off their shirt when they celebrate a goal! But fail to act on blatant cheating, gamesmanship and poor sporting behaviour.
I think there is a very simple solution. Just like the rule for booking players for taking off their shirt, there should be a rule that says, every time a player tries to influence the referee to get a player sent off, they should receive a yellow card. If, in the referees view a player is guilty of diving, then they should be booked. Yes, some referees do this now, but not all of them and not with any consistency.
In addition, any player that is booked during the game for diving More >
Football Technology and Soccer Referees
May 11th
There is an increasing clamour for technology to have a greater involvement in decisions in football. Cameras on the goal, to check if the ball has crossed the line for example. In my view, football in this country sells and is successful around the World because it is a fast moving, dynamic, exciting game. It also relies on controversy to sell the game. The experts on T.V, the newspapers and media all feed and sell their products on the controversy that the fast moving game of professional football provides. The decisions the poor referees have to make in a split second are endlessly debated by the fans after the game, in pubs, in phone ins. Slow motions relays are dissected, analysed and opinions given..Sometimes, even with the help of these slow motion replays, they get it wrong. This debate and controversy is the life blood of the game. So let’s leave it to the referees and linesman to be human, make mistakes, get it right and wrong and continue to enjoy the controversy that this creates.
The offside rule
May 10th
So does anyone really know what the offside rule really means? If an attacker is level with the last defender, they are on side? Great idea, as it gives a real advantage to the attacking team. It encourages the defending team to defend properly and track runners, rather than hold the line and stick their hand up and appeal for offside. But, is it being applied to the advantage of the attacking team? What does level mean exactly? I would have thought that if the attacker was level with the last defender, then if there isn’t space, or daylight between the attacker and last defender, then the attacker is on side. But this doesn’t always seem to be the case. Still, too often, the linesman, or fourth official as they are now known, sticks their flag up on the appeal from the defending team. It is time the football authorities sorted this out and clarified the position.
Soccer Coaching – 8 v 8 small sided games
May 9th
Football coaching a team in a small sided game, with the coaching topic of defend as a team.
We try to get the football coaches to understand the basic principle of defending. Once possession is lost, the team look to get behind the ball, get a defensive shape, which is narrow and compact and allows players to adopt positions in relation to where the ball is.
Defending in team play starts from the front. So when the ball was in possession of the opposition defence, we worked with our two strikers, to get them to understand how to react quickly when the ball was lost, to recover behind the ball and to work and defend as a pair. They needed to recognise if the player on the ball had good possession, then there was no point in trying to pressure the ball as they would easily be passed by. Their roles were to try and stop the ball behind passed forward into key attacking areas and to try and force play across the pitch and to keep the ball in front of them. They had to work as a pair communicate and react together as the ball was passed across them.
Once the strikers More >
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