Mike Trusson – FA Coach Educator
Coach Education
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 >
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 >
Football Coaching FA Level 2 in Kent Day 3
May 8th
Today we showed the football coaches a series of small sided football games. The basic organisation is to play 4 v 4 outfield players, with goalkeepers.
To really help the soccer coaches understand how to coach attacking topics within a small sided game, the coaches need to plan the size of the pitch related to the topic they are coaching.
For example, for a topic like Short Range Passing, it would help to coach the topic if the pitch was smaller than normal. This would also depend on the age and ability of the players being coached, but a pitch size of say 35 x 25 yards, would require the players to pass the ball consistently over a short range. The second thing is to try and manage both teams to play some kind of formation, say 2 – 1 – 1 and for the players to try and be disciplined to stay in that formation and play in their positions. Of course defenders can go forward, as can midfield players, but if they interchange positions, for two of the players to recognise the need to play as defenders and at least one of the them to play up front.
The third thing More >
Football Coaching FA Level 2 in Kent Day 2
May 7th
After yesterday, where Alan and I showed the football coaches how a technique progressed into a skill, today it was the turn of the coaches to coach their given topics and be assessed by Alan and myself. The soccer coaches generally did well; given this was their first experience at this level. The biggest problem they experienced was planning their sessions, so that they could effectively coach their given topics. Alan and I used coaches’ chalkboard to demonstrate to the coaches how to plan a session.
We encourage football coaches to observe and coach from good practice. So when a player does something really well, sometimes use that situation to give the players a rest and highlight the good practice. This gives a confidence boost to the player, provides an aspiration for the other players and provides and opportunity to reinforce the key technical aspects, in a verbal and visual manner.
One of the guys was coaching the Technique of running with the ball. He saw that one of the players, Julie received and ran with the ball really well. So he stopped the session, said that was fantastic. “Julie lets recreate the situation so that everyone can understand what you did”. More >
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