Introduction 

Player and coach development are best considered as investments and commitments, rather than a means to the end known as ‘winning’. 

 

If we only focus our attention on player and coach development being measured by how many games, leagues or cups we win (or don’t win), we risk many of the rationales of embedding football clubs into our human communities being on the borders of our perspective. 

 

Connection, belonging and many other affective responses that shape our sense of self are inevitably impacted by victories, but are also deepened in defeat and the arduous challenges that our involvement in football provides.

 

Navigating the wonderful rollercoaster that is the game - whether we call it football or soccer, as we will use interchangeably throughout this book - with our players and coaches, whilst staying the course with the agreed and shared intentions of what’s important to us, is winning.

 

In the end, we are, to each other, a collection of memories; some good, others less so. Shaping those enduring reflections with a depth of human understanding laced with humour, love and respect alongside some more tangible trophies and on-field successes are the endearing images that can cover the corridors of our collective caches of experience. 

 

Hence, considering opportunity as a central tenet of player and coach development is the proposal to the reader. As coaches and developers, we either enable opportunity or we take it away. Being mindful of the decisions we make in enabling access to the opportunities to play football, in which contexts, alongside and against which other human beings, within which game models, and influenced by which coaching behaviours, are sound commitments and investments of time. 

 

That is where ‘Elite Player & Coach Development’ places its laser focus. The reader will explore a way (or ways) to conceptualise, and ultimately play, rousing football; support player development in ways that are responsive to the individual players; and, fundamentally coach both football and players such that we enable resilience. That is the resilience to traverse the dynamic landscape that is the global game. 

 

Experiences of supporting elite player, coach and club development in a range of different contexts repeatedly returns my rhythm back to the early emotional attachment to the game I was fortunate to be exposed to. The importance of enjoyment, freedom, connecting with people and how we make them feel was then, and still is, the power that football possesses to elicit these affective responses and bind us beyond the badge we wear. 

 

That is where this book begins and ends. With what’s important. 

 

This sense of why we come together guides every connected player and coach development decision that you will explore between those belief-focused bookends that rest in your hands.

 

As ever, thanks for your interest. 

 

Ben 

 

 

Value Judgements 

The kind of club we are shapes and informs the decisions we make in coaching and supporting our players’ development. These are frames of reference that guide the direction of travel. 

 

The reference points that the answers to the central question from chapter 1 provide can support everyone within our club environment to develop a coherent narrative about where value is attributed and, naturally, influence our decisions. This extends into every aspect of our coaching. 

 

In this sense, I urge you to consider coaching as a broader concept than the sessions we experience and share with the players. Every interaction is an opportunity to positively influence the people in our care, aligning with our shared values. 

 

Team selection is one such interaction and opportunity and, perhaps, one of the most powerful reflections of whether what we, as a club, have agreed we value plays out on matchday. This can be, at a minimum, considered from two connected perspectives:

• Moral (value judgements) 
• Tactical 

This chapter will focus on the moral or value judgement. Chapter 6 will connect these with the tactical connotations. 

 

Chapter 1 encouraged you to ask yourself: ‘What kind of a club are we?’ The answers to this question will inevitably contribute to the decisions we make. This will undoubtedly meet key moments of tension when players, parents or members of the coaching staff will interpret a moment through their own eyes, coloured by their own values.  

 

This doesn’t need to be viewed with angst. It is an opportunity to discuss what we’ve agreed is important and how it informs the decisions we make, and to view these decisions from other people’s points of view. This is a window into how other people perceive and interact with the world and supports us to better understand how our messages land, how people receive the messages we communicate (not just through the spoken word) and, consequently, deepens our understanding of both ourselves and the people that exist within our environment. 

 

The value judgements we make then continually evolve, to find a healthy reciprocity between what we, and the wider club, believe might be important and what individual people within our club hold dear. This expands into every aspect of our coaching. 

 

See ‘Now’ Or Consider The Future? 

Let’s say that our club values winning every week, and team selection is guided by selecting the perceived best players with the intention of beating every opponent. This isn’t a bad decision, although it may be helpful to recognise the impact these decisions have on the broader development of the players. 

 

At age-group level, the ‘best’ team often includes the most mature players - not just physically. This maturity advantage often leads to self-fulfilling prophecies.  

 

Those who hold a current advantage of being born earlier in the selection year (such as September in the UK), being earlier to develop physically, who started playing sports earlier than others, are better socially with peers and adults, or who have environmental or genetic gifts that support them to present as more capable than others, are valued more in environments where performance today is worshipped to a disproportionate degree. 

 

These players, and our will to worship them to a greater extent than those who are less mature, are then often provided with more opportunity to play - they start more games, play in positions that are central to the team succeeding and are substituted less often. This perpetuates their status.  

 

Conversely, those who possess fewer or none of those perceived advantages may play less, play in positions that are less central to the game, be a substitute or substituted more and, as a consequence, be afforded less opportunity to develop and grow beyond their current capacity and characteristics.  

 

In other words, those who already have, get more; those who don’t yet have, get less. Hence the ‘best’ ones continue as the best ones. 

 

We may then win many games but suffer other losses, such as the haemorrhaging of players and reduced confidence in themselves or in the environment, and a mistrust of the value of sport.  

 

Is this the kind of club we want to be? 

 

What’s Important At Your Club? 

As coaches, making alternative decisions that support each player to be valued as they currently are whilst working with them to continue to grow and develop in ways that align with their own value set can be challenging. 

 

This is associated with the example in Chapter 1 from the coaches of the semi-professional club.  

 

If we clarify what is important from the outset (as a reference point for ‘who we are’) and illuminate that clarity with consistent, universally embodied behaviour, we enable everyone to understand that this is ‘the way we do things here’ and strongly identify with it.  

 

Exploring, establishing, and sharpening clarity around the beliefs that shape our behaviour is a valuable exercise that is worth the investment of time, energy and deeper thought. This investment can support enhanced self-awareness as we seek to make more eminent the often unwritten, unexplored internal drivers that influence how we behave.

 

There can often be differences between the beliefs we state we hold dear, particularly when social pressures are imposed, and the ones that are engendered in our personality. These social pressures often lead to us saying what others may want to hear rather than what we stand for. 

 

Spend time noticing your reactions and feelings when particular things are happening in training sessions and on matchdays. What makes you feel emotional, angry, frustrated, or excited? These affective responses are signals of what drives us. Noticing these feelings can enhance our awareness of what is genuinely important to us and, with the responsibility that comes with being a coach, support us to be brave in sharing it with other coaches, players and parents. 

 

This kind of honesty and openness can leave us feeling - or actually being - vulnerable. It can also be hugely empowering and encouraging for others in our environment to reciprocate. This reciprocity helps us to define and establish the characteristics that define what is important to us and to understand ‘it’, ourselves and others with greater coherence.  

 

It is unlikely that there are specific exercises we can complete or workshops we can enrol in that help us to do this. Nor is there a ‘cheat sheet’ or a ‘checklist’ that resolves it. It requires us to examine ourselves, particularly in soccer moments when the temperature rises, and recognise our characteristics and what drives us.  

 

These characteristics don’t need to be identified as a replica of the perceived most successful coach of our era. Better if that identity reflects us, so on those challenging days when luck or a decision goes against us and draws our emotions lower, we’ve come to better understand who we are. This depth of understanding of self is a clearer mirror that holds strong, preventing individual events and the often accidental nature of those events from destabilising us. 

 

This identity provides a powerful sense of belonging and ownership of something bigger than what happens at kick-off. Something that’s evident in every pore and cell of our being. Something that is affective, eliciting positive emotion and human connection. 

 

When kick-off arrives, the environment is collective, committed, and coherent.  

 

This collective, coherent commitment can empower our club to be a unique representation of our people, extending the sporting experience beyond the result of individual games and into a constructive aspect of our community. 

 

Environment Design 

The purpose of coaching is to support and enable learning. Learning isn’t something that coaches, teachers, educators or webinar distributors control. Our learning is impacted in every single moment of every day, influenced by the things we care about, the interactions we have with the environments we occupy and the other people who co-exist in those environments. 

 

Whilst who our friends are, the job we do, our intimate partners, children, colleagues, where we live, and the transportation we use to travel are not exhaustive lists, they are in each living, breathing moment influencing, both consciously and unconsciously, how we think and behave as our human system responds to each situation. 

 

Additionally, our behaviour is not, on its own, a response to the experiences that we have garnered. Our genetic constitution will impact quite significantly how the body and all the intertwined, dynamic elements move and behave. This includes the personality stamp we are born with and the accompanying inherent constraints of our intelligence and physical composition. 

 

Hence all of our environments are learning ones. 

 

Whilst we can, and purposefully and positively should, socially construct aspects of our environment to enable and encourage the development of certain skills; this will be constrained by and be continuously contending with the cares and characteristics of the other people within any particular environment. 

 

Consider this carefully in the way we approach coaching; learning is not something we should ‘do’ to someone, it is perhaps better thought of as a consequence of the things we are exposed to. Hence the urge is for us to consider our responsibility to design and afford people experiences that enable the things that are important to them (their cares) and the person that they are (their characteristics) to be central to our thinking. 

 

Defining a Constraints-Led Approach 

A constraints-led approach isn’t a complicated science. It’s just a way of thinking about learning. 

 

The dictionary defines a constraint as a limitation or restriction. This is true. However, whatever it is that constrains each of us is also an opportunity. It supports us to find a solution within those limitations. 

 

We are constrained as a person, like being a slow runner. The game of football is constrained by its laws, such as offside, and we are constrained by the environment each person plays football in. An example could be the noisy nature of some parents! 

 

This suggests that if we genuinely aspire to support learning, we should think about, understand and plan for the players in our team, the ways we would like those players to play football and the environment that those players and that game of football are contending with. 

 

Further, a constraints-led approach considers the ways each person interacts with the task they are engaging with and the environment that surrounds that task. This is Karl Newell’s backdrop on how learning happens which is illustrated in figure 3.1. 

To make this more relevant to football, coaches might consider this through figure 3.2 where we have replaced: 

1. ‘Person’ with ‘Player’ - who is the player in our care? 
2. ‘Task’ with ‘Football’ - how does the game of football look? 
3. ‘Environment’ with ‘Situation’ - what circumstances is the player playing the game of football in? 

These figures are principally a representation of what has been described earlier and reflect the traditional constraints triangle: 

 

Each person is constrained by their own genetic and experiential footprint – explained as the Player. 

  

The game is constrained by its laws (there are 17 of them) – explained as Football. 

  

The particular environment that any of us find ourselves in, whilst playing football, will be a constraining factor on the behaviour we exhibit – explained as the Situation. 

 

The Role of The Coach 

We have taken the liberty of adding coaching to the centre of figure 3.2. Whilst the coach doesn’t originally exist in this diagram, it is a conscious contribution to encourage us to think about the deliberate position we, the coach, assume in coherently connecting what we believe we know about any player in our care, the player development activity we might organise and the environment in which those players exist and the activity occurs. 

 

If we intend to separate any of the above three aspects from each other, for example delivering an off-the-shelf ‘playbook’ session without considering the people who will be participating in that session, then it is perhaps necessary to rationalise why we are doing that. 

 

We should also be mindful of the consequences that those decisions are likely to have on learning if the cares and characteristics of our players are not key considerations within the design of the experience. 

 

That is how a constraints-led approach might be explained; the person responding to the agreed task within some environmental conditions. Also be aware that, as the coach, our cares and characteristics are also constraining the way learning occurs. It is impossible for us to separate the things that are important to us from the way we think about the players and see the game of football. This isn’t a bad thing, just another constraint to be aware of. 

 

If we accept this as a responsive, holistic approach to supporting learning; we might decide to eschew the traditionally constructed curriculum which often drives coach behaviour. Whilst there is much to think about and be in awe of in the way teachers in more academic environments educate, we would do well to be careful about separating subjects from each other, detailing the specifics of what will be universally taught and then creating a mapped timeline of those specifics across a year or season. 

 

We often do these things in the mistaken belief this type of certainty helps the players. However, it reduces our ability to respond to how people change and grow over time. This is because we’ve already decided what we are going to do in, for example, week 34 of the season even though we don’t know how the players might change over time.  

 

If our environment intends to respond to the perceived needs of the individuals within a team; the experiences we agree with players that we will share together may be more impactful on learning if we build them: 

1. As a conscious, coherent consequence of discovering the things that people care about; ‘What kind of a club are we?’ 
2. With careful consideration of each person’s current characteristics. 
3. Having thought about and discussed the influence of previous experiences. 

This may require us all to see coaching more as a flexible, pliable skill and less as a pre-defined, paint-by-numbers process that can be picked up and planted onto people. 

 

Enabling reflexive environments provides the opportunity for the game of football to be a fluid, engaging and luminous experience for everyone. However, supporting football skills to be learnt and to emerge in response to the context can be a challenging task for coaches. The comfort and certainty that is derived from the playbook can only be contended with by a viable alternative. 

 

Vision Focused; Values Driven

As described in chapter 1, an alternative is to agree, as a group, on what kind of a club we are and what it is we’re trying to achieve - then aim at that target. We should also ensure we underpin this pursuit with how we intend to behave whilst achieving our intentions. 

 

This means that before deciding on how our curriculum and games programme will look, it is important to consider what it is that our team and club cares about, what it is aiming to achieve and the shared values that underpin these cares and intentions. This should, as a matter of course, involve the players. 

 

Without these agreed commitments guiding our approach, we risk being hijacked by shiny distractions that fleetingly, or in a more sustained fashion, catch our attention. For example, important principles of player development can be overlooked by the arbitrary pursuit of trophies. Whilst holistic player development doesn’t need to be an aside from winning games of football, leagues or cups; it is quite feasible for good intentions to be side-tracked by the seduction of scoreline success. 

 

Short-Term Success or Long-Term Development 

Coaching an under-18 team in a league-deciding game relatively early in my career provided a personal, notable experience which supported clarity to be developed on this. Our team needed to win the game to be crowned champions; our opponents required a draw. We were level at 1-1 early in the second half of a competitive game when one of the opposition’s most talented players kicked out at our midfield terrier off of the ball, which was missed by the officials. It was not missed by the opposition coach. 

 

This coach instantly removed the player from the game, resigning their team to play the remainder of the game, which we eventually won 2-1, with ten players. 

 

I approached the coach after the game and asked what informed their decision to remove the player from the game and consign their team to a tougher challenge. 

 

They explained: “That player will play in the Premier League and for their country. If they behave like that at the top level, they will cost their team. Developmental football is an opportunity to learn these types of lessons, and we cannot miss the opportunity to support them with that.” 

 

The player in question has had a sustained Premier League career and represented their country multiple times. The coach in question is now a Champions League finalist. This is an example of strong values within a developmental culture where short-term success was sacrificed for long-term benefit. Whilst we won the game, the ‘wins’ for the opposition player and coach continue to accrue. 

 

Such behaviours, as exhibited by the coach in question, are unlikely to be evident if we cultivate a win at any cost mentality. If we aspire to enable a powerful learning environment, then carefully and thoughtfully designing our ecosystem to reflect the cares, intentions and values of our people is a cornerstone 

 

These cornerstones need to be just that: foundations that form who we are, which are universally embodied. Any misaligning behaviour, whether intentional or misplaced, should be challenged supportively, not only by the coach but by the entire nature of our programme. This requires fortitude, belief and self-confidence to hold the line, ensuring we consistently exemplify the qualities that will support the growth and positive change we are aiming at. 

 

Embodying Our Vision and Values 

In a previous role, back in the early 2000s, my colleagues and I were charged with developing a performance plan for the women’s team of an elite Premier League football club to support the first team to succeed. This success was to be underpinned by a philosophy and developmental programme for young players from age eight upwards. The one-page embodiment of this agreed plan is shown in figure 3.3. 

 

Our vision contained elements associated with performance goals for the senior team, accompanied by targets for player development, ensuring we combined the importance of senior success with an internal player development pathway. 

 

We agreed on some broad characteristics we intended to support the players to develop to enable them to be successful - these were to be refined, rubbery, resourceful and reflective. 

 

These characteristics were considered holistically. People can be technically and socially refined, tactically and physically rubbery, and psychologically and socially resourceful. 

 

Alongside the player characteristics, we outlined a playing approach - or what might now be called a ‘game model’ - that contained three elements for ‘in possession’ and three for ‘out of possession’. 

 

This guided the coaching programme as coaches intentionally encapsulated these playing elements within both sessions and game experiences to support players flexibly to learn to play football. For example, there were three considerations for the ways we wanted to play out from the back with accuracy, which were known as the ‘Box’, ‘Bowl’, and ‘Basin’. These are shown in figures 3.4 - 3.6. 

 

Box - Some, most, or all of the defensive players drop within the depth of the box to receive. This would encourage us to play short to draw the opposition on and stretch their press out, or enable the goalkeeper to drive the ball past the press. 

 

Bowl - The traditional shape associated with playing out from the back. This provided the opportunity for centre-backs and full-backs to receive and either ‘start’ the attack or ‘support’ it with attacking movements. 

 

Basin - In this situation, the full-backs start in a very high position, generating space for the team to either play ‘in between’ (the space created by the full-backs being high) and for the wide forwards to come ‘in field’. 

 

These were our principles of the way we wished to play football. Our coaches worked with our players to practise each of these and supported them in making decisions about when each was appropriate. 

 

Naturally, the decisions that the players within the team made were informed by the situations they found themselves in. At times, defenders would drop deeper than the line of the box (this was at a time when the laws required the ball to leave the penalty box before outfield players could touch it) to draw pressure, stretch the pitch vertically and generate space for us to play through the opposition. 

 

This was as part of an aspiration to be less focused on specific patterns of play and more on providing some considerations of how players may combine to solve game problems. Hence, players were afforded the opportunity to learn how to attack the opposition’s goal and defend ours within an agreed, loose framework that players self-organised within. 

 

This approach of freedom of decision-making within the example of the infrastructure explained, for that elite Premier League football club, was layered across the player development programme, which included the ways the teams were organised. 

 

When the older groups played 11v11, we adopted a two-system approach (4-4-2 and 4-3-3), with the plan of playing both systems equally so that the players experienced playing out within different systems. The systems were chosen based on one which our first team played and one which our home international squads played at that time. 

 

This supported some variability, but within structures that, if we achieved our vision of our young players being able to play Premier League and international football, the players were likely to experience as they progressed. 

 

This was supported by a player rotation policy, allowing players to experience up to three different positions in the 11v11 formats, with an even more flexible approach in the younger age groups. 

 

This is an example of how the player development programme aligns with the vision and ‘game model’. If your vision is for tactically adaptable players able to perform on the international stage, then the experiences the players are exposed to should provide the opportunity for development to reflect this.  

 

There is no suggestion that the game model is more important than the individual players. 

 

The game model should respond to and be coherent with the individual players. Some of the subtleties of how each team sets up and plays each game should be agile and flexible, moving and flowing with what we understand about the players rather than shoe-horning the players arbitrarily into our fixed game model. 

 

Enhancing Decision-Making Skills 

Research can support this approach. Pam Richards’ work on decision-making in elite sport suggests that to generate enhanced decision-making skills in complex environments of which football is an example, it is valuable to: 

1. Establish and agree with those involved a relatively flexible view of what you want the game to look like. This can be construed as a ‘game model’. 
2. Off the field; define roles and common language, along with the cues and patterns that you would like the team and the individuals within it to respond to. 
3. On the field; create opportunities and situations which allow players to practise making decisions in relation to 1 and 2. 

The suggestion here is that 1 and 2 feed information forward to 3. The experiences within 3 provide information that is feedback to support the players to think about and improve their decision-making process in relation to the developmental model. 

 

This approach implies greater ownership for the players to understand and make decisions within a shared idea of how the game can be played. It also enables individual players to be attended to within the structure of a team. 

 

Individual as Part of the Team 

We supported the development of an attacking player who joined our club at age ten and, from our initial profiling, was quick, strong and powerful with the ball at their feet, particularly when facing towards goal. The player’s technique and decision-making, particularly when playing between the opposition’s midfield and defensive lines, were areas to improve. 

 

Initially, as coaches, our eyes were drawn away from the areas to improve, principally because this player was effective – scoring many goals and impacting on games. However, to support the club and the player to succeed, it was important not to ignore this player’s struggles in playing with their back to goal and between the lines, as in doing so, we may be failing to support them to achieve their potential. This player, understandably, often resisted the decision to come short to get on the ball as it didn’t often go particularly well. 

 

Our commitment was therefore threefold: 

1. Spend time with both the team and this player to reinforce the game model for changing the speed of play through midfield and creating and converting chances. One way was for centre-forwards to come short and wide-forwards to drive in off the line. 
2. Provide opportunities in both practice and competition for players to practise this to be able to get better at it, and generate an environment where the players could trial and error. 
3. Support the players through off-field discussion to develop a deeper understanding of when and how to execute certain decisions. 

The players’ involvement in this process was crucial, both to empower them to drive and lead their development and to support their understanding of its value in their growth. 

 

We utilised video analysis, notational analysis (which is assessing how often certain players made certain movements) and player-to-player feedback to build visual examples, numerical statistics, and player-led qualitative discussion. 

 

This generated a picture of behaviour that we could analyse or measure and, over several seasons, supported the development of a hugely effective, multi-faceted player. This player has consequently progressed to, currently, having amassed over 200 Premier League appearances, winning two Premier League titles and playing Champions League and international football. Most of these senior experiences have been in deeper positions and not as a centre-forward. 

 

This player’s challenge was individual to them; however, it was necessary to share this with the other players and link it to the game model to make sure that, as well as our collective ideas being shared, the individual developments were too. 

 

While this requires an environment where individual and collective trust are key principles, these are key psychological and social aspects of the process. 

 

Aligning Our Vision 

Like the player detailed above, every person will have some things that they’re practising – the challenge for us as coaches is to seek to align and support the management of individual player needs within a collectively-agreed model. 

 

As an aside, I once had a discussion with a club development officer at a grassroots club near to me. This person has spent a considerable amount of time establishing a club ethos and a development framework to support the behaviour of adults - coaches, parents and volunteers - and children. 

 

Their vision was quite different from the one stated earlier. Theirs was: ‘To provide equality of opportunity for our children to become well-rounded people.’ 

 

As a result, they tracked whether every player got fair playing time across the season and examples of supportive and collaborative behaviour by players and coaches, which they rewarded, instead of top goalscorer, league winners etc. They also had coach meetings and rotated coaches to share experiences and work with each other’s teams. 

 

This was excellent. They had a clearly-stated vision that aligned with their behaviours and development principles. To be in with a chance of achieving your aims, first: agree on what it is that you want to achieve. Second: build a development programme and define behaviours that are commitments towards achieving this. 

 

When all align, we’re less likely to just be ‘rolling the dice’ as we will be more inclined and better-positioned to achieve our goals and to know the types of behaviours that we should reinforce or challenge. The aligning of our vision with our developmental principles and coach behaviour are the drivers for the design of our environment. 

 

This is likely to inform learning and the tenets or principles that underpin the curriculum. Motor learning can be explained as changes in the way we move, for example, when we are playing football. To reflect beliefs about motor learning, our curriculum needs to be shaped as a response to what our environment values, rather than just be arbitrarily and generically constructed. 

 

How we then learn to move when we are playing football will be a representation of what is important to us. This won’t only reflect the ways we play football, but also the more general ways we learn to exist together. 

 

Learning 

 

Wherever you may be sitting or standing reading this book is a learning environment; when you put it down, you’ll still be in a learning environment. We don’t control the fact that we learn; that is inevitable. However, we have some control over the environments we decide to exist in, the things we expose ourselves to within those environments and how we decide to interact with the other people existing in those environments to influence the way our and other people’s human systems change and adapt. 

 

Beliefs About Learning 

Many dictionary definitions of learning refer to terms like ‘knowing’ and ‘acquisition’ which is possibly true when we consider the ways that we have all been educated. Consequently, learning and education can be synonymised as the isolated ability to remember and verbalise information, although knowing the name of something does not mean one understands it. 

 

So, if our human systems adapting and changing in response to the things they have been exposed to is perhaps a way to think about learning, being thoughtful and considerate of how we support that growth and change within each individual is likely to be a worthwhile pursuit. 

 

This infers that how you respond and adapt the way you move when playing football will be different from the way that I respond and adapt the way that I move when playing football (motor learning). As such, there likely is no universal or ‘perfect’ technique that can be copied and repeated identically by different people simply because your genetic constitution, movement experiences and human interactions have been subtly or significantly different from mine. 

 

If we accept this, then it can impact significantly upon how we think about learning and the implications for the design of the environment. 

 

Figure 4.1 is a reflection of how traditional approaches to learning have been and, in many cases, continue to be constructed. 

First, coaches, teachers and educators agree on the content that people are going to be exposed to, and second, those educators align the things that people are going to be assessed against with the content that we have been exposed to - assessment is just a perspective from which we form an opinion or judgement; it’s no more than that. This content is then imposed by educators onto students, who are then assessed against the degree to which they can reproduce that content in one form or another. 

 

Whilst this is no doubt a convenient way to construct programmes of learning, it is at best misguided, or worse, hugely damaging to the way human beings conceptualise learning and their education. We can become socialised to the notion that we wait to be taught stuff we haven’t grown to care about or believe to be important and over time become sceptical or even cynical about learning, particularly if we are marginalised or stigmatised for not being ‘a good learner’, or we appear to be ‘disengaged’. 

 

Assessment 

Often the fear of failing assessments, or the perceived rewards associated with passing tests, drive us to remember what we have been taught so that we can be socially accepted as a consequence of passing that assessment. This can be unhelpful. 

 

If this assessment takes little or no account of who we are and the things that are important to us, it risks damaging our self-perception. This is because it can create an alternative, misrepresented view of who we are and possibly further isolate us from our learning. 

 

In these examples, learning does not consider the aspects of life that a person cares about nor their current characteristics - the things they might already know or be able to do. It can also miss the other people that knowledge or ability has been developed with; for example, part of my enjoyment of football has been by playing with my sibling; when my sibling is removed from the environment, the nature of the environment changes. 

 

Context is the critical consideration. Who are the people that populate the environment, and what are the things that are important to them individually and collectively? That should act as the map – encourage people to bring to the surface the things that are important to them and the person that they are. Once we have a collective and shared understanding of these elements, we are likely to be better equipped to decide on how to behave. 

 

What are some tactics that might support us to begin or develop this? 

1. As a start, coach some sessions and matchdays. 
2. Reflect on what we, the coach, and the players did. Video and audio can help this, as can discussing with the players at those events. This is probably a reflection of what we are currently doing and whether what we are doing is ‘who’ we want to be. 
3. Speak with the players about the type of team and players we would like to be. Some key questions could be:
   1. How do we want to play football? Why is that important to us?
   2. What are we going to do when things are going well or less well?
   3. How do we intend to respond to each other? This should probably encompass both individual player answers and collectively agreed ones.
4. This map characterising the surfacing of each person’s cares may then become our ‘philosophy’ or way of doing things. 
5. Our behaviour should then, as much as is achievable, be a commitment to aligning what we do with what we agreed. 

As a consequence, our personal coaching philosophy may then need to flex and adapt when we are dealing with different players, playing in different teams within different environments rather than our philosophy simply being imposed upon the players. 

 

Progressive Approaches to Learning 

The way content and assessment are decided upon could then be a reversal of the previous image to the one in figure 4.2. 

Instead of content and assessment being imposed onto the person, by surfacing each persons’ cares it affords us the opportunity to: 

1. Build a picture of what is important to them and generate an assessment that reflects this illustration.  
2. Decide on which content to expose people to. This can be informed by what they would like to attend to and the environmental factors that they might need to contend with. This combines the things that are interesting to them with the way their situation is challenging them. It is important to say that the things people find challenging should be navigated sensitively yet shouldn’t be ignored. 

Hence, in a football sense, coaching philosophies that are arbitrarily applied to people, top-down with a very specific, season-long, week-to-week periodisation, can be guilty of applying the conventions of education to the beautiful game and tarnishing its beauty to people who want to be free to enjoy experiencing football.

 

Further, if this periodisation process atomises and separates parts of the human system intending to train them separately, it is unlikely to attend to the way motor learning occurs.

 

The human body is a collection of systems (neurological system, cardiovascular system, muscular system etc.) that are deeply and unequivocally connected, e.g. my breathing is affected by anxiety, my decision making by fatigue. As such, our developmental programme should plan for and commit to being considerate of the whole human system and fundamentally ensuring that football activity integrates our connected human systems with the other people functioning in our environment. This is perhaps better known as holistic.

 

That is a challenging task. We must understand each person’s cares and characteristics, psychologically, physically and socially, relative to football, and then decide how best to build experiences that afford each person the opportunity to experience the game of football in a way that is a reflection of them. 

 

Principles of Playing & Coaching Soccer 

When selecting our team for any game, what resources do we and our players draw on to help us navigate the game challenges we will face?

 

In Chapter 2, we discussed the notion of value judgement in team selection. This enables the drivers shaping our club’s existence and the cares of the players and people involved to be central to our selection choices. These influences are naturally coupled with the more traditionally understood team tactics that we agree upon.

 

One of my personal coaching development aspirations is to support players and teams to be tactically adaptable. This has been a consistently valued premise throughout the time I’ve been privileged to be coaching, from smaller, lower-league community clubs to Premier League powerhouses.

 

Whilst this partly pertains to playing different ‘systems’ of play (like a 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, or 3-5-2), encouraging players to practise solving the problems football presents within various organisational structures, there are broader connotations for adaptability than the arbitrary organisation of players to positions.

 

As described and detailed in Chapter 3, in a previous role, we were charged with developing a club into one of the top four clubs in England with a holistic, fruitful development ecosystem that supported longer-term sustainability.

 

Part of this ability to compete successfully and sustainably over the long-term, both within individual player careers and broader player and coach development programmes, is in enhancing our capacity to adapt and change within different situations resourcefully.

 

Our environment can consciously expose us to situations appropriately, allowing us to learn the agility - across our entire connected human systems - to respond in the moment with varied solutions to the ever-changing, unpredictable nature of football.

 

This principle continues as a central element of my thinking. In my club roles and my broader work at The English Football Association, the coaching staff possess individual responsibility for deciding upon the most appropriate tactics to support player development.

 

This individual responsibility is not whimsical or ego-laden; rather, a genuine engendered ownership for the coaching staff. This can support the players to develop in a way that responds to what we understand about them and to compete within the demands of the game.

 

These two things aren’t separate. If we dissociate the needs of the players from the demands of the game, we risk some misplaced, cult-like idealism in which we support players to develop in a way that doesn’t prepare them for their future.

 

Similarly, if we routinely impose the demands of the game onto people without understanding them and their current cares and characteristics, the lack of agency and interdependence that this type of routine imposition generates within people can negatively impact motivation. It can also negate the personal desire to understand how to own responsibility for growth and development.

 

This transcends coach and player development. Coaches developing the skill to support player growth in a more individually responsive way localises the detail that we coach. This localisation of detail encourages the emergence of behaviour which is in tune with individual needs and agreed upon as a consequence of what we grow to understand about each other.

 

This canonises each person, replacing standardised, arbitrary, top-down interventionist approaches - where coaches ‘do’ what managers decide and players ‘do’ what coaches tell them - with more personal, genuinely responsive coaching detail that is owned and understood.

 

Consequently, what we see playing out in practice is unique not universal, compassionate not computational, and aligned not arbitrary. 

 

Finding Solutions

The backdrop to this chapter is an English under-18 team learning to play the game in a range of ways; adopting approaches and adapting solutions ‘in game’ rather than ones owned and driven by coaches or people perceived to be in ‘leadership’ positions.

 

This team of players and staff are working on finding solutions that they can utilise and adapt to different, ever-changing problems which they sense and feel in the moment.

 

This particular group is broadly organised into what might be described as a 4-2-3-1 (see figure 5.1).

In a recent match, they faced a team who set up, initially, in a 4-2-3-1. At half-time, the opposition shifted to a 3-5-2 as they were 3-0 behind, finding the contest difficult and wanting to chase the game.

 

The problem for the players to solve was how the build-up changes in game when the opposition’s approach and the associated situations change.

 

This group, whilst spending time preparing deliberately for each game, ensures this preparation doesn’t offer single solutions to the perception of the game problem. So, rather than only identifying that the opposition is playing a 4-2-3-1, the group look at possible solutions when the opposition press with one forward, with two forwards, when they only have wing-backs in wide areas, when a midfielder from the opposition releases, etc.

 

These solutions are subtly and cleverly layered into every practice session and all other aspects of the coaching programme (including video work) to ensure that there are no generic, non-responsive, global solutions to the problems the players face. These solutions aren’t taken out of their hands by instead being told to ‘do this’ when the opposition ‘do that’. Players are supported to understand some of the broad problems that may be encountered and some potential solutions that might support them. These solutions are implicitly and more explicitly evident in every aspect of how and what is coached.

 

Hence, players are learning and becoming better resourced to respond and adapt solutions when the problem changes, like in the recent game where the opposition changed their system and the intensity of their pressing.

 

Figure 5.2 highlights some of the possible solutions when the opposition plays a 4-2-3-1 and is initially less intense with their pressing.

Here, the opposition only has one forward, meaning one of the centre-backs is free. Tentative solutions in this situation are for the centre-backs (and possibly the goalkeeper) to move the ball across the pitch to ‘run the legs’ off of the centre-forward. If the opposition then releases one of its midfielders to help press - so they are now pressing with two players - the full-backs being high may have created space centrally to play through them. When a second opposition forward pressed, it enabled one of the deeper midfielders to drop into the defensive line, creating a 3v2, supporting the centre-backs and full-backs to go higher and wider.

 

At half-time, the opposition, who were 3-0 behind, changed to play with a 3-5-2. The coaches didn’t know this until after the second half started, so they hadn’t ‘planned’ for it at half-time. However, the coaches have had the foresight to expose players to different problems that they have practised and been supported to solve. This meant the players recognised the change in the opposition and reverted to different solutions ‘in game’ (see figure 5.3). 

When the opposition shifted to a 3-5-2 and pressed higher and more intensely, the possible solutions were different. They include players, particularly the full-backs, moving deeper to stretch the opposition’s press, teasing the opposition wing-backs up the pitch and creating space for 1v1s nearer to the opposition’s goal.

 

These solutions connect across players. If the centre-backs have been encouraged to demonstrate the courage and belief to pass short and centrally near their goal, it can narrow the opposition, creating space for the full-backs to receive.

 

To repeat, these solutions connect to practice sessions.

 

If we haven’t designed, in league with the players, practice sessions that provide both representative, game-relevant situations to practise in and supported the players with possible solutions, then it is unlikely we can expect them to directly perceive these situations as they emerge in the game, adapt and respond positively.

 

If we are armed with single solutions to problems, what does our human system do when that single, patterned, convergent answer fails us?

 

The desire for tactically adaptable players and teams has to align with our behaviour. If we expose players to challenging, problem-focused situations, navigate them collectively and, importantly, hold our nerve as we are going through the messy, sometimes chaotic and unsettling nature of ‘learning to learn’ in this way, then the players can win in multiple ways.

 

They won the first half 3-0 and the second half, against different tactics, 2-1, ultimately winning the game 5-1. They also won in terms of recognising that the commitments they have collectively made to grow and develop together, which have been steadfastly up-held even at times of perceived pressure, are valued and critical toward positive change. This positive change is supporting the group, individually and together, to continue to deal with the challenges of life and football.

 

This approach recognises the importance of player development extending beyond single, episodic events. Instead, recognising that the preparation for this Saturday’s game should consider the training and game-day exposures that coherently constitute the connected ‘curriculum’ the players experience across time.

 

This group hadn’t specifically prepared for the opposition to change their playing formation and pressing tactics. However, in previous weeks, months, and seasons they had practised training and playing against a range of different formations and tactical challenges. Within that varied programme, the players’ human systems continued to connect the decisions they made in response to their teammates and the opposition.

 

Coaches who cleverly and consistently recognise this and seamlessly support the players’ experiences to reflect these challenges are changing the perception of learning previously typified by ‘painting by numbers’, memorisation, and repetition of answers.

 

This more contemporary approach is influencing global change in soccer coaching and learning toward environments where players are armed with the perceptual skills and self-confidence to respond to the challenges they encounter, challenges that are continually changing due to varied opposition, environmental conditions, and game situations.

 

These coaches aren’t, as some commentators propose, making themselves redundant by developing independent beings. Better, they are continuing to support the development of the players in their care to make decisions interdependently and be resourced to deal with the dynamic nature of soccer. 

 

 

Environment Design Principles

Practically, if we intend for our team and players to adapt their behaviour in a variety of ways in response to the situation, our coaching principles probably need to reflect this intention. In 2014, an alternative approach to designing football environments was proposed within The (FA) Boot Room (Magazine). This promoted a way of thinking about environment design, moving away from prescriptions towards some key, football relevant ingredients that could be combined in different ways to support a more responsive, bespoke approach to player and coach development.

 

This approach can enable us to be considerate of how the environment is designed for both training and game-days to support the development of the whole person instead of isolating the football. This is illustrated in figure 5.4. 

Whilst this framework may have specific factors that other developers decide to reproduce, the intention was then, and continues to be, to encourage coaches to design experiences that align with their own club vision and values and respond to what we understand about the players in our care.

 

It is also important that this recognises that our players’ input into this is possibly as valuable as our own.

 

The 4 D’s

Four D’s guide my beliefs about football activity which enables it to represent the nature of football and the demands it places upon our human system: 

 

Direction – Teams/players attack and defend some form of a goal so that the basic laws of football are inherent to play. 

 

Definition – Geographically positioned where the activity that we are affording players the opportunity to practise might most likely occur in football, e.g. an area of the pitch. 

 

Decisions – Players have situations to perceive that inform the action performed; rather than narrowly following a coach’s direction to, for example, pass to the same person arbitrarily positioned on a mannequin in the same position. 

 

Difference – That those decisions are challenged both for each individual and in each situation by some relative difference, e.g. not repeating the same cross from the same position to the same target with the same ‘technique’ every time. 

 

The adoption of these environment design principles guide the football activity to enable and ensure players couple the things that they perceive within the environment with the actions that they perform (known as perception-action coupling). 

 

If, for example, we remove direction from the game or practice and task the players to ‘make ten passes to score a goal’, we remove a lot of relevant information that players may need to practise perceiving within the situations they encounter. The players arbitrarily chase a pass count rather than recognising that the purpose of passing the ball is to move it towards the opposition’s goal or to stop the opposition from having it (for example, because we are winning 2-0). The attempts by the team that doesn’t have the ball to win it should centre around pressing to stop the team with the ball moving towards their goal.  

 

Removing direction and some form of a goal from the game often leads to players playing the condition outside the context of the actual game of football (e.g. ‘make ten passes’ rather than use possession to move the opposition around to increase our chances to score in their goal). This is unhelpful if we aspire for players to learn the game of football. 

 

Further, those guiding principles are supported by a collection of ingredients that can be combined to design specific experiences which generate some reciprocity between our team and individual aspects: 

 

Design – The architecture of the environment that perhaps more implicitly affords the players opportunity to focus attention on specific team or individual intentions. This architecture includes the shape and size of the pitch, the way the players are organised to play and any parameters or markings we add to the field of play. 

 

Demands – The intentional and more explicit tasks that the players and coach decide upon and furnish the design of the session with. These might be conditions or challenges that we agree with individual or small groups of players or teams. 

 

Design - The Pitch

I work from four pitch types that the players can become familiar with and understand. This familiarity reduces the time the players spend trying to learn how the practice works and increases the time for them to practise and learn football. 

 

Additionally, the considered choice of pitch type can implicitly help the players develop important game elements.  

 

A small pitch is a great way to test touch and release skills along with the associated speed of thought and decisions to put the players under strain to stay with the ball. Small pitches are also excellent ways of encouraging agility in our movement as we have to navigate our body nimbly within tight areas (figure 5.5). 

A big pitch (figure 5.6) is useful if you are looking to test defending skills or if you want to create space between units to play through or behind the opposition. Similarly, big pitches are effective at generating full-game pictures with realistic distances.   

Narrow pitches (figure 5.7) challenge the players to play forward as there is limited width to play around the opposition. Narrow pitches help the players practise themes such as playing through the opposition and breaking the block.  

Using a wide pitch (figure 5.8), a pitch wider than it is long, can provide a focus for switching play, attacking and defending in wide areas and crossing and finishing. 

Design - The Players 

After selecting the pitch type, I would consider the best way of organising the players.  

 

The organisation of the players is intended to consider two things. 

 

First, the ways we rationalise what we understand about the player and the things that are important to them. This consideration should be central to our thinking as perhaps it has the capacity to distinguish the personalised nature of the experiences within our player development programme from the generic nature of standardised practices. Casual observers might look at what principally appears to be the ‘same’ session and miss some of the subtleties. Some examples of subtle differences that we may utilise in the design aspect to attend to the cares and characteristics of individual players might be: 

1. Making the pitch longer at one end to provide space for our centre-forward who is practising running in behind to have more space to do so. This can challenge them physically to repeat it, like they may have to do in a game. This might be coupled with a midfielder on the same team who is practising playing through passes. 
2. Playing two centre-forwards against two centre-backs when our centre-backs are practising both 1v1 defending and working out how to provide cover when they’re the farthest defender from the ball. These might be referred to as ‘games within games’ as they are smaller, more specific tasks for certain players within a larger game. 
3. Keeping score to generate intensity and competition in games as a conscious tactic to challenge a centre midfielder who detests losing (what a great quality to have!) 

This is not an exhaustive list. 

 

Second, organising the players to be positioned to reflect both certain playing systems and to generate some team problems to be solved. This can support the players to practice building up and progressing play against different pressing strategies. As highlighted earlier in this chapter, players learning to adapt what they do when the opposition defend in different ways is a hugely important skill to learn and to focus attention on.  

 

In figure 5.9 we have 14 players for training; organising one team with a GK-2-3-1, representing the central spine of a 4-3-3 - the two centre-backs, three centre midfielders and one centre-forward, and the other team into a GK-2-2-2 as a reflection of the central spine of a 4-4-2 - the two centre-backs, two central midfielders and two centre-forwards. This provides both some varied representation of how teams and players might be organised in football matches and establishes some problems for certain players, such as how the midfield two work out how to overcome the opposition’s three-player midfield. 

Alternatively, out-numbered teams can provide a ‘hostile environment’ for practice (figure 5.10). For example; play 5v7 with the team of five defending the goal and trying to maintain a clean sheet, or as clean as possible, for as long as they can. 

Additionally, 5v8 with the team of five attempting to keep possession from the eight can increase the opportunity for players to practise maintaining individual possession. 

 

If we see value in this way of thinking, odd numbers arriving for training can be an opportunity, not a problem.

 

Further, if the goalkeepers are available for the full duration or part of the practice, it is important to consider what we want them to practise and how we are going to build them into the session.  

 

For example, we might set up a 6v5 possession practice with the goalkeepers acting as additional support players (figure 5.11). The team of six (eight including the goalkeepers) tries to keep the ball, using the goalkeepers to do so, allowing the goalkeepers to practise playing with their feet as they receive back-passes from the greens. Goalkeepers then have the opportunity to save counter-attacking shots from the blue team of five players, who are challenged to counter-attack and score in either goal when they regain possession. 

The type of player organisation illustrated above enables the practice to retain its direction whilst offering the opportunity for teams to get greater exposure to practising certain game elements. For example, the greens are likely to spend more time with the ball, controlling possession and working it up the pitch, whilst the outnumbered blues focus on pressing and attacking quickly on the regain.  

 

Some further illustrations of how the players can be distributed or organised are shown in figures 5.12 - 5.15. The four examples illustrated reflect different ways we can combine and integrate the shape and size of the pitch with the distribution of the players. These examples enable us to embody practices with smaller numbers (figure 5.12), larger numbers (figure 5.13) alongside considering the value of medium numbered practices like the 6v6 (figure 5.14) and, consciously and strategically, working with uneven numbers as articulated (figure 5.15). These reference points provide the platform for us to expose the players to a variety of different types of practice whilst enabling the principles that underpin how we would like our players to learn to play to remain integral. Smaller numbered practices such as the 3v3 in figure 5.12 don’t need to lose tactical focus. This example enables a centre-forward to practise working out how to create and convert shots onto the goal in partnership with an advanced midfielder (such as a ‘number 10’) and for the opposing team (reflecting a centre-back and a deeper midfielder) to practise defending against them. This backdrop supports us to ensure that every event we design and support the players to practise in is nested within the vision of the game we have agreed with our players. 

Design - The Parameters 

I use four pitch marking methods to guide or restrict movement and decisions:  

 

Horizontal thirds - An effective reference point to help the players play through the thirds, develop their movement ‘between the lines’ and to recognise when to join the attack. Horizontal thirds can act as a reference point when trying to win the ball back using early, mid or late pressing techniques (figure 5.16). 

Halved pitch - Similar to a standard football pitch, linking well to recognising different ways to play in both your own and the the opponent’s half both in and out of possession (figure 5.17). 

Vertical thirds - Supportive of wide play, overlapping, crossing switching play and defending wide areas as the pitch is marked or sectioned lengthways (figure 5.18). 

Central circle - Probably my favourite pitch marking as it generates more of a 360-degree perspective of the game than horizontal or vertical thirds. Additionally, if coaches wish to restrict players to areas, it still provides an opportunity for defenders to advance to the halfway line (figure 5.19). 

The different parameters might be used to lock players into certain areas of the pitch. For example, if you are using horizontal thirds, the defenders and forwards may be restricted to their own third whilst midfielders are able to move freely. 

 

Likewise, in a session using vertical thirds, the full-backs and wide players may be locked into wide areas. Preferable though that the parameters act as guidelines for the demands you place on the practice rather than restrictions. For example: use the central circle to set up attacks. This ensures players are afforded the opportunity to play the game of football without over-constraining their movement. 

 

Demands 

Once the pitch and parameters have been decided, and the players’ needs are considered and organised, there are a variety of different ways in which I instruct, challenge or brief the players to work. The examples in the diagrams which follow show how to structure and build tasks for teams, units or individuals. 

 

There are three ways I build challenges in order to combine our team and individual intentions and to allow the players to practise within both the pitch and parameters selected. 

 

Restrict 

A traditional way to constrain practice is to restrict the ball contacts, movements and/or decisions a player or team can make. Adopting this method is an effective way to ensure lots of repetition of the affordances generated by the restriction. 

 

For example, you must play forward when you receive. This method can, however, reduce the realism of the practice as it restricts opportunities for decision making and chances to learn from cues and triggers. This is because the constraint reduces the responses the players can make – and removes perhaps, at times, the appropriate response – to the unfolding situation (figures 5.20 and 5.21). 

Relate 

Challenging players to relate a particular task to the situation occurring – such as ‘Recognise when to play forward’ - is an effective method to help support players to build situational awareness and respond to what is going on in the game. By using the ‘relate’ method, the coach plants a seed about the desired outcome without making it mandatory. The intention is that the players relate the task to the situation they find themselves in (figures 5.22 and 5.23). 

This supports players to trial and error. When supported by effective questioning, players can continue to review their decisions which in turn may help them make sense of the situation: 

• Tell me about some of the times you played forward? What things helped you to play forward? 
• Why did you find it tough to play forward in those situations? 
• What can you try that may help you to solve that problem? 

It is important to recognise that using the ‘relate’ method may mean the decisions the players have at their disposal are so broad that we limit the focus of their attention (which might be a good intention at times). However, it is an effective mechanism for supporting the development of genuine understanding as players begin to recognise when to do something. 

 

Reward

Coaches can use the idea of a ‘reward’ to encourage aspects of play linked to our agreed intentions (figures 5.24 and 5.25). For example, to encourage an early press, you may use a halved pitch and task the players to win the ball back in the opponents’ half and then score. If they do so, they are rewarded with three goals. 

The reward method can act as a middle ground between the ‘restrict’ and ‘relate’ methods as the players aren’t mandated to perform a certain action but are likely to commit to it as the reward is greater. This can also take on the form of game situational challenges. For example, you are winning 2-0, there are 10 minutes left, win the game using a late defending tactic. Time-defined and score-focused challenges similar to this one can be good for generating the intensity and competition associated with football. 

 

The use of these more explicit conditions that coaches impose upon and agree with players can be blended, enabling more of an individual approach to player development. At times, some players may be restricted, others rewarded whilst challenging a few to relate the decision they make to the situation they find themselves in. The decisions we make in deciding and agreeing on how to apply this is likely to be nuanced and informed by what we understand about the players and the ways they respond to particular tasks. 

 

In using restrict, the intention is, typically, to ensure the player has more than one choice on offer. I would very rarely enforce a one-touch condition onto a player as it reduces their decision making to a single option. However, restrictions such as ‘Play one touch or four or more touches’ constrains players in such a way that if they take a second touch, they must stay on the ball for at least four touches. This has the impact of increasing the amount of time they stay with the ball and develop both dribbling skills and the physical capacities to hold off opponents who can have a tendency to increase pressure the longer a player stays with the ball. 

 

It also increases the amount of one-touch play and, likely, the amount of looking around (or ‘scanning’) players engage in before receiving the ball as they seek to understand the one-touch options available to them as a consequence of not being able to play using two or three touches. 

 

Whilst the examples illustrated across the ‘Demands’ aspect aren’t universally appropriate; they illustrate how principles of environment design can be combined to generate tangible, purposeful experiences that enable coaches and players to enjoy football within a responsive, bespoke backdrop. The tables below provide some additional examples of how the environment design ingredients shared through this chapter can support learning. 

Environment Design Example 

The examples shared across this chapter are all games with two teams, two goals and one ball. A constraints-led approach isn’t only delivered through games; however, personal preference is that the environment is designed to be representative of the game of football and that this is often best done through games. This type of representation can be perceived as just ‘letting the game be the teacher’. Whilst the unfettered game has some natural propensity to support learning, how we as coaches consciously construct and constrain some additional aspects of the environment can further support learning in line with our and the players’ beliefs. 

 

Figure 5.28 is an example of a session that some coaches delivered to a group of teenage boys reflecting how coaches can practically utilise the framework shared in earlier. 

1. The positioning of the players, both their position on their team and who they were positioned against, reflects the perceived needs of both the team and the individuals playing within that team. For example, the green number 7 is a skilful winger who finds it challenging beating defenders and delivering crosses when there is limited space behind the defensive line as he was less likely to be able to push the ball past the defender and run onto it. The coaches provided less space behind the opposition defence to afford him the opportunity to solve the problem. 
2. The nature of the task, size of pitch and positioning of the goals afforded the players certain opportunities, for example, defend the full width of the pitch, stretch the pitch in attack and be patient when building attacks whilst protecting the space that might be exposed in transition. 
3. The way the coaches parameterised the duration of the games and the scoring challenge. Score in the first or last 2 minutes of each game, and it’s worth two goals, supported the players to practise across all their human systems as they were able to practise scoring at key moments. 
4. The organisation of the players is representative of systems that the players are learning to play in and continues to layer many of the commitments into everyday practice that are agreed upon within the longer-term planning for player development. 

Planning for Development 

If we have developed longer term plans and agreed commitments to support player development, this backdrop then acts as a map to enable us to collectively seek to integrate all of the experiences we design for the players along the player development pathway (e.g. connecting a player’s under-14 experiences to what went before and what may come after), and through what might be known as ‘disciplines’ (sports science, psychology, recruitment etc.) 

 

These longer-term commitments support discussion as to how both players and coaches build experience that may best support us all to adapt and respond to the demands of the game of football.  

 

These ideas on environment design from the last decade prevail in my approach to coaching. Whilst, principally, my beliefs around learning and development have been resolute, it is necessary for authenticity that the application of these principles occurs in response to the environment that we populate. This is because it will be populated with other human beings who have their own beliefs. 

 

To ensure the framework articulated through this chapter is responsive and bespoke, the environment design ingredients included in this chapter can be mixed and blended infinitely, enabling each event to be unique and novel. 

 

The relative simplicity of the framework and its available ingredients supports the perceived vastness of that infinity to be tangible and workable for both more novice and experienced practitioners alike. 

 

Figure 5.29 can support coaches to blend the ingredients detailed in this chapter in designing experiences that align with the cares and characteristics of their players. 

Tactical Concepts 

Adaptability is an important quality for human beings. Developing the capacity to respond in different ways to varying situations and draw upon a broad set of skills to overcome challenges in life and soccer is both a worthy pursuit and perhaps a necessary one. 

 

In Chapter 5, we discussed the youth team that has been working consistently at drawing upon different solutions through their training programme, supporting the players to understand how the opposition presses and respond with varied, appropriate tactics. When these solutions are universally embodied and owned by the players, they become armed with both the capacity and the belief to shift behaviour in the moment, dependent upon their perceptions of what is occurring in the game. 

 

This is easily said in a team talk; harder to develop through practice. This challenge can be compounded by standardised practice sessions, ‘playbooks’, or arbitrary top-down coach-owned solutions to specific problems. These common behaviours can often help adult coaches feel in control and certain; feelings we are absent of from the side of the soccer pitch. 

 

If our vision is for ‘robots who can manage their machine’, then these types of behaviour might be appropriate, seductive even. But suppose our aspiration is for young people who are developing the skillset to adapt based on the circumstances that present themselves. In that case, an alternative approach to coaching and practice design is perhaps required. 

 

Nesting our team playing style and the perceived needs of the individuals into that approach enables a more context-responsive, personal, and human coaching methodology that is difficult to standardise or provide an ‘off-the-shelf’ recipe for. 

 

This can be an unsettling feeling, particularly understanding that we, and ultimately the players, might benefit from the difficult challenge of continually changing, adapting and refining our sessions and behaviours as a consequence of a commitment to supporting players to learn reflexively. 

 

Leinster Rugby Club 

In 2018, I had the privilege of being invited to Leinster Rugby - an Irish Club who were then European Champions - to deliver a coaching session with their under-16 players to support the coaches at the club to consider the benefits of a constraints-led approach to coaching.  

 

A constraints-led approach encourages coaches to eschew the standardised practice book, replacing it with experiences which keep rhythm with the beating heart of each individual player and the environments in which they are playing. 

 

Knowing very little about rugby and Leinster as a club (let alone the individual players scheduled to be in the session) and understanding that the session was to be delivered in front of 50 coaching staff from the club contributed to the contrasting emotions of anxiety and anticipation.

 

On arrival, I spent some time with both the coach of the players and the players themselves to seek to begin to understand the things that they valued and which constrained the way they played rugby. The coach was a tough, uncompromising ex-professional who, whilst stern and gruff, had a clear passion for the development of the young men.

 

He explained that he only wanted the boys to carry the ball in their hands (and not kick it forward) as he felt this was the most important element of their development, and there was limited value in the players learning to kick it before they had learned how to carry it. The boys repeated this mantra.

 

I asked them if it was ok if we attempted to combine both kicking and carrying the ball and practise making decisions based on the circumstances. This was agreed upon.

 

This was an opportunity to integrate the environment design principles which have underpinned my coaching for the last decade within both the experience of the players and that of the observing coaches.

 

These principles, as a reminder of what was detailed in Chapter 5, are ‘The 4 D’s’: 

 

Direction – Attack a goal (of some description) whilst simultaneously defending a goal. This ensures the inherent nature of invasion games like soccer and rugby is evident in practice. This doesn’t mean you must play forward all the time - just understand that if we want to score, at some point, we will need to. 

 

Definition – The practice is organised in the area of the pitch where it most frequently occurs. E.g. If we would like to practise crossing and finishing (more than some other game elements), we might organise the pitch to be full width in the final third (so that the players practise within the topography that such activity might most naturally occur). 

 

Decisions – The players have decisions to make that present themselves in different ways. Ensuring players had the opportunity, within this Leinster Rugby session, to both kick the ball and carry it in their hands is an example of this. Whilst, naturally, we might reduce or eliminate some decisions for some players at points in sessions, ensuring we leave them with more than one choice is important if we want them to be able to respond to game-relevant information. 

 

Difference – That these decisions present themselves in different ways to enable players to develop a varied repertoire. 

 

These principles have often led to me delivering practices with two teams, two goals and one ball so as to represent games like soccer and rugby – this situation at Leinster was no different. 

 

The game design is illustrated in figure 6.1. Whilst I appreciate this is a soccer coaching book; I kindly ask you to stay with me.

There were 20 players present, so we designed a 10v10 on a very narrow pitch. Remember, the intention was to enable the players to practise recognising when to kick the ball and when to carry it in their hands.

 

The pitch was 50-yards long and only 15-yards wide. This meant there was quite a lot of space vertically (up and down the pitch) but very little horizontally (across the pitch), as the team without the ball had 10 players covering that 15 yards.

 

The demands we used were set up to reward points scored from kicking more than points scored from carrying. This is a contrast to the nature of the game of rugby; within the normal laws, 5 points are scored for carrying the ball over the try line and only 3 for drop-kicking it between the posts.

 

We wanted to increase the value of drop-kicking, particularly from a longer distance, to enable players to value this and practise it more frequently. Hence, 2 points were scored for carrying the ball over the try line, 4 points for kicking it between the posts and 6 points if we kicked it between the posts from further than 22 metres out (similar to being outside the penalty box in soccer).

 

The final element of the game’s design was that points could only be scored at the end of the field where the posts were. If your team was defending the posts, it was necessary to work the ball up to the halfway line and then turn to face the posts and attack. This ensured these young men earned the right to score by travelling with control up the pitch. This consciously connected the rugby decisions the players made to both the physical and psychological challenges, ensuring our entire human nature is considered in the game design.

 

The game was fascinating. Early on, the players mostly carried the ball in their hands. However, due to the narrow pitch, there wasn’t much space between the defenders. This meant they ran forward a short distance, got hit (tackled), went down, got up and tried again. This became debilitating, and the players quite quickly realised they couldn’t do this for the hour of the session.

 

Consequently, they, at times, were encouraged to - and spotted the moments to - kick the ball over the defence, either off of the pitch and ‘into touch’ to take up a new field position or to chase and win the race to the ball.

 

As this happened more, guess what the defending team did? They dropped some players deeper to defend the kick. This created space between the defenders for the attacking team to run with or ‘carry’ the ball.

 

This led to players, under the added pressure of the tight pitch and crowd of observing coaches, making tactical decisions on when to kick and when to carry to enable them to advance. This was combined with defenders attempting to prevent both – a fantastic game of ‘cat and mouse’.

 

We played three games of 18 minutes with breaks in between for the observing coaches to chat with the players - getting their perspective and maybe coaching some of the rugby detail that my sport-specific limitations prevented me from doing.

 

The third and final game was a decider. It concluded with the blue team travelling up the pitch, earning the right to attack the posts and then scoring a 6-point drop-goal from outside the ‘22’.

 

Six weeks later, Ireland won the Rugby Six Nations championship by beating France with an attack of 43-phases (carries and tackles, that concluded with a 45-yard drop-kick goal from Johnny Sexton - whose coach was in attendance at Leinster that day…

 

My personal challenge on that day was to design a practice that responded to the culture at Leinster Rugby, combine it with my own practice design principles and support the players and coaches to learn within a constraints-led approach.

 

That is a daily challenge for us all - to design responsive soccer practices that combine the aspects that our environment and the players within it value, hold the line when things are difficult, and continually and subtly change the ways the players practise in order to support them to develop the adaptable skills necessary to contend with the challenges of sport and life.

 

Some elements of this particular example are more implicit such as the pitch shape (narrowed to limit horizontal space), the player organisation (20 players organised 10v10) and the parameters (points only scored at the end of the pitch where the posts are).

 

Other aspects of the game were more explicit, such as the scoring system (or the demands placed upon the game). The players came to understand that scoring a drop-goal from 22 yards out or further had the greatest reward and was, perhaps, most likely to lead to winning the game.

 

By constraining the game in this way, players increased the number of times they practised kicking drop-goals above the ‘normal’ frequency that might be seen in a game of rugby. This practice also ensured that those opportunities were connected with decisions being influenced by game-like environmental conditions.

 

This is an important interrelation. If we believe that players developing their actions (such as drop-kicking) coupled with their decisions (such as when and how to do it alongside opposition and the pressures of the game state) is critical to support the development of skill, then adapting the traditional scoring laws may be a useful coaching tactic.

 

The more that these challenges can be designed and linked with the associated demands, the more able we are to support players’ human systems to make these connections.

 

If we dichotomise these challenges by, for example, saying, “don’t kick it, only carry it”, we risk stealing from the players the opportunity to find varied solutions, learning to shift their tactics and decisions based upon the nature of each game.

 

From session to session, there is value in sustaining connections to previous events the players have experienced and layering in additional complexity rather than jumping from theme to theme in the traditional way curriculums have been designed. This enables the nature of the experience to: 

1. Connect to previous experience and further develop it.
2. Combine this connection with the things that the people in the environment value. 

Considering coaching and learning in these ways can draw us away from working on a single theme or imposing arbitrary topics onto players. We replace this well-trodden path with a clearer, deeper connection to what is important to the people playing soccer, embody it in practice and develop it over time. 

 

Curriculum Development 

 

Single, individual sessions are critical aspects of supporting players to learn how to play football. Working out and identifying how to stitch each of these individual events into a broader tapestry of player development can enable coaching to become deeper than the episodic delivery of single events. This can guide us towards a more focused, intentional developmental journey for both players and ourselves as coaches.

 

As referenced previously, uncovering ways to achieve this without replicating the traditional approaches to curriculum design, which appear to largely have evolved from the structure of school, is a worthy pursuit.

 

We can eschew and escape from a world where topics are separated and taught with limited integration as part of a standard content offer that helps us memorise information to pass a test. We can replace this with a responsive, context-rich framework, supporting players and coaches to practise solving the challenges that the game of football presents.

 

This can generate useful reciprocity between what we do today, what has been before and what might come in the future.

 

The constraints-led triangle introduced in Chapter 3 is a good reference point to which we can add further layers of detail as a means of developing this richer, responsive resource from which we can shape our sessions. 

Remember; we are constrained by: 

1. Our own genetic imprint and ability – we are the sum of what our parents gifted us and how these gifts have developed through our experiences. 
2. The 17 laws of football. For example; off-side as a law constrains the ways we move when playing football. 
3. The environmental conditions we are exposed to. The pressure I feel when my dad watches me is an example of this. 

These constraints interact in enabling or affording us ways of playing football. Constructing some additional detail and scaffolding around these quite abstract aspects can support us to develop our curriculum.

 

There are four aspects to the curriculum builder explored throughout this chapter which we intend to navigate with you.

 

These are: 

1. Considering the Player. 
2. Pitching the Football Experience. 
3. Parameterising the Environment (How long? How often? How hostile?) 
4. Experience Building over time – supporting a development journey. 

Aspect One – Considering The Player

Where a coach commences their thinking may just be a reflection of the hierarchy of what they value. The intention here is to start with the person as it promotes the notion that the human being is the most important factor in the curriculum and that the nature of the tasks and environments we consciously expose the player to is aligned with what we understand about them.

 

Stealing from another coach (a gentleman named Dan Thomas) can help us consider the human constraints as ‘Role’ - who am I and what are my responsibilities in the game? - and ‘Rival’ - who is my opponent, and how does what they can do challenge the way I play? 

We will use centre-backs as a means of articulating this. The capabilities of a player will inform the way they play.

 

Early in my coaching career, I had the privilege of supporting two centre-backs to develop from under-12 players through to our first team. They played the same position, as centre-backs, but were very different individuals.

 

Role

‘Jay’ – Prolifically quick (national sprint competitor), relaxed and light-hearted with good technical ability and inclined to mark opposition forwards very tight.

 

As an inexperienced coach, the tendency was for me to coach them to position themselves to protect more of the space behind. Jay would challenge me that they could win the race to the ball behind but found it harder if the forward got turned and faced them up.

 

The one size fits all problem emerges again. My understanding of defensive positioning was that Jay was ‘wrong’. This player, rightly, corrected me on what was ‘right’ for them.

 

‘Kal’ – Hard-working, spirited, difficult to defeat, in any aspect, and a player who took great pride in being their best every day and would be hurt if they ever felt they could have done more or if questioned as to whether they had given their all. Not blessed with pace yet could position themselves cleverly and read the game to counter opponents with speed.

 

Kal was easier for me to coach as many of their characteristics were like mine. At the time, this bias wasn’t something I was hugely aware of, and it constrained me from challenging them optimally; please recognise that our understanding of the players in our care is also a ‘constraint’.

 

These two centre-backs played together as a pair for a significant portion of their journey to first-team football. This was also a constraint. Kal and Jay benefitted from their differences.

 

They were also both right-footed; we attempted to balance how frequently they played on their favoured side and challenged them to find alternative ways to succeed when playing on the left.

 

It is important to add that this wasn’t a great help for the left-back who played significant periods of their development career with centre-backs inside them, as part of a team that liked to play from the back, who rarely opened up on their back-foot, their left, to play to them.

 

However, this full-back often came deep to receive the ball from the right-footed centre-back (remember the ‘box’ example from Chapter 3) and was able to become proficient at stretching the opposition’s press out and finding passes into the feet of advanced midfielders and forwards.

 

This is intended to highlight the point that the entire development journey is, with the necessary forethought, a constraints-led approach. This doesn’t only include training sessions as game-day is as valuable an environment for us to consider the ‘design’ of as training sessions are.

 

Rival

This is where the ‘role’ and the ‘rival’ aspects interlink. Inevitably in training, we matched Jay against a player, a year older, who was a quick forward who liked to face forward and run at defenders to challenge some of Jay’s constraints.

 

Kal was also constrained, more naturally, by: 

1. Two very strong London-based opponents who we faced within our games programme. One of whom had a centre-forward who was a future World Cup semi-finalist playing for them. 
2. A goalkeeper who was late maturing and, relatively, small. We could be vulnerable and concede goals; this placed additional pressure on defenders to block and prevent certain types of shots and crosses. 
3. The nature of their personality, which was inherent, being hugely conscientious. Whilst all aspects of our genetic make-up are influenced by experience, our personality traits are significant human constraints. Being high in conscientiousness appears to be a strong predictor of success across many disciplines and can influence the degree to which people work hard.

These are all ‘rivals’ that Kal faced and can be considered as person constraints, things Kal brought to the environment and challenges that Kal faced, both on their team and on the teams they played against. 

 

The point articulated in ‘c’ is something coaches may wish to be aware of. Not only are our physical capacities constrained by our genetic print, the adage of if you want to be an Olympic sprinter, choose your parents carefully is relevant here, so is our personality.

 

These aspects of our nature play strongly into our behaviour, and as coaches we ignore these at our peril if we aspire to understand the players in our care. Jerome Kagan’s historical work on personality is worth diving into. 

 

Integrating ‘Role’ and ‘Rival’.

Kal and Jay were two players within a much larger player development programme. Generating, developing and deepening the understanding of each player amongst the staff, with the players themselves, to support greater self-awareness, and with the players’ parents, to enable us to understand differences in players from the context of football to other contexts the player populates, are rich investments and critical factors in player development that extend way beyond session design. The deeper we think about and understand the players in our care, the more sophisticated our coaching can become.

 

It’s necessary to then draw the considerations of what we understand about our players together, shaping how and where we position players relative to their ‘role’ and to account for what we intend for them to be ‘rivalled’ against.

 

This should be a fundamental consideration in every experience we design for players, an example of which is shown in figure 7.4.

The practice, for older teenage players, was a 6v5 (six greens which include a goalkeeper and five blues) with two purple players who supported whichever team had the ball. These two players were returning from injury and were required to be non-contact. One was a midfielder, initialled TW, who had the opportunity, when playing for the Blues, to work on forward passes. The other, initialled ALB, was a forward who had the opportunity to work on receiving with his back to goal when playing for the Greens, who were playing out from the back. 

 

1. The ‘roles’ were relative to each player as they were each positioned relative to where they play for the team within a shape reference that reflects the way they play. 
2. The green team players were ‘rivalled’ against:
   1. Being outnumbered in midfield. This led to them deciding when and how to release a centre-back to help the midfielder press higher up the pitch. This linked to work with both of the centre-backs on us being more aggressive with our pressing. This releasing of a centre-back meant, at times, the back four became a back three and were defending against a blue front three, therefore effectively defending 1v1. This enabled them to practise their 1v1 defending against a variety of opponents.
   2. A centre-forward who played for both their country and, for the majority of the time, in an older age group – a great challenge for the centre-backs to train against.
    
3. The blue team players:
   1. Were ‘rivalled’ against a deep-lying defence that the front three players had to find ways to break past.
   2. Had more numbers in midfield than their opponents. This afforded them the opportunity to slow the game down and speed the game up based upon whether the green team released a centre-back into midfield. This was a good constraint for their decision making – spot when their extra player in midfield was pressed and identify when and how to play forward to take advantage of the 1v1s that this created for the advanced blue attackers.
    

Many of these considerations are quite subtle and perhaps don’t always need to be explicitly articulated to the players. This supports them to practise in game-relevant situations with a range of considered problems for them to work at solving.

 

The literature that articulates dynamic systems theory and how this informs a constraints-led approach to learning encourages coaches to think about behaviour from players emerging as a consequence of the interaction between the person, the task, and the environment - the circumstances that the person and the task are pitched against.

 

As coaches, we have opportunities to shape the task and the environment for the players to contend with. The amount of freedom at our disposal in shaping the task and environment changes based upon the nature of the event; for example, at times, we can choose the opposition our team competes against; other times, the competition structure we are playing within decides for us.

 

However, whatever challenge elements like the weather and the opposition present, we have some freedom to decide upon our behaviour, such as how emotional we become or how consistent we are with our communication with the players. These decisions are likely to constrain the players too.

 

Aspect Two – Pitching The Football Experience

Naturally, there are flaws to illustrating this curriculum or experience builder in steps or stages as it can be seen to imply that one aspect is more important than another or that one aspect feeds into another.

 

It’s important to highlight that all aspects are influencing each other continuously. When the person changes or when the nature of the task changes, referred to here as ‘Pitch’, it is likely that the solution to the problem changes.

 

Different people will find different solutions to the same challenge as each player will directly perceive the same challenge from the perspective of their previous experiences and their individual constitution; think back to the examples of Kal and Jay.

 

The decision to follow a stepped process in articulating how this curriculum builder may be used is intended to explain and share an understanding of how each integrated aspect of a constraints-led approach interacts with the others.

Pitch

This second aspect refers to how the task the players are to play within is ‘pitched’. This is intended to encapsulate at least two domains. 

 

Size and Shape

The football area that the players play on. This includes the size, shape and surface of the playing area, the type of goal - this might be a target player to find or a full-size goal with a net - and any additional pitch markings. These pitch markings can be used to either restrict movement, such as a pitch separated into thirds where the centre-forward is unable to drop into the midfield third, or to encourage certain behaviours. Instead, in the same example we might ask the centre-forward to recognise when to drop into the midfield third to create space behind for others. 

 

Big Pitch/Small Pitch Contrast

Figure 7.6 illustrates how we might ‘pitch’ football activity.

The practice works on a big-to-small pitch contrast. As described in Chapter 5 the backdrop for exposing players to both tight areas and larger areas, in both 1v1/smaller-sided situations as well as in larger-sided games, is to support players to work out how to play ‘in the tight’ whilst also dealing with bigger spaces both with and without the ball.

 

In the illustrated example, we played six games of 10 minutes. Game 1 was on the small pitch, game 2 on the big pitch, game 3 on the small pitch, and we followed this pattern for the six games. The teams remained the same, as did the design of the pitch along with the explicit conditions that we agreed to place upon the players. The conditions related to the line that ran vertically down the middle of the pitches, which were: 

• Games 1 and 2 - Switch play across the line and score = 2 goals 
• Games 3 and 4 - Switch play one-touch across the line and score = 2 goals 
• Games 5 and 6 - Defender pass to a forward on the switch and score = 2 goals 

These conditions aided by the pitch markings supported the under-13 players to practise switching play in a variety of ways to achieve success. This group of players were relatively new to 11-a-side football, and we’d spoken about the value of switching play to make use of the pitch and to enable us to attack the ‘weak-side’ of the opposition, i.e. if we switch play quickly, we are likely to get the ball to where the opposition has the fewest defenders.

 

We needed to explore different solutions to this situation which were reflected in the rewards.

 

The vertical line down the middle of the pitch was a reference point for the players to identify what a switch of play might be, e.g. it doesn’t always need to be a big switch that goes from one sideline to another, but could be a simple reverse pass from one side of midfield to the other.

 

The third condition, if the defender finds the forward on the switch of play and then we score, was a subtle lean towards encouraging the forward to identify the times to stand, just about, on the opposite side of the pitch from the deeper player who had the ball to fashion a diagonal through-pass. This caused a problem for the opposition midfield, who may have been trying to force play to one side.

 

The tight pitch placed the players under powerful constraints of limited time and space, which, if used regularly over time, may support players getting better at being able to deal with the ball when time and space are limited.

 

Sceptics argue that the players will never play on a pitch this small, so it’s lacking in realism. Whilst this argument has some relevance, it’s also valuable in considering how overloading our human system in this way supports an adaptation in them that transfers to being effective in the larger game of football.

 

The contrast to a bigger pitch supported the players to, consciously and subconsciously, think about how to solve what might be perceived to be the same problem of the pitch marking and condition, when the pitch size changed.

 

Naturally, different players succeeded in different ways. Situations that seemed the same from small pitch to big pitch were significantly different based upon the distances the players were apart. This is an example of where the considerations from the role and rival elements from aspect one overlap.

 

Even though the small pitch game was frantic and chaotic at times, the players began to ‘see’ the pitch and behave more calmly as their awareness of how to play in such a tight area emerged. Sessions that appear untidy or unpleasant on the eye can be challenging for coaches as they can bring a feeling of uneasiness and discomfort. Finding it within ourselves to wait and hold our nerve through these feelings are important in enabling our players to emerge from these tight pitch experiences with enhanced skill and a sense of how to manage themselves when space and time are hugely constrained.

 

This type of approach or principle on how we pitch the football experience doesn’t only need to be a consideration in training sessions. 

 

Stage 

The second aspect of how the task is ‘Pitched’, with the first being the ‘Size and Shape’ of the football playing area, is the ‘Stage’ it is played on.

 

Staging The Experience

This second example came as a consequence of a conversation with a under-16 coach whose team had entered an end-of-season tournament overseas in Portugal.

 

In this Portuguese tournament, teams played three games, of 20 minutes each, in a group that they had to finish in the top two of to qualify for the semi-finals. They then had to try to win the tournament by winning a semi-final and final. This isn’t an uncommon tournament design.

 

They won the first game 5-0, continuing to play with purpose throughout the game, which on reflection, the coach and players thought, at the end of the tournament, was a mistake. They drew a tough physical second game against the eventual winners 1-1, before qualifying for the semi-finals with a 4-0 win in which they scored two early goals and, similar to the first game, continued to attack with pace throughout the 20 minutes.

 

In the semi-final, they went a goal down early on. The players, within this tournament setting, had never been behind before. Time was limited as the games were relatively short. The players were fatigued, having played all the previous games at full-tilt, and struggled to establish an intense press to shift the momentum of the game and conceded a second goal late on to exit the tournament.

 

From the discussion emerged the thoughts that the players were inexperienced and unpractised in playing the games in different ways, to speed it up, slow it down, recognise how and when to press with increased vigour.

 

As a positive, open and solution-focused coach, they wanted to look at some coaching tactics to deliberately support the players to practise different ways to what is commonly now called ‘manage the game’.

 

Constraining Competition

 

We organised a tournament and the coach, along with two other teams from across the country, agreed to come to a National Football Centre with their under-16s to play in the tournament, which was structured as follows: 

1. Three teams; play each team twice; 3 points - win, 1 point - draw, 0 points - defeat. Win the league. 
2. First ‘round’ of games - 30 minutes non-stop on a big pitch. Second ‘round’ of games 15 minutes non-stop on a smaller pitch. 
3. The second ‘round’ of games begins with the score from the first game being flipped. For example, if in the first round of games Athletic beat Rovers 3-1, the second game starts with Rovers leading Athletic 3-1. 
4. The only goals that are recorded in the table are the ones you actually score. After points, goals scored determines league position. 
5. Play at a National Centre in front of a small crowd. 

The conditions agreed in points 2, 3 and 4 asked the players and their coaches to consider how they adapted their tactics when the game situation changed. It also challenged teams to consider the benefits and drawbacks of, within this format, pushing for additional goals when they were in front; and to think about how many goals is enough. How many will we start behind by when we play this opponent again and the game is shorter in duration? This included the notion of not only thinking about what is happening in the current game but also the consequences of this game on future games.

 

The pitch constraints, combined with the task constraints, contributed to this. The coach and his team, who had been to the aforementioned tournament in Portugal, took an early 2-0 lead against their opponents who had played back-to-back games. They decided, on a big pitch, to use possession to conserve energy, frustrate the opposition and retain balance within their shape.

 

Subsequently, in the tournament deciding game, in which they started 2-0 behind, it was necessary to establish different tactics to come from behind, maintain those tactics when they conceded a goal, leaving them 3-1 behind and have the will and resilience, physically and psychologically, to stick at it in the last three minutes to score the two goals they needed to win the tournament.

 

This kind of approach to constraining the programme of games and staging it in such a way to generate specific learning opportunities typically meets with mixed feelings. Sceptics suggest that the game was designed in a particular way and presents its own challenges; adults should stop interfering. Advocates imply that subtle and more deliberate shifts within the way competition is structured supports players to practise certain elements that may contribute to the development of qualities that are valued.

 

Rugby Union has, in recent years, been considering the benefits of similar subtle changes that have been implemented within the Six Nations. One such law change was teams score a bonus point if they lose by 7 points or fewer. Ireland coach Andy Farrell identified how scoring constraints could help the players practise how they managed the game in preparation for The British Lions seeking to beat The All-Blacks in 2017. Whilst this is a different sport and an example from the senior ‘performance’ end of this sport, he said: 

 

“We have been in front against them [New Zealand] with teams I have been involved with, and they are masters at the comeback, staying calm and being clinical,” said Farrell. “The way to score that bonus-point try is exactly like that – staying calm, being clinical, not being frantic, and going about your job as you should do rather than being too emotional. It will create excitement as it goes, you’ll know what you need to do along the way, but you still won’t get away from the fact that you need to win.” 

 

My beliefs around how we intentionally ‘Pitch’ both the ‘Size and Shape’ of the experience and the ‘Stage’ it is played on are grounded in the notion that it is difficult for any of us to adapt to an environment we haven’t populated.

 

The previous examples reflect how we might support player learning. It is important to recognise that this principle applies to coaches too. Coaches develop in association with the experiences their players are afforded.

 

The Pressure to Win

In our first season in a previous role managing and overseeing the senior and youth development programme at a Premier League Club in England, our first team finished the season towards the bottom of the table and as a result were involved in a relegation play-off match, which was more fashionable in England then than perhaps they are now.

 

Played across two ‘legs’, away from home first and then at home, the aggregated score determined whether our opponents were promoted or if we retained our Premier League status.

 

This was a pressured situation beyond any experience that I had previously been exposed to as a coach. Defeat in a situation of this nature would have significantly impacted the careers of the players and staff as well as the future of the wider programme.

 

Whilst I would like to, perhaps naively, think of myself as an organised and conscientious person, the preparation we embarked on was upgraded from our usual approach.

 

We travelled north for the first game in early May to meet a physical, hard-working opponent with some flashes of youthful brilliance on a difficult pitch. Our preparation had focused in some detail on making it hard for their full-backs to play longer passes into their strong centre-forward and for our centre-backs to be aggressive in ‘doubling-up’ against an imposing centre-forward within their 4-3-3.

 

The opposition’s left-winger was young, quick and lively, which resulted in us placing a big preparatory focus on our right-back’s positioning and tracking of movement, particularly with the way our centre-backs were going to play.

 

Whilst we had lost more games than we had won that season, our work on how we played with the ball had been a consistent focus to support the team and the individuals to develop a pleasing style that we could become recognised for and, over time, would support us to establish both a positive identity and support the development of our young squad.

 

The players demonstrated significant grit and determination to lead early in the first leg and eventually gain a 1-1 draw. Our focus had been on not needing to chase the game in the second leg. We believed we had a better footballing team and that on our better home pitch with a home crowd, we could control the game in the second leg. If we had been beaten in the first leg, the capacity to control the game would be harder as the need to lead early would become more pressing.

 

A week later, we had too much for our opponents, controlled the game comfortably and secured a 3-0 victory to win 4-1 on aggregate. We retained our status and, in some small way, strengthened the platform for both the club and its young players to progress from.

 

It’s important to recognise that had the outcome ended in favour of our opposition, it would still have been a learning one; it is likely that it would have generated many challenging constraints for both the staff, me personally, and the players to recover from, either in-situ at that club or in pursuit of new work. 

 

Competition as a Coach Developer

That notable experience altered my perspective. Committing to the degree of preparation that we engaged in for the play-off, and resourcing it properly, became the ‘norm’ and there was recognition that had it previously been the norm we may not have been in such a pressing situation in the first place.

 

The ‘stage’ for this experience was relatively significant. Players from that group have continued to succeed at the top end of European and international football and coaches have progressed to international management.

 

There is no suggestion that those perceived experiences correlate to their continued success; only that if we want players and coaches to learn to manage themselves on the ‘Stage’ - however we define that - exposure to and support through those experiences is likely to be an important planning consideration.

 

How we, again, recognise the characteristics of each person and the role experience plays in enabling learning to emerge and develop may provide some insight into how experience is ‘Pitched’ for players and coaches. It will also need to be surrounded by an appropriate degree of support, enabling challenging experiences to be opportunities for growth.

 

As explained through this aspect around ‘Pitch’; some of those experiences will occur more naturally, for others it may be worthwhile deliberately and intentionally planning them into the development programme to support us to prepare players and coaches for the ‘Stages’ they may encounter through the challenges of life and football.  

 

Aspect Three – Parameterising the Environment

The penultimate aspect of the experience builder that can support us to shape a responsive constraints-led approach is the ‘parameters’ or, within the traditional constraints triangle, what are called ‘the environmental factors’.

 

This refers to how long the experience lasts, how frequently it is repeated and how hostile the environment is that the experience takes place in.

How Long?

It is important to highlight that this refers to:  

 

Within a session - The duration of time the players play uninterrupted in a session; e.g. we’ll play this game for 8 minutes. The traditional four periods of 4 minutes, or very similar, isn’t without value although it has perhaps become too universal an approach to the way coaches periodise their delivery. Longer periods of uninterrupted play are probably a useful constraint in challenging players from a physical perspective with the associated benefits of players learning to play football effectively. This can additionally influence, through training, their decision making late in games. There are also probably benefits for learning if the players are afforded the opportunity to play the same, or similar, games and practices for extended durations. Players may need to practise finding different ways to solve the problems the game presents without the coach stopping the game to talk about or work out solutions.

 

Players also having time to explore different solutions ‘live’ and generate reflection ‘in-action’ can be the rationale for, at times, enabling players to play uninterrupted for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20 or 30 minutes. If we aspire for players to develop what might be referred to as physical resilience and for them to contend with specific game problems, the environmental parameters can perhaps be helpful aspects to support this development.  

 

Within a game - The agreed amount of time a game, or half a game, lasts for. Arbitrarily accepting standardised half or period durations that are imposed universally by leagues or competitions may be narrowly constraining the players. For example, playing four periods of 20 minutes has been widely utilised in several sporting contexts.

 

This isn’t a bad framework, although within the 5-minute break the players will get after every 20-minute period, they are likely to get interaction from their coaches. If we would like players to be able to self-manage, learn to adapt their behaviour within games and enable them to experience a more natural ebb and flow in their games, then periods of play or halves that last for 35, 40, 45 or perhaps controversially even 50 or 55 minutes may be worthwhile considerations.

 

Within a competition - How long a particular tournament or competition endures. In a festival that a league might organise, or at a World Cup or European Championships, players may be asked to play a number of games over a two-day, week or longer period. This may include being away from a normal home, being hot-housed with team-mates and staff members, sleeping in an unusual bed or room and eating food that is not common. Whilst for some, who are perhaps genetically more open to experience or have been exposed to broader experience previously, this may be a less stressful or even enjoyable experience. For others, it may bring stress, tension and uncertainty that requires managing.

 

Whether we aspire to use football as a means of enabling young people to be exposed to novel situations that support them to live even more meaningful and purposeful lives and/or we intend to support players to be able to perform in a World Cup competition in an uncommon environment - identify opportunities for players to live these experiences. 

 

Within individual player cares and needs - The duration of time we enable players to be exposed to particular aspects identified in the ‘Player’ and ‘Pitch’. If we would like a player to focus on running in behind opposition defenders, we may place a disproportionate focus on them: 

1. Playing in more advanced positions. 
2. Playing in larger areas where there is space to run behind. 
3. Playing against a variety of opponents who make it hard for them to succeed at running in behind. 
4. Playing with players who play the ball into advanced positions. 

Whilst we probably wouldn’t only, narrowly, provide these experiences, if used for an undefined period (we could arbitrarily say ‘6 weeks’ but any duration is arbitrary) players could get greater exposure to the above elements than to other football ideas to support immersion in situations that relate to the things they care about and need. 

 

How Often?

‘How long’ referred to the duration of the activity and generating some flexibility in how we consider time. ‘How often’ asks us to consider how frequently we expose people to particular environments.

 

In a natural sense, exposing players to football activity several times a week is frequency; some more discerning and key considerations within ‘How often’ might be the following. 

 

How often there is the ‘need’ to win or not lose - Whilst sometimes controversial in youth sport, life and sport is inherently competitive and practising winning, caring about whether we win, how we behave if we win or lose and understanding what values we intend to uphold in the pursuit of victory are important ingredients in the sporting experience.

 

Several years ago, we organised a tournament for some English Academy Clubs to compete against each other with teams of teenage young men. The tournament had a ‘must-win’ condition on it - 3 points for a win, 0 points for a draw or loss. It elicited some great behaviour of how teams decided to play, how they played when they were both ahead and behind and what the last few minutes of games were like - typically frantic. As explained earlier, when we adapt the laws or conditions of the game, notice the impact it has on the behaviour of the players and coaches. 

 

How often we balance smaller-sided with larger-sided practice - We can mistakenly refer to smaller-numbered situations as more ‘technical’ and larger-numbered as more ‘tactical’. I would urge us to consider that this separation is at best superfluous and, worse, misguided. The ability to work the ball individually, often perceived as technique, is inextricably connected and inseparable from the decisions we make, perhaps promoted as the tactics.

 

Playing smaller-sided games is likely to reduce the complexity of the experience and increase the number of ball contacts. This isn’t good or bad; it’s just a likely consequence of our decisions. Similarly, larger-numbered situations are likely to reduce ball contacts whilst supporting the players to experience the game with greater complexity. Both are probably useful experiences and whilst we might consider a greater diet of smaller-numbered experiences, the younger the players are, you ignore larger numbered experiences at your peril. Some 11v11 experiences for children before the age of 11 shouldn’t be prohibited, just used sensibly. The reverse is also true; older and adult players can still benefit from and enjoy smaller numbered practices. 

 

How often players are challenged to ‘repeat’ perform - This may be a more relevant concept for older and more adult players, although it is a helpful consideration for coaches who are supporting players to think about making a transition from youth sport to the senior game. Many youth programmes, particularly within English Academy settings, provide one game a week with traditionally a week separating games, i.e. we play every Saturday. This typically means players are trained to be refreshed and ready for each Saturday. Much of the lower leagues and non-leagues of English football have significant periods where players have to play two and, on occasion, three games in a week, i.e. we play Saturday and then Tuesday, which at times will require players to play with and learn to manage yet still perform with some residual fatigue.

 

In a previous role, we worked at including, across 65% of the training weeks, a second game experience. Some of this was achieved through internal 11v11 games, which were still set up intentionally with players in kit and with referees. These were balanced with organising additional games against a range of opposition. These additional ‘friendly’ games also gave us the opportunity to experiment outside of the constraints of traditionally organised leagues. We played games for 100 minutes, added extra time and penalties if the game was drawn, played with 10 players and against 10 players, and many other intentional constraints to challenge players to both adapt to a second- game stimulus whilst also adapting to varying game experiences that, whilst not necessarily common, are relevant situations within football.

 

Players began to learn to adapt to this as they developed within this process and became more resilient in being able to repeat perform. Naturally, this raises the conversation about the risk of injuries and how this process was managed sensibly with an increase in exposure and demand as players adapted. It’s also important to say that without developing the programme in the ways we did, we may have put the players at increased risk of injury when they stepped into first-team football and were challenged to play two games a week. We can’t adapt to an environment we don’t populate.

 

How Hostile?

The final element within this aspect surrounding ‘Parameters’ is about the hostility in the environment. Important to highlight that hostility is interpreted individually, i.e. what I find hostile might be different from the next person and is, like most facets of life, difficult for coaches to universally control.

 

Some examples of environmental factors that might be perceived to be hostile could be: 

1. The weather (wind, rain, snow, cold, heat etc.) 
2. The behaviour of the supporters, referees or observing parents. As every grassroots coach knows, this is one of the many joys of running your child’s or a children’s team – every other parent can do it better, yet rarely volunteers! 
3. The equipment used; our boots, playing kit and the ball are all constraining factors on how we feel about the experience. 
4. The changing nature of the game itself, or the perceived importance of the game. 

These aspects are interrelated. The behaviour of supporters is likely to change as a consequence of the scoreline changing, whilst changes in supporter behaviour can impact our perceptions of how hostile the environment is. Similarly, when the scoreline changes, a player gets sent off, or the referee gives a contentious decision, it is likely to have an impact upon our emotions and, possibly, our behaviour.

 

Whilst we can’t control the majority of these, we can learn to manage ourselves in hostile environments and enable sport to support us to manage the inherent nature of our personality to be able to better respond to hostility in the future.

 

How long, how often and how hostile aren’t mutually exclusive considerations; they impact each other continually and converge. Somewhat hostile, relatively lengthy experiences perhaps shouldn’t be repeated too often; although as players come nearer to what might be perceived to be performance-focused environments, the frequency might be increased.

 

Further, coaches spending time understanding the players in their care and the things that make them anxious or nervous can ensure that we share these experiences, reciprocally benefitting and growing as a consequence of willingly committing to football-related challenges.

 

Aspect Four – Experience Building Over Time (A Developmental Journey)

The fourth and final aspect in illustrating this experience or curriculum builder is how we coherently stitch these experiences into individual player tapestries that develop, grow and change over time. Invariably, football coaching can be guilty of instigating a single session focus where we live from hand to mouth, constructing sessions that have limited relation to each other or the things that players feel is important.

 

Whilst navigating this experience builder can be complex and challenging, it supports us to consider the players, the nature of the football challenge facing those players and the associated environmental conditions within every experience we design or engage in. This is proposed as an alternative to ‘core’ practices which are set practices that all coaches within a club or federation work from.

 

Personal belief is that core practices erode expertise. This belief is grounded in the idea that such core practice recipes are good for simple tasks, like changing a tyre on a bike wheel, and less useful for complex tasks like player and coach development which are unlikely to be suited by a set of specific instructions.

These standardised recipes fail to take account of the nuances associated with human beings playing football. 

 

Instead, I urge you to view coaching more ecologically by: 

1. Considering the game and players as complex evolving systems. 
2. Understanding that change in one aspect will create ripple effects elsewhere.
3. Understanding how to address these consciously and effectively. 
4. Offering positive contributions of adjustment to the environment through external intervention. 

Across time - weeks, half-terms, terms, seasons, multiple seasons - it may be valuable to keep a log of the experiences that players were exposed to and, even at points, include both the players’ and our own reflections on the perceived impact of those experiences. We can do this through video, audio or written notes. 

 

This map of the terrain we’ve traversed together can then illuminate the territory we’ve explored, enabling us to examine the landscape with greater sophistication on future visits to similar turf, whilst also supporting us to consider uncharted territory that our players and us would like to experience in the future. 

 

Ensuring we generate a breadth of experiences that we deepen our understanding of is likely to stimulate the exploratory nature within human beings, eliciting excitement and enjoyment from our shared journey. 

 

Tactical Coaching 

It is important to connect the development of the ways we aspire for the team to play, referenced in Chapter 5, with the ways we coach them. The conceptual principles explored in that chapter can now be aligned with the ‘Experience Builder’ detailed in Chapter 7 to support us to develop a series of connected coaching sessions.

 

This thoughtful design and constraining of the environment can be referred to as tactical coaching. 

 

Four practice examples follow, which connect the nature of the ways we agree we will play soccer (tactical alignment) with the principles that underpin how we intend to influence that alignment (tactical concepts).

 

These practice sessions enable players to practise playing out through different types of pressing strategies alongside, conversely, practising pressing in different ways. This supports the players to learn to adapt as the circumstances change, changes which are inevitable in the game. 

 

Chapter 5 and the under-18 team learning to adapt their build-up approach when the opposition press with different numbers provides the raison d’etre for this series of sessions. 

 

Practice one 

Practice one (figure 8.1) allows each team to practise different approaches to building attacks from their goalkeeper.  

The blue team is set up in a 2-3-2, representing elements of a 4-2-2-2 formation; the green team is in a 4-2-1, linking to a 4-2-3-1 set-up. These match-ups outlay some natural, initial overloads and even-numbered situations that support the players to build up play and press with difference. 

 

The green team has a lone striker with an extra player in midfield, encouraging the blues to play out against a team that presses with one player. This green team is consequently likely to release one of its midfielders (hence, as illustrated in figure 8.2, pressing with two players) onto the blue spare centre-back once they begin playing out. 

This principle works at the opposite end of the pitch, albeit with some difference. 

 

The blues are pressing with two centre-forwards initially. However, the two advanced blue midfielders are likely to be keen to release onto the green full-backs so as to press with three or, if releasing both advanced midfielders, four players. 

 

The benefit of full-backs dropping into quite deep positions, within the depth of the penalty box, can be realised in these instances as it encourages the blue midfielders to come really high, enabling the green team to stretch the pitch vertically and create space between the blue units (as illustrated in figure 8.3). 

The green full-backs must not go so deep that those advanced blue midfielders aren’t drawn to press.

 

The organisational constraints the players are exposed to provide a challenge for those advanced blue midfielders. If they release too early, the goalkeeper (or centre-backs) for the green team can play into their midfielders, who outnumber the blues in this part of the pitch (figure 8.4). 

If they position themselves too narrowly to protect the central area, the green full-backs can get loose on the ball. 

 

In this particular practice, there are no additional task constraints or conditions. The organisation of the players provides the problem that the players can practise solving with the support of the coaches. Pitch size is also an important consideration here; if it is too big, players will reject some pressing options as the distances are too great; too small, and they can press everything easily as the distances are too short. This conundrum will be further influenced by the size, speed and skill of the players. 

 

Practice two 

Practice two follows a similar organisation profile, yet has two restrictions intended to increase the frequency with which players practise dropping deep to get on the ball. 

 

It is a smaller format, 6v6 game which is played on quite a small pitch with the additional parameter of a central circle encapsulating a big part of the playing area (figure 8.5). 

There are two conditions, or task constraints, which carry across both teams. 

 

“Begin the build outside the circle; score from within.” 

 

This is likely to generate some benefits: 

1. The team in possession dropping their two deepest players outside of the circle into genuinely deep positions to receive from the goalkeeper (to align with the first task constraint of beginning the build outside the circle). 
2. The team without the ball defending the central circle with fierceness and intensity, making it hard for the opposition to fulfil the second aspect of the task constraint to have to score within the central circle.

This kind of relatively tight area, task-constrained game also places some genuine pressure on the goalkeepers to ensure their distribution is on point; passing with detail coupled with sound decisions. 

 

Further, centre-forwards matched up 2v2 have some great opportunities to practise receiving with their backs to goal, and combining with both their centre-forward partner and their midfielder to get shots on goal. The tight area is also likely to increase the speed at which this is done as the players accept opportunities for snap shots when there isn’t always time to get their feet perfectly organised. 

 

These tight-area games can be used on days when we might want the players to move across shorter distances whilst retaining a playing intensity that mirrors or exceeds that of game day. 

 

Practice three

The third game embodying our aspiration for that under-18 team discussed in Chapter 5 to learn the adaptable skill to respond when the opposition press in varying ways is shown in figure 8.6. 

This game uses precise measurements to highlight and represent specific aspects of the pitch geography associated with soccer. The players are also matched up, organisationally, across the pitch into a 2-3-2. The blue team’s midfield three has two deeper midfielders (‘4’s or ‘DCM’s as they are often known), whilst the green team have two advanced midfielders (‘10’s or ‘CAM’s). 

 

One of the tentative solutions discussed in Chapter 5 for building attacks when the opposition press with two forward players was to drop a central midfielder into the defensive line to create a 3v2. This can also encourage the central defenders to move higher and wider to support passing lines into the advanced midfielders or forwards (figure 8.7). 

The somewhat thin central third makes this part of the pitch compact, encouraging midfielders into deeper areas to create deep numerical superiority and create space that they vacated in central areas. 

 

This game is proposed to be repeated three times, with each game lasting for a minimum of 10 minutes. There are several layers to this game that the players will be contending with due to the organisation of the players and the space imbalances generated by the different-sized horizontal thirds. 

 

The first iteration of the game is an opportunity for players to become accustomed to the nature of the game and spend some time working out how to solve the problems it creates. The second, minimum-of-10-minute spell, has an added Reward - score within 6 seconds of the regain, and it equals two goals. 

 

This task constraint is more geared towards ensuring the team out of possession is defending with focus and purpose in order to challenge the build-up play to be measured and on point through narrow, compact areas. Turn the ball over and concede; a double consequence of two goals (rather than one). 

 

This hostility is dialled up further in the final game by playing it as a decider; the winner takes all in this three-game series (regardless of the score in the previous two games). 

 

Practice four 

The fourth and final practice session intended to align the pursuit of adaptable skill with our tactical coaching is a larger, narrow-pitch 9v9 game (figure 8.8). 

Both teams are organised into a 3-3-2 to reflect elements of a 3-5-2. The narrow pitch is organised into horizontal thirds, with the central third being significantly and disproportionately bigger than the end thirds this time. 

 

This particular practice session has one task constraint that Restricts and one that Rewards certain behaviour.

 

The team out of possession, illustrated here by the blues, is restricted such that they are not able to release players to press into the final third until the opposition team (the green team) has passed the ball back into that area.

 

A cagey game of cat and mouse often ensues in games of this nature. The green team are patient initially, waiting and resting on the ball in their own deepest third, safe in the knowledge that the blues can’t press until they, the green team, have played out into the midfield third and then back. 

 

However, if the blue team is poorly positioned centrally and allows gaps between them, the greens can play through them, in turn making good use of the time they have to perceive those passes from an unpressured, initially ‘safe’ end third. 

 

The greens are likely to look for a bounce pass that eventually draws the blues onto them in the deepest third so that space is created in the central third to advance. As the blues ‘jump’ and seek to affect a regain, the green players respond. In figure 8.9, the green outside defender moves higher as the blue forward presses to provide a clipped pass option for their goalkeeper, enabling them one possible solution to ‘escape’ the press. 

 

As coaches, we can encourage teams out of possession to be patient, poised and well-positioned, waiting for the opportunity to press whilst concurrently supporting the team with the ball to directly contrast the opposition to attempt to win the game. 

 

The additional Reward task constraint layered into this practice session is that if your team crosses the central line (that runs vertically down the centre of the pitch) and scores, it is worth two goals. This is leading players towards recognising that once they have broken the initial opposition press, getting the ball (on this narrow pitch) to the opposite side of the area may increase the likelihood of a shot on goal; if a goal follows, it is worth two. Again, a double consequence; this time, if our press is awry and we get played through (figure 8.9). 

The four practice session examples rationalised above align our tactical intentions with our coaching concepts. Various different elements, moments or themes of the game are incorporated inclusively and in unison, not taken apart and arbitrarily taught or coached as separate entities. This is perhaps a shift from the traditional approach to curriculums. 

 

The history of soccer coaching curriculums is and, as a consequence of this historical influence, continues to be riddled with a number of separations. Two examples of this separatist approach are: 

1. Individual coaching sessions organised into arbitrary periods of time (like 20 minutes) within which players practise unopposed, followed by what might be called a skill practice (where, for example, attackers outnumber defenders) and finally into an even-numbered game. Sometimes these parts follow the path highlighted, moving from unopposed into the skill practice to a game. Other times the parts are organised differently, such as starting with the game. 
2. Longer periods of time (such as six weeks) that focus on particular soccer themes. An example might be a club that trains twice a week and, in six weeks, focuses on ‘playing out from the back’ on a Monday and then ‘pressing from the front’ on Wednesday. 

These separations appear to have been influenced by the nature of school curriculums where we ‘learn’ maths for an hour. After this hour, the bell rings, and we walk to a different class and ‘learn’ history for an hour. These one-hour lessons are nested inside a longer period of time (such as six weeks) focused on a particular subject (like World War 2). 

 

Such powerful organisational and historical constraints continue to impact the ways we believe we have learnt to learn and transcend the classroom into our sporting contexts. 

 

This is profoundly mistaken.  

 

The game of soccer doesn’t occur in separations; it plays out in an integrated way. We are performing actions (techniques) that are coupled with our decisions (tactics) which we perceive in the moment. This inevitably requires us to be constantly connecting what we do when we have the ball with what we do when we don’t (both as an individual and as a team). These connections are occurring both internally, within both you and me, and with the other people playing that game, external to both you and me. 

 

The notion that we can glue these separated learnings together is at odds with the nature of the game of football. Techniques learned outside the decisions of the game miss the contextual factors that directly influence the way we perform them. Themes learnt in isolation lose the connection to the dynamic, transitional nature of an exciting game like soccer. 

 

Chapter 5 highlighted some principles of practice design that enable us to couple the techniques we practise with the decisions of the game whilst illustrating, from personal experience with Leinster Rugby (in Chapter 6), the benefits of combining traditional themes and supporting players to learn the game. These principles travelled into the four soccer games navigated through the first part of this chapter. 

 

This challenges some of the conventions that continue to constrain clubs, coaches and federations where curriculums separate, isolate and often pre-determine the experiences that players will be exposed to. 

 

The ‘Practice Spectrum’ Problem 

A ‘practice spectrum’ continues to be commonplace within some national coaching architectures (figure 8.10). Practice spectrums encourage coaches to consider the opportunities that designing practice that is more ‘constant’ (similar techniques practised in similar conditions) enables; balancing this type of practice with what is, perhaps erroneously, referred to as more ‘random’ (different techniques practised in different conditions). 

Whilst this is well-intended and perhaps progress from previously mandated approaches, it risks focusing our attention on the practice we design rather than what the players are able to practise. It can also be overly constraining as it leads to all players getting the same dose, regardless of what we believe they may need or want. 

 

The practice design principles shared in Chapter 5 can be combined with our understanding of the needs of the team we coach and, importantly, the individuals who comprise that team. 

 

Figure 8.11 is an example of how we may organise the ‘players’ and then ‘pitch’ the game to support the players in learning to play soccer in an integrated fashion. This doesn’t come before or after a different practice; it is practise. 

This 7v7 game ‘design’ is intended to challenge both teams and individuals to practise building attacks and also stop them from being built within a variety of tactical problems. The ‘demand’ placed explicitly onto the game encourages players to attempt to create overloads in each half of the pitch to work the ball towards and into the opposition’s goal.  

 

Teams are organised in different ways, such that the blue team plays with a back two (to reflect two centre-backs) and the green team, a back one (to challenge an individual player to defend bigger spaces and deal with individual match-ups).  

 

There are also reverse benefits to these organisational constraints. The lone blue centre-forward can practise moving a centre-half around the pitch, which is combined with providing opportunities for centre midfielders to make attacking runs in support.  

 

This is what is meant by integration and coupling. Different teams and players practise subtly or significantly different things within the context of the ever-changing game. It isn’t ‘random’ though; the game is governed by its laws. These laws constrain the things we can do - such as a goal kick being the consequence when the ball is played off of the end of the pitch. 

 

The things we grow to understand about the people in our care also shape and constrain the ways we interact with them. This isn’t ‘random’. It’s considered and empathetic.  

 

As illustrated, we also have within our gift the opportunity to utilise that depth of understanding to shape experiences that attend to the individuals within the team, enabling them to contend with the things they care about and that encourage each of them to contribute positively to their team. 

 

If there is perceived benefit in a defender or centre-back being able to practise some elements of being in possession with reduced amounts of opposition; it isn’t always necessary to remove them or the things they’re practising from the game to support them to increase the amount of opportunity to practise those things. 

 

Unopposed Within Game Setting 

In figure 8.12, the penalty area can become a useful reference point within the game for such a player.  

This is a natural demarcation or parameter on the soccer field. Every time the ball is played off of the pitch (at the end or the side), we can condition the game to be restarted by the goalkeeper for the green team. This will naturally increase the number of times the green team practises building attacks from its goalkeeper. 

 

The penalty box (at that end of the pitch) may also become where the green centre-back moves to receive the ball with the additional condition that the blue centre-forward cannot defend the green defender until they leave the penalty box (figure 8.13). 

This can support the green defender to practise passing (or stepping out with the ball) with no opposition pressure applied to them. It can also support a goalkeeper to practise moving to the other side from the defender to challenge the blue team’s ability to stop attacks being built (as the green defender and goalkeeper can position themselves, as illustrated, on opposite sides of the penalty box). 

 

Once they have passed the ball out of the penalty box, the game continues with no additional conditions. We’ve enabled what practice spectrum enthusiasts might call ‘constant’ practice within the game itself for a specific player who may benefit from this opportunity. The additional benefits this provides to the way the goalkeeper and blue team are challenged can also be welcomed. 

 

This approach to supporting player learning through our coaching can be broadened and encapsulate different players and their needs without us feeling as if we are coming away from arbitrarily defined themes within a curriculum. 

 

If the ways we have agreed our team will play and the needs of the players nested within that team are ‘the curriculum’, we free ourselves from the shackles of conventional coach education approaches like ‘coach one team and coach one theme’. We don’t need to overly constrain ourselves or the players with such irrational approaches. 

 

Instead, we can do more; we can respond with our players. Rather than inhibit them as a consequence of dogma, we can see utility as a much better guide to progress than convention.  

 

This is embodied within the final activity in figure 8.14. This isn’t a progression within the particular game example just discussed; simply another consideration. 

A central third is now evident. This can exist within the architecture of the game from the outset or be added subtly, as required.  

 

That lone blue centre-forward, who, as mentioned, may be working on hold-up play and moving opposition centre-backs around, can now decide to drop into this area and be free from being tackled until after their second touch.  

 

This can encourage them to receive and pass quickly, or should they turn to dribble and stay with the ball longer, understand that the green team will apply pressure. This might support the player to see value in coming short to set-up play, ask a question of the green defender as to whether they decide to follow them short, and consequently encourage the blue midfield players to combine their movement with that of their centre-forward by running into the space vacated higher up the pitch. 

 

This can encourage rotations which aren’t specifically repeatable patterns but opportunities for action (what academics often call ‘affordances’). These opportunities are both internally and externally influenced. I perceive space and the opportunity to move short. You see the opportunity to run into the space left behind.  

 

What to casual observers might just be seen as a straightforward 7v7 game has a multitude of layers running through it that influence what the players and we as coaches do. Our attention can then be focused on watching how the players get on with these things and add or remove any additional layers in response to what is going on. 

 

This is ‘the curriculum’. Coach it consistently. Make subtle adjustments and changes in the nature of the ‘design’ of the games we play and the ‘demands’ we agree that players will be challenged by to support development and learning. Respond to the players and their nature rather than making arbitrary impositions.

 

Work at it. Share it with the players and their parents to gain their perspectives and deepen their understanding. This kind of care and attention is a hugely valuable investment in the players we are privileged to coach. 

Seamless Not Separatist 

Separation and separatist approaches are, as discussed in Chapter 8, strongly engendered in society.

 

In soccer, it continues to be challenging for us as coaches to commit to, embody and further develop an integrated approach to both the development of the players in our care and to our own growth with such strong, historical and prevailing constraints upon our practice. 

 

Academia can perpetuate this problem when assessing a student’s ability to break down whatever is going to be explored into smaller, more examinable elements to enable a conclusion to be derived. This can lead to coaches who aspire to study learning, coaching and sporting performance eliminating elements of any particular environment to enable a smaller part of that system to be studied and measured.  

 

Possibly, this promotes and sustains the notion that separating a soccer team and its players into smaller parts enables us to effectively understand the wider ecosystem.  

 

This is problematic.  

 

As soon as we cut particular elements out of a tapestry, we create edges and seams that didn’t originally exist. When we attempt to piece them back together, we replace a connected, fluid, living, breathing body with a patchwork quilt of pieces. 

 

For example, we can study physical output and concentrate on measures such as how far a player has run, how much of that distance travelled was sprinting and what the fastest speed was that they ran. Physical trainers can pursue more distance, covered faster, with top-speed personal bests. These kinds of performance enhancements can be alluring, seductive, and perhaps even influential on behaviour.  

 

This kind of information requires contextualising. If not coupled with our agreed intentions, then it is feasible for our attention to be hi-jacked or distracted. A centre-forward who manoeuvres opponents with physical contact or small, subtle movements may generate success and challenge opponents in ways that basic physical metrics may not identify.  

 

In these situations, there is still a significant ‘load’ placed on that centre-forward’s human systems to generate and manage the physical contact whilst out-witting opponents with clever movement, which perhaps isn’t considered in the separatist nature of the data collected. 

 

The same principle carries into what might be considered psychological challenges. Being brave in possession, consistent from game to game, stoic when things are challenging, and resilient when individual personality is not a natural social fit are all expensive investments that should be considered with all players and the environment that each of those players is a part of. 

 

These are the reasons why the separation of human beings into ideas like the English FA’s ‘4-corner model’ within which players’ characteristics are listed or developed in isolation (e.g. these are her characteristics in the physical corner) and coaches are educated for a distinct period or block in silos (e.g. this is the psychological part of the curriculum) is deeply divisive.  

 

It’s no better, as some prominent psychologists perpetuate, to imply that we (human beings) are underpinned psychologically, i.e. that one element of our human system is more important than another, such that our brain is ‘the chief executive’ controlling our systems from the top down. 

 

In recent years a notable, influential sports performance lead used the 18th-century economist and philosopher Adam Smith’s ‘division of labour’ in the production of pins perspective to highlight how different specialisms worked to support player development at a large governing body. This metaphor was used to highlight how specialisms, mistakenly, could divide the work into separate parts to enable human growth and change.  Whilst there is much to learn from history, likening the development of human beings in sport to the production of an inanimate object, like a pin, is perhaps not one of them. 

 

Human beings are integrated, both within our own personal, individual system and within a wider social system. Soccer is a dynamic game which draws on all of our human systems and their connection to the other human beings that exist within the environment. Superficial separation and silos should be superseded by synchronisation. 

 

This requires a different methodology; one which removes itself from the strong social conventions we’ve been educated within and rewarded for conforming to, where success in life is achieved through aligning ourselves with educational dogma enabling us to navigate our way to a productive life.  

 

Breaking from these conventions can be challenging, socially isolating and uncomfortable; however, uncovering and embodying alternative, novel, and humanly responsive approaches to player and coach development can be the edge, the advantage, the significant (not marginal) gain. Particularly in contexts where we have constraints on our resources (relative to our competitors) that make it difficult to beat our better-equipped peers at their own game. 

 

Methodology Not Method 

Consider your methodology, and recognise that it is different from the method. A method might be a pre-set syllabus or coaching tactic. In contrast, a methodology is perhaps more of an integration of everything we’ve come to understand about our people and what they value in their soccer environment. There is utility in investing every pore of our being into drawing this understanding together into coherent coaching methods. 

 

We aren’t a collection of conveniently colour-coordinated corners. Our curriculum isn’t our environment; our environment and the people in it are our curriculum. Whilst practices and game days aren’t the only important elements of the experience we can build and share together, they are useful ways to articulate how this integrated approach can be considered. 

 

Part 1 – Smaller-Numbered Games 

Advocates of separated, more linear approaches to learning propose more stepped ideas like developing individual skill first, then working in pairs before progressing into threes to help players deal with increased numbers gradually. Whilst this is convenient, clean and well-advertised, there are more integrated human approaches that connect to both the nature of people and the game of soccer. 

 

Undoubtedly there are benefits in working in both smaller and larger-numbered practices to support players to experience a varied programme. It isn’t necessary to trade off tactical benefits within smaller-numbered games. We can still ensure that practices embody both our team intentions and the individual nature of the players.

 

Whilst the three following examples can be perceived as training practices, every element of youth development is practice, even game day. Considering development and learning in this way enables us to generate variety in the games programme rather than follow a competition structure constrained by conventions created by committees. 

 

Each of the three examples is a game. It encapsulates two teams, two goals (at any time) and one ball. Embodying the inherent elements of the game of soccer into the players’ experiences supports players in learning to play the game by playing the game. This isn’t the same as ‘letting the game be the teacher’. As coaches, we can thoughtfully design games and practices that support and encourage players to learn the game. 

 

The nature of the design and the additional demands heighten certain game elements. These design elements, accentuated by the depth of the relationships we develop with the players, can enable our coaching interactions to further support learning. 

 

These three examples could be organised across a number of consecutive training sessions (like a curriculum) and/or included as the competition formats for game day. They have different numbers of players, different pitch shapes and sizes, different types of goals and different ways to score. Each of them reflects and is considerate of the entire human system collectively. They intend to encapsulate what ‘4-corner’ aficionados might call the ‘red corner’ - technical and tactical, ‘yellow corner’ - physical, ‘green corner’ - psychological and the ‘blue corner’ – things that are social. 

 

Game 1 - Narrow Pitch - 6v6 

Game (or practice) 1 is illustrated in figure 9.1. The pitch is narrow and reflects a 6v6 with the pitch parameterised into horizontal thirds. The organisation of the players promotes varying problems to solve. The green team has two blue attackers, both defending and creating chances against their two defenders, whilst a blue midfielder is initially outnumbered in midfield. Organisational constraints designed in this way can afford players the opportunity to practise in ways relevant to the situations that are present.  

The blue team may build slower at times to attempt to draw a green midfielder higher and create space to play forward, or, at times, the blue goalkeeper may play longer into the blue front two to attempt to capitalise on the 2v2 high up the pitch. 

 

The demands that constrain the game also encourage players to practise certain elements of the game more than others. 

 

In possession, if a team can play through all thirds and score, it is rewarded with three goals. What gets rewarded gets repeated.  

 

Hence, the blues may limit the times they play straight into their front two direct from the goalkeeper and find alternative ways to, as highlighted earlier, draw the green team onto them such that they can connect into midfield, perhaps encouraging one of their centre-forwards to drop deeper to balance numbers in midfield and/or use a patient goalkeeper to control the game as an extra possessor of the ball. 

 

This build-up challenge is, conversely, contending with an out-of-possession reward. Regain the ball back in the attacking third and score, and it is rewarded with two goals. What gets rewarded gets repeated. 

 

This can generate a fierceness and competitive edge that separatists might believe exists in the ‘psychological corner’. Better to consider the ways it influences human beings across all of their integrated systems. The perceived pressure and intensity such environmental, task, and human constraints enable can influence and shape every ounce of our being. That being is a collection of the genetics gifted by our parents and the environmental exposures that those genetic gifts have contended with. 

 

The final task constraint within this particular game is that every time the ball leaves the pitch, it is restarted with a corner. Increasing the opportunity to practise set-plays, only restarting with kicks (or passes) rather than throws and consequently encouraging some inventive short corner routines (perhaps additionally constrained by the pitch size) are some of the solutions the players are afforded the opportunity to experiment with. 

 

It isn’t necessary to slow the game down, or separate times the players can ‘explore’ (perhaps attempt novel game elements) from moments where they can ‘exploit’ (or perform successfully). Competitive edge, exploration of new ideas and successful outcomes can co-exist. As can different ‘themes’.  

 

Within this game, like in the unfettered game, players are focusing attention on building possession, pressing to regain and practising set plays; in unity, not as separate elements. In previous curriculum iterations, it might have been necessary to, for example, wait until the season was three months old before defending was included in the syllabus. This is overly constraining. As described, we can build experiences with and for the players that reflect the dynamic nature of soccer. 

 

These principles of integrating our team intentions (rather than individual themes) with the nature and needs of the players across their connected human systems continue into the second game (or practice) illustrated in figure 9.2. 

Game 2 – Penalty Box 3v3 

This is a smaller-numbered 3v3 game. The goalkeepers have no goal to keep; only a focus on supporting play with their feet and being the target for the teams to play into to score. The natural demarcations of the penalty box, which the players play across, provide the pitch boundaries with the space from the 6-yard box to the side of the 18-yard box, being the target area the players score by passing into. If we have limited equipment or want to adapt on the fly, in the moment, using natural pitch boundaries can make this kind of transition time efficient. 

 

The game is set up to last for 3 minutes each time we play. We might play several times. The winning team is the one who can move the ball from goalkeeper to goalkeeper, uninterrupted, the most times in each 3-minute game. This affords the players the opportunity to focus attention on sustaining possession and building a ‘winning streak’. 

 

Such constraints reward consistency and relentlessness whilst challenging the opposition to work hard to regain the ball, and secure it safely on the regain to support them to break the opposition’s ‘streak’ and build their own ‘winning streak’. 

 

Across games, sessions and weeks, we may layer in some additional complexity. Combining with your teammate in the central area before playing to the goalkeeper in the target zone is rewarded with three added to their streak. This can encourage players, at times, to play quick, clever combinations as well as receiving and playing directly forward to the goalkeepers. 

 

Further, we increase the competitive temperature by challenging the teams that they will win and finish the game early by getting a ‘streak’ of five connections from end to end before scoring into the goal that is naturally situated at the bottom of the penalty box. This adds a ball-striking or finishing element as well as an aspect of urgency to defend the goal once the opposition gets to a ‘streak’ of five. 

 

These collective environmental, task, and person constraints, again, elicit responses and behaviour from our entire being. 

 

Game 3 - Narrow To Wide 5v5 Contrast 

The final game (figure 9.3) has four goals; however, at all times, the game retains direction - with one team scoring in one goal and the other scoring in the goal at the opposite end. This retains the natural laws of the game of soccer. Two teams, two goals and one ball. 

The pitch in this 5v5 game is long and narrow at the outset. The greens attack the goal on the end line, and the blues attack the goal on the halfway line. At the point that one team scores, the game shifts direction, with the goalkeepers moving to the smaller goals, perceptibly on the side of the original pitch. The game continues, albeit on a pitch that is short and wide. 

 

The faster the goalkeepers and their teammates can respond to the change that a goal initiates, the more likely they are to be prepared to take advantage of the switch. The variance in goal size, pitch shape and size affords players the opportunity to practise building play and defending larger spaces vertically (up and down the longer, narrower pitch) before switching to practising using and stifling possession when there is more space horizontally (across the wider, shorter pitch). 

 

Figures 9.1 - 9.3 highlight the benefits of organising multiple games that different groups may play concurrently. These groups may be organised by their age groups or by several other methods, such as supporting players who may benefit from greater exposure to smaller-numbered practice and increased number of ball contacts into the 3v3 penalty box practice. A midfielder who enjoys and benefits from a difficult challenge being, more frequently, the blue midfielder in the 6v6 practice or a defender who is practising recognising when and how to switch play, spending more time in the narrow pitch to wide pitch contrast game. 

 

Players might rotate or carousel each of the practices in one session or stay in the same game across multiple sessions or game days. There is no perfect science to these decisions; just judgements based on what is important in our environment and to individual players. Explore different approaches and speak with the players about how they feel in different games. 

 

Part 2 – Larger-Numbered Games 

The nature of smaller-numbered connections doesn’t need to get lost in larger-numbered games. We can continue to be thoughtful about how we position certain players, both relative to their teammates and their direct opponents. 

 

This can be perceived as games that occur within games, enabling the players to, at times, experience the inherent global complexity of the game of soccer whilst still being challenged locally. Whilst it’s helpful to make decisions that allow the players to develop a broad range of skills in a variety of ways, this is most likely to occur as a consequence of us not limiting the options at our disposal by saying we would only play up to 3v3 with the youngest players. Undoubtedly the diet of larger-number games may be smaller for younger players and likely increase as the players get older, although we might be careful about saying ‘never’ to larger-number games with primary-aged (or elementary) school players. 

 

Connecting those larger-numbered experiences together across time and integrating the whole human system into the planning, delivery and review of these games is critical in supporting players to learn how to move the connected nature of their body to enhance their soccer skill. 

 

As detailed in Chapter 8, this is the curriculum. Design practice and game experiences that connect to the agreed commitments that underpin ‘the kind of club (or team) we are’, are blended with our holistic understanding of the players in our care and then, over time, layer in complexity. This relinquishes a central syllabus control whilst reducing our need to impoverish the players’ experience by deconstructing the game into a curriculum that looks like a school timetable. 

 

Three larger-numbered games now follow, which embody these principles and seek to articulate how player development can connect across more than one session or game day, enabling players (and coaches) to continue to stitch the game of football into their being. 

 

Game 1 – Even Numbered – Connecting To The Whole Game 

The first is a large pitch 9v9 game that is parameterised into three vertical thirds. The players are organised to reflect two different playing formations, with the blues organised within a 4-3-1 to retain the entire defensive and midfield units of a 4-3-3 along with a lone forward. The green team in opposition is organised within a 3-2-3 to reflect the complete defensive and forward units within a 3-box-3 along with two from that midfield box of four (figure 9.4). 

In practice sessions, organising the players in these ways (and other variations) supports the players to experience games that are representative of competitive fixtures. This makes a distinct connection between the events players play soccer in. 

 

Not having 22 players doesn’t mean we must lose the frames of reference that are evident in the 11v11 game. In fact, it is an opportunity to heighten certain opportunities by thoughtfully constraining the game in these ways. 

 

In this game, the blue team has attention drawn towards their defending, particularly being aggressive in releasing some of the numerical superiority in deeper areas, higher, to affect a regain in the opposition’s half of the pitch. If they succeed at regaining in the opposition’s half and consequently score, it is rewarded with three goals. What gets rewarded gets repeated. 

 

This requires the courage to leave initial starting positions in either the defensive or midfield lines, the physical capacity and desire to react and run towards the opposition, and the social cohesion to perceive what others are doing, trust in them, and back them up.  

 

Inevitably, the green team are likely to drop their defensive players deeper to seek to stretch the pitch and draw the blue players higher up the pitch, creating vertical space (between the units) that can be exploited with passes or dribbles. 

 

Concurrently, the green team has their attention drawn to switching play. Complementing and challenging where one team has their attention focussed being contrasted by something that is directly oppositional has the capacity to enhance the nature and intensity of the game.  

 

As the blues are attempting to steer and direct the opposition to initiate regains high up the pitch, the green team seek to free themselves from this opposing task constraint to work the ball, in a variety of ways, to the opposite side of the pitch. This is likely to enable a powerful environment of competition, where if the challenge is pitched appropriately, it supports the players to practise at (or beyond) game intensity. 

 

To repeat, this can constellate our methodology away from coaching ‘one team and one theme’ to supporting players to learn the game in an integrated, holistic fashion. 

 

For the blues, in solving their pressing problem, there isn’t a correct set of prescriptions of who from the blue team should release themselves higher to seek to win the ball back, nor are there universal triggers (like a backward pass) that always lead to a certain response; context will largely guide the decisions.

 

Specific prescriptions are unlikely to take account of the dynamic nature of soccer nor empower the players to understand how to respond dynamically. 

 

Contextual factors such as game state (the score and amount of time left), the nature of particular player match-ups and the capabilities of individual players (such as an opposition goalkeeper who has a very accurate, direct and powerful longer pass) are some of the factors that may influence our decisions.

 

However, there are some possibilities that are more common within the defining laws and guiding organisational constraints of soccer.  

 

For example, as illustrated in figure 9.5, if one of the outside centre-backs within the back three of the green team positions themselves just outside the vertical thirds, it may be that one of the blue team’s deeper midfielders will release as the ball is being played. This can be supported by the central defender on that side of the pitch following short onto the green midfielder left free. Whilst it’s fair to suggest that the advanced blue midfielder may be the better player to fulfil this screening role, this tentative solution perhaps makes it hard to continue an aggressive press in the event that the ball is consequently played back to the green team goalkeeper. 

Releasing the central defender also keeps the blue team press going towards the opposition’s goal. It may also lead to the opposition playing a longer ball which can often be the consequence of the aggressive press. However, organisationally, commencing the game with numerical superiority in deep areas (rather than with more players positioned higher at the outset) perhaps negates that decision in the formative part of the green team’s build. This is perhaps another benefit of the blue team having full units in their deepest areas (i.e. defence and midfield). 

 

Naturally, through both the inherent flow of soccer and through each team and the players adapting their behaviour in response to previous situations, the green team is likely to move into different positions to seek to find ways to play out from their goalkeeper’s possession. This is likely to influence who releases to press and how they decide to press. 

 

For example, in the second situation, the outside centre-back for the green team has moved to a higher and wider position to seek to make it hard for the blue midfielder to be able to press. In this instance, it’s possible that the full-back on this side of the pitch releases to press onto the outside centre-back. It’s unusual for a full-back, in the traditional 11v11 game, to need to be in a situation where they would press onto a centre-back. However, it’s more of a recognition of what might trigger the press rather than a specific pressing ‘rule’.  

 

An opposition player who is moving higher and wider is likely to prompt a deeper, wider opponent to engage with them. The response of the nearest central defender is, again, highlighted in figure 9.6. In place of them releasing forward into midfield (like in figure 9.5), they release to the side to take responsibility for the green wide forward. The touchline supports this press as the blues have the opportunity to use the natural demarcation of the side of the pitch to limit space and seek to force the green team into areas that enable the blues to assume greater control of the pitch and the game and be better situated to generate a turnover and regain the ball. 

 

FIGURE 9.6

 

The kind of variety generated from different approaches to pressing affords the players exposure to diverse defending experiences.  

 

Centre-backs developing the connected human skills to press by controlling their speed in running forward quickly into midfield, sideways, and in preparation to run backwards to defend the channel and the associated, yet ever-changing, 1v1, cat-and-mouse defending skills that these situations provoke is important. Those skills being embedded into games ensures players are challenged to adapt their behaviour in response to the circumstance.  

 

This is preferable to players being taught rote solutions that player development programmes can be littered with, in the vain hope that players can then import what is often lacking in many contextual elements into games. What is often referred to as ‘extreme 1v1s’ are an example of this – where players practise 1v1 without any other players, direction or scoring solutions.  

 

In these extreme 1v1s, much of the perceptual information that shapes our decisions in the game are removed to arbitrarily practise 1v1. In the game of soccer, it’s never only 1v1. There are, inherently, other things influencing what we do both with and without the ball. 

 

The final example within this opening game of three examples is intended to detail this point.

 

In figure 9.7 the outside green centre-back, this time, moves deep and stays narrow. This is perhaps the moment to tease the advanced blue midfielder out to initiate the press. 

There are some important individual defending skills that the players can practise and have their attention drawn towards, yet these skills are continually influenced by each player’s proximity to the ball and the other players on their team. 

 

The blue players are marking ball-side (horizontally, the side of the player that the ball is) and are close enough to either be able to step in front to intercept or prevent their direct opponent from receiving and turning. The players who are farther away, such as in the blue defensive line, also need to be aware of the space behind them and take up positions that take account of their individual capabilities and that of their opponents.  

 

For example, if I am very fast at running, I might go tighter to my opponent as I am less concerned by and more confident in my ability to win the race should the ball be played into the space behind me. Conversely, if my direct opponent is very quick, that might lead to me adjusting my position somewhat.  

 

Further, the blue midfielders are clearly responsible and challenged to defend their direct opponent but also need to be aware of the space behind them and be able to screen passes into the green forwards and/or attempt to steal the ball from the front in the event the ball makes it there, as well as being aware of tracking opposition midfield runners who may run past them.  

 

The left-sided centre-back for the blues (the central defender farthest from the ball) is also fulfilling multiple defending roles. Principally, this defender (within a back four) is typically the one to take up the deepest position, nearest to our goal, to provide cover behind their centre-back partner as well as having their body positioned such that they can defend a diagonal pass to their direct opponent over their shoulder. 

 

Connecting to the players’ individual needs or strengths, this is something we might organise deliberately. A player on the green team who is working on longer diagonal passes playing as the outside, left-sided centre-back and that player being challenged to try to find their right forward on the opposite side of the pitch (which might be one way we could switch play).  

 

This player is likely to attempt - and can be encouraged or conditioned to enable them to practise - this more frequently than other ways of using the ball, providing both a direct benefit for them and a connected experience for the left-sided blue centre-back who gets enhanced opportunity to practise defending these types of passes. 

 

Within the planning process, there is potential value in organising teams such that players who may benefit from a heightened focus on pressing and working together to effect regains are able to spend more time in the blue team, whilst those with a greater focus on both individually and collectively playing within and past heavy opposition pressure spend an imbalanced period of time on the green team. 

 

We might add additional demands to increase the frequency with which the green team plays out from the back or allow the natural ebb and flow of the game to support players to practise with a greater degree of game variation. 

 

All of the elements highlighted across this game and many other thoughtfully designed games connect and occur simultaneously. This can appear complex and can feel overwhelming.  

 

That is at least one of the reasons why there is benefit, as highlighted in Chapter 8, in staying within a single practice for longer periods and over consecutive sessions, weeks, months and into game days, repeating similar practices and principles in subtly different ways on varying pitch sizes, with some slight shifts in the parameters implemented or the demands we agree the players can be challenged by. 

 

Players (and coaches) can benefit from time enjoyed experiencing the complexity of the game, deepening understanding, shading and developing their awareness of the territory that is the game of soccer.  

 

If the player development programme continually jumps from specific theme to specific theme; if we feel compelled to break the game down into minute, constituent parts and coach the detail in step-by-step, flat-pack furniture constructionism, then we run the risk of not supporting the players to learn the game of soccer. 

 

This is where the second (and third) of the three games included within this focus on larger-numbered practices integrates our connected human systems with previous, recent practice exposure stirred seamlessly into our agreed team and individual commitments. 

 

Game 2 – Uneven Numbered – Individuals Within A Team 

This second game affords players a continued opportunity to focus attention on how to build up attacks and how to defend them across all areas of the pitch. Conversely to the first of these larger-numbered games, it is designed on a wide pitch rather than a big one. The shift in pitch shape is likely to enable greater opportunity for the green team to focus its attention on switches of play and moving the ball horizontally to open up what might be called the ‘weak side of the pitch’ for the blues (the areas where they have fewer players).  

 

More implicitly, players are likely to move the ball wide and then across the pitch, as this is where the space is most likely to be. This is because the pitch is relatively short, and consequently, there is less space between the opposition’s vertical lines (up and down the pitch).  

 

This is, perhaps, part of the value in repeating similar practices in varying circumstances, enabling players to develop further layers within their playing abilities.  

 

Within this notion, the players feel and sense the differences yet get the opportunity to experience the game of soccer in the way it was inherently designed. 

 

Figure 9.8 provides another example of blending multiple game elements holistically, in tune with the cares and characteristics of the individual players. 

The principles from the first of the three larger-numbered games that form this part of the book are inherent within this second game. The green team sustains and continues to be exposed in ways that afford them the opportunity to heighten attention on their building up and attacking play, while the blues retain a greater association to defending and pressing to regain.  

 

However, the playing systems have changed to enable the players to experience some difference. The green team has seven outfield players organised into a 4-3 to reflect the defensive and midfield units within a 4-3-3.

 

They have no forward players within their set-up, in part because the two advanced green midfielders are being supported to develop their forward and advanced movement and will need to do this due to the way this game is constrained, ensuring their team provide an attacking threat. 

 

The blue team are organised to reflect a 4-1-4-1 with the central defenders removed from their set-up. This leads to the game being a 9v8 in favour of the blue team, which is intended to embolden this team of players to be hugely aggressive and, in every sense of our human tendencies, overload the green team, who will itself, within some fairly hostile parameters, seek to play through, around or over the press. 

 

Whilst all players are positioned and organised to connect, in some ways, to what we understand about them as soccer players; there are some players with a more acute focus: 

 

Player 1 – Learning as a centre-forward how to direct or ‘steer’ their team’s defending and make decisions relative to the situations. In this game example, the left-sided central defender for the green team is right-footed, so player 1 can be encouraged to ensure that the first pass from the goalkeeper goes to the green right-sided centre-back (as figure 9.9), which leaves the left-sided central defender open for the switch. 

Players learning to read opposition preferences in game, particularly the common nature of right-footed, left-sided centre-backs, can support players to make decisions based on the circumstances. 

 

Player 3 – As with some of the examples in game one within this chapter, this player is an advanced midfielder recognising when to release onto the opposition centre-back, being brave and committed to run hard to force the regain. Shifting the playing formation to include two advanced midfielders supports this player to be aggressive. They can balance their position to one side of the pitch due to the other advanced midfielder being able to defend the opposite side. 

 

Whilst a big element of their practice is on pressing to release, this shouldn’t be cavalier. The timing and the angle of their movement need to prevent the green team from playing a bounce pass out through one of their three midfielders. 

 

Players 2, 4 and 5 – There is an inevitability in the inherent connection between what different players are practising. The notion that players can be working at different elements of the game in an unassociated way is problematic.  

 

Players 1 and 3’s movements in steering play, releasing to press, being purposeful and aggressive in seeking to regain need to be supported by the other players.  

 

The extreme 1v1s highlighted earlier in this chapter, where we practise in isolated 1v1 practices, lose this benefit. These deeper players who, perhaps initially, are more removed from the direct influence on the ball are consistently influencing the ball and the other players. It’s impossible for them not to. 

 

They (the players 2, 4 and 5 in figure 9.10) are also practising what might be perceived as 1v1 skills, just within a wider landscape. These players have their attention focused on marking ball-side, deciding when to position themselves in front of their opponent (so as not to be ‘goal-side’) and when to stay goal-side.  

At times standing in front of an opponent, whilst perhaps leaving them free to explore the space nearer to the goal we are defending, can prevent bounce passes that able central midfielders can receive and deal with if we follow the tradition of marking only goal-side.  

 

This does require the will and fortitude to recover quickly to deal with their direct opponent in the likely event that, at times, the opposition chooses not to play through the press, but instead play over it. The perceived 1v1 interactions that these players are engaged with, again, cover many different facets of human learning.  

 

There is likely to be physical contact between players (due to the intense, compact nature of the way the blue team is pressing) which will require players to learn to control their bodies and feel the emotions that come from these combative types of situations. This can be more deeply considered by how we match players.  

 

Players who experience strong emotional feelings in these moments can benefit from playing against opponents who are bigger, older, quicker and/or inherently calmer whilst being supported to explore solutions that can help them when they are an underdog.  

 

Matchups of these kinds can be complementary to the uneven-numbered nature of this particular game.

 

We might ‘even out’ some of that overload by creating some relative mismatches in the 1v1s, comfortable in the knowledge that the underdogs may have to work together, beyond their direct 1v1s, to generate some success. 

 

These might be some of the individual player development planning considerations that align themselves to the whole team tactics that are connecting within this and, if thought through carefully, every game we play with the players. 

 

When we utilise games as central learning opportunities, the natural flow that they create enables the players to experience multiple elements of the game in relative unison. It is inevitable in this, and many games, that, at times, the green team will break the press and be able to drive onto and even outnumber our deeper players.

 

This doesn’t need to be perceived as a problem.  

 

Naturally, if the green team finds some consistent holes to expose, it is likely to inform how we support the players’ learning; however, the deepest green midfielder wriggling free of their marker and driving with their other two midfielders onto the two blue defenders is an opportunity for those players to practise these situations within the inherent laws and integrated identity of the game.  

 

This is an opportunity, not an obstruction. The players have the opportunity to practise both the attacking and defending skills associated with these kinds of 3v2 situations (figure 9.11). However, it isn’t an isolated, overly repeated 3v2. It will, inevitably, be influenced by other players from both the attacking and defending team that join (or are eliminated from) that perceived 3v2 to ensure this situation, like the game of soccer, isn’t fixed but fluid. 

Diminishing the dichotomy that is epitomised by the perception that we either run a programme that is more individual OR one that is more team-focused is perhaps more human and in tune with soccer. It doesn’t need to be one or the other – it can be one AND the other. We can renounce these peremptory perspectives with approaches that connect the individual within the team. Rather than nailing our colours to a particular mast that risks over-constraining our thinking and the players’ broader development, we can influence a more inclusive, less ideological approach. 

 

The examples within this second game highlight some ways we might think about and commit to making this connection between the individual and the team. The nature of playing free-flowing games also supports us in connecting the initial focus with these individual players within the blue team to what happens when we win the ball back. This brings player 6 into sharper focus, the goalkeeper. 

 

Player 6 – Increasingly, partly through law changes (such as goalkeepers not being able to pick up back-passes and outfield players being able to be in the penalty box at goal-kicks) and partially through the cultural influences on how the goalkeeper’s role in the team is evolving (perhaps aligned with the aesthetic expectations of players and observers), a goalkeeper’s abilities to defend spaces outside the penalty area and continue to support the team in possession as another ball possessor are increasingly appearing within the vista. 

The ways this particular game is constrained continue to offer opportunities for goalkeepers at different ends of the pitch the opportunity to practise some things to a greater extent than others.  

 

This is a strategic, not random, purposeful positioning of a goalkeeper onto the blue team who is practising and developing the skills of how they defend the spaces behind their defensive line, made even more acute by the fact that this team has no directly positioned central defenders, leaving a larger space to defend. 

 

This connects to the goalkeeper and full-backs working in a connected, collaborative way to manage that space whilst enabling the full-backs to not over-cover by playing too deep and/or too narrow. 

 

The final aspect to consider relevant to the goalkeeper is how the blues use the ball on the regain. A task constraint that encourages players to relate their decisions to the situations they find themselves in adds further depth to this particular game. This task constraint is: 

 

“Get to 5 passes or get a goal” 

 

In the context of this practice, concise communication of this nature can support players in deciding how to play on the regain. At times, on the regain, we might wish to generate some control of the pitch, the ball and the game; hence players attempt to complete a minimum of five passes when they regain. Releasing the ball back to the goalkeeper can be a useful choice to support this pursuit of control, enabling the goalkeeper to slow the game down with the ball, draw the opposition onto their team and have the opportunity to practise passing, clipping and driving.  

 

At other moments, going to goal directly on the turnover may be a more appropriate choice. This is likely to be affected by the score (if we’re losing, it might be a better choice), how stretched the opposition are (i.e. when they are spread well across the wide pitch may be a good time to go to goal) and the nature of pressure around the ball on the turnover – it might be really ‘hot’ around the ball when the blues win it - hence cooling the intensity by finding the goalkeeper may be beneficial. 

 

In this, the second of three larger-numbered games explored within this chapter, attention has been focused on connecting the nature of individual players and the things they are practising to the team intentions as a commitment to articulate how the two things aren’t mutually exclusive, dichotomised or in conflict with each other. 

 

We also don’t need to separate the perceived psychological challenges of creating and dealing with intense defensive pressure from the football decisions or the physical demands. They are connected parts of the same things, and we should consider them and practise them (both through training sessions and game days) in a connected, integrated way. Separation and silos occur in school, not soccer. 

 

Game 3 – Continuing To Develop Complexity, Learning and, Ultimately, Players 

The third and final game within this series of larger-numbered games continues to layer in the complexity of the game of soccer and the human beings playing it. The organisation of the teams in this game draws together the principles underpinning the ways that we have agreed we aspire for the team to play. 

 

This underpinning continues to be shaped and evolves in harmony with the individual players in the team, connecting our coaching to our ever-deepening understanding of the players in our care. Similarly, as our understanding of the people in our team becomes more complex, this understanding is synthesised with the complexity we layer into practice and game experiences. 

 

Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously said, “No person ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and they are not the same person”. 

 

If my team plays your team today and repeats the game three days from today, even if we play on the same pitch, with the same players, in the same formations, in front of the same crowd, with the same match officials, in the same climactic conditions – it isn’t the same game. It will play out differently. Experience is continually influencing the person we are and the ways we broadly interact with the game and the other people within it.

 

Moments in each game also shape the immediate future; if our team takes a chance and scores early in the game, the rest of this fixture is likely to play out differently than if we miss that chance and the game stays level at 0-0 for longer. 

 

I urge you to consider this as a critical factor in the way we think about and support player development. Learning, like humanity, is evolutionary. Our existence and what our parents gifted us is continually adapting and being shaped within every interaction we are exposed to. 

 

So, even though this third game has very similar principles and ideas to the previous two (and probably to the experiences that follow beyond this one), it isn’t the same. However, it’s an evolution, not an incompatible, irreconcilable inconsistency. 

 

Design 

This game will be described using some of the environment design principles introduced in Chapter 5. 

 

Players 

The blue team, constituted of similar players to the previous practices, is organised into a 3-3-1. It is important that the midfield three and centre-forward are players who have had exposure in these positions in the practices that chronologically preceded this one. 

 

In moments, this blue team 3-3-1 can connect to being representative of a 3-box-3 and, in other moments, a 4-2-3-1. The green team have a lone midfielder in their 3-1-3; this midfielder can be a very able midfielder who is exposed to a significant overload that challenges them to connect clever movement and quick decisions whilst being fleet with the ball. 

 

It also allows the blue midfielders to release from their under-loaded midfield onto the green defensive line linked to the principles of our aggressive pressing whilst retaining a sense of organisational balance in deeper areas. 

 

As illustrated in figure 9.13, the green team’s three-player defensive organisation further develops the opportunity to decide how to build up play with three central defenders. 

Pitch 

On this big pitch, the players’ experiences and the connected decisions will be influenced by the distance that they are from each other, their opponent, and the goals. These larger distances will be perceived differently by the players than when the pitch is smaller or when there are a greater number of players on a pitch of the same size. 

 

Subtle, perhaps more implicit planning choices by coaches have the power to support players to experience difference that is, principally, similar. If the distance is slightly bigger, a blue midfielder has to travel further to initiate the press, possibly run quicker, and decelerate over a longer distance, whilst the green defender with the ball may have longer with the ball and be required to release passes over longer distances. 

 

Even relatively small shifts in pitch dimensions will change the way the players learn to move and play soccer. The manipulation of these types of constraints is important and still achievable for coaches who work with groups of players within space restrictions imposed by the nature of the facility available. 

 

Bigger pitches typically lead to greater variability in the types of movement and the coupled decisions that are made as a consequence of the larger space generating greater freedom. This isn’t good (or bad), just something to be conscious of.   

 

For the purposes of this particular game, movements that the green players may make as the ball is switched may need to be commenced earlier than when the pitch is small. Ball-possessors may have greater opportunity to weight passes into space in front of their teammates due to the additional space, rather than passes that are played tighter to a teammate’s feet with smaller margins for error impacted when playing within tighter areas.

 

Finally, the bigger pitch enables space behind the opposition defensive line for both teams to seek to penetrate on both a switch of play and a regain generated from a successful press. 

 

Parameters 

The pitch is organised with two additional parameters, which are selected due to the nature of the intended challenges the game presents. Thoughtfully and consciously deciding how to organise the players, pitch the game and then parameterise the environment enables us to connect the combination of the constraints to the team playing approach and individual player needs. This is preferred to arbitrary and unconnected conditions being indiscriminately imposed. 

 

The pitch is parameterised into horizontal thirds with a vertical line down the centre. These parameters are to support the players’ decision-making and awareness of the pitch geography. This aligns with our aspirations to encourage players to switch the point of attack and press to regain high. 

 

The design elements are more implicit aspects of the environment, yet they are connected coherently to the more explicit demands that are agreed upon with the players. 

 

Demands

There are two team-focused demands within this particular game. One utilises the demand principle referred to as ‘restrict’; the other ‘reward’. 

 

To align with affording players the opportunity to seek to switch play from one side of the pitch to the other, supporting the use of space on the opposition’s ‘weak side’, the green team are restricted to: 

 

“Enter the final third on the opposite side of the pitch from where we left the defending third” 

 

The connection between the parameters and the demands provides some reference for the players, reducing the options they have at their disposal (figure 9.14). It can be argued that restrictions of this nature make the game unrealistic. However, by constraining games in these ways, player choice is reduced without impoverishing the nature of soccer.  

In this instance, the constraint only applies to circumstances when we build through the thirds. If the green team regain the ball in the middle or final thirds, they can attack the final third in any way they deem appropriate.  

 

This is because the restriction only applies to attacks that, at some point, leave the green team’s defending third. In using restrict and removing some choices, it is important to leave sufficient choices for the players, supporting the practice to be representative of the game itself. 

 

Conversely, the blue team is challenged by a reward. The vertical line down the centre of the pitch is a guiding parameter for this team (figure 9.15): 

“Win the ball back on the side of the pitch that the green attack starts from and score = 2 goals” 

 

This explicit task constraint supports the blue team in seeking to prevent the green team from switching play and forcing play in one direction towards the nearest side-line. This connects to the work this group of players has been developing across all three of the games within this focus on larger-numbered games. 

 

Whilst the two more explicit task constraints or demands are focused on whole teams, reconnecting individual players to some of the tasks, conditions and verbal coaching points that have been evident and more eminent in previous games within this chapter may hold value. 

 

Sustaining and developing reciprocity between the individual interactions and the team ones, across time, connects learning through multiple events rather than being a focus or a ‘learning objective’ for one experience.

 

Considering learning and coaching in this way supersedes the historical dogma of moving from subject to subject, from lesson to lesson, or from soccer theme to soccer theme each time we progress from session to session. 

 

Alongside the nature of the game of soccer and our connected human systems being evident in our session design, our coaching behaviours can retain breadth and consistency. Throughout these three larger-numbered games, you have been asked to consider the layering of our coaching behaviours to develop complexity over time. 

 

Game 1 furthered the notion of encouraging players to explore varying solutions to similar problems, arming players with multiple possibilities which are inevitably influenced and applied within specific contextual circumstances. This was combined with the idea of 1v1s being much broader than the direct challenge of me versus you. 

 

Game 2 sustained and further developed the ideas introduced in the first game whilst also focussing attention on individual player needs in which we, as coaches, make thoughtful decisions about player organisation (what we keep in and what we leave out) to heighten certain aspects of the game of soccer over others. 

 

Game 3 embodies the use of both more implicit and somewhat explicit environment design ingredients, which coaches can thoughtfully and intentionally shuffle and combine, connecting to our team intentions and individual player needs. 

 

The decisions we make in integrating all of these associated coaching behaviours will be subtly or significantly different from day to day and from context to context. Context is a critical and, perhaps, defining characteristic in shaping our behaviour. It is context that guides the curriculum and influences it as a living, breathing, ever-changing reflection of the human beings within our club. 

 

Across both part 1 (smaller-numbered games) and part 2 (larger-numbered games) of this chapter, you are encouraged to consider the ‘diet’ of games that we explore with our players. This doesn’t need to be limited to training sessions.  

 

These different games could also be set up on a game day. Perhaps approach opponents and ask if they are interested in mixed-game formats on certain days and challenge the parents to referee the different types of games and conditions that the players are experiencing.  

 

This can aid their involvement, interest and depth of understanding, connecting the decisions we make about the diet the players are exposed to with the significant adults that also positively influence the players in our care. 

 

 

Measure What We Value 

The preceding chapters of this book have asked some questions of you as to how you continue to consider ‘What kind of a club are we?’ and how your decisions align with the things that are important within your environment. They have also provided some tentative solutions as to some of the tactics we can all utilise in developing both the players in our care and the coaches (which includes ourselves). 

 

Analysing how we are getting on can be a useful reflection of the degree to which we are doing what we agree we are committed to. 

 

In this sense, generic, universal and arbitrary data points are possibly a dangerous place to start.

 

In 2015, in The FA Boot Room Magazine, I contributed connected articles discussing the importance of aligning the decisions we make to the commitments agreed upon. This encompassed the whole human player development system. Analysis was a critical part of this alignment.  

 

These two articles encouraged coaches to analyse how the team is learning to play with how we coach and, if appropriate, connect data collection to these commitments.  

 

This was to support player development programmes to measure what they valued rather than be seduced by the perception that data objectifies the game of soccer. Whilst data may provide some more objective reference points, it’s very difficult and possibly a fool’s errand to attempt to completely objectify the game. 

 

There are also problems with data points like xG (expected goals) and ACWR (acute:chronic workload ratio), which take different data points and, with a machine learning algorithm, distil them into a single number that seeks to determine whether or not a player should have scored, a team should have won, or a player is likely to get injured.  

 

These generic types of data collection, which the industry tends to use comparatively, can be misplaced if they aren’t aligned with the agreed intentions of any club, team, or individual player. 

 

There are also many other contextual factors that these algorithms find it challenging to consider. Being driven by a single data point without considering these contextual factors, which data science can sometimes dismiss as being more subjective, is risky.  

 

Whilst many experienced practitioners understand and embed these contextual factors into their coaching and development programmes; there is value in being purposeful in agreeing on how we, more broadly, analyse how the players and the team are developing (aligned with what we are committed to) and the role our coaching plays in supporting this. 

 

Chapters 5-9 explored the integration of our playing approach with the individual players in our care, across their human systems, into our coaching. This chapter will focus attention on the analysis of this integration. Data sits inside analysis; it isn’t alone. Coaches are increasingly working with people who have data-scientist, performance analysis or insights roles to ensure their work is in harmony with the programme. 

 

The first of the aforementioned articles from 2015 was titled ‘Aligning Visions’. Linked to the nature of a Premier League club’s player development programme, this article focused attention on analysing the defending and pressing of our teams as a means of connecting our analysis to the way the teams intended to play soccer. 

 

As such, examining data points that connect to our intentions may be of value. The Passes Per Defensive Action (PPDA) metric was one that we looked more purposefully at as a consequence of valuing pressing high and seeking to win the ball back early.  

 

PPDA is calculated by dividing the number of passes allowed by the team out of possession by the number of defensive actions. Defensive actions are possession-winning duels, tackles, interceptions and fouls. 

 

A smaller PPDA value signifies a greater level of defensive or pressing intensity, as, in essence, the defensive team has allowed a smaller number of uncontested passes to be made. 

 

Teams that play a more passive style of play, defending nearer to their goal and then attempting to score with counter-attacks, may not see great value in a lower PPDA as their approach is, perhaps, less concerned about how intense their press is. Similarly, a team who is down to 10 players or who leads 3-0 and is happy to allow the opposition to have the ball and expend their energy trying to get back into the game may also factor those critical contextual factors into their analysis. 

 

Figure 10.1 details, to the right, the PPDA value for the top three teams in each of Europe’s top 5 leagues in the 2018-2019 season. This data point has been coupled with possession percentage statistics. Whilst cursory, the intention is to connect an analysis of what these teams do with the ball with what they do without the ball.  

For example, Atletico Madrid, who have generated repeated finishes at the top of La Liga and gone deep into the latter stages of the Champions League on a number of occasions in the last decade, is known for playing counter-attacking football and defending aggressively near its own goal rather than pursuing an early press. This is perhaps the benefit of connecting different, associated data points as part of our analysis to seek to connect what we do with the ball with what we do without it. 

 

The teams that appear towards the top of both tables are those who have a low PPDA and a high percentage of possession. If a team has a majority of possession, it possibly affords them the opportunity to have a lower PPDA. This can be a consequence of being able to press more intensely from positions of greater organisation and structure enabled by controlling possession of the ball. 

 

Similarly, connecting different data references can add additional context. A team that has a low PPDA (lots of attempts to win the ball back from the opposition) with a lower percentage of possession may be a team that works hard yet unsuccessfully to win the ball back. 

 

Further, if we want our team and players to be able to both press intensely and look after the ball when we win it back, we’ll need to train this across all of the human systems, as discussed in Chapter 9. 

 

That is why the data references and broader analysis should be nested inside and aligned with the commitments we agreed underpin the type of club we are. 

 

If we want our use of possession to be progressive and controlling, some of the detail discussed in Chapter 5 can be integrated into the way we play. Should we believe that an intense press (and a low PPDA) is important, then some of the ideas within Chapters 8 and 9 may be of value. 

 

Starting and finishing with the data points, though, is perhaps a little erroneous. We would be wise to analyse the games more purposefully (either in the moment or through having them recorded) and, within this broader analysis, consider linked to the PPDA data capture: 

1. When we play different types of opposition, do we find it harder to successfully initiate our press?
   
   Teams that play with certain systems (e.g. a 3-box-3) or certain types of players (deep players that are brave and willing to carry the ball into and past pressure) may make it harder (or easier) to press intensely.  
   
   
2. Does our team and player organisation impact our ability to press intensely?
   
   Playing different systems or having different types of players in certain positions can impact our defending. Playing with a front two against two centre-backs might enable our press to be more intense than, for example, playing with a lone centre-forward. Additionally, players who are quick, powerful, and able to sustain this over time or who have really good defending skills might support a better, more effective press.
   
   
3. Do game state or broader environmental conditions impact our ability to regain the ball?
   
   Being behind and feeling the need to chase the game can perhaps lead to a less coherent pressing strategy, as can highly-charged atmospheres with perceived hostility or certain climactic conditions.  A group of players who are relatively unfamiliar with each other can also impact team cohesion. This may occur in environments where there are high numbers of injuries and players leaving, joining, or transitioning across age groups. 

These constraints aren’t good or bad, positive or negative; just deeper aspects of the territory that is our experience. 

 

Considering and factoring these deeper contextual elements into our thinking is an important part of the analysis that extends significantly beyond the numerical data. 

 

Whatever it is that our analysis uncovers (or the things we choose to pay attention to), across time, should inform the evolution of our programme. This is one of the reasons why a pre-set, arbitrary syllabus that is synonymous with school is systematically mistaken. It’s very difficult to analyse what is going on and layer it into an evolving, responsive player development programme if we have already decided, ahead of time, what is being coached on each day of the programme. 

 

What we’ve agreed is important and have continually committed to is where we focus our attention (what we ‘measure’). This isn’t blindly retained or belligerently pursued; quite the opposite; our analysis can shape subtle shifts in our behaviour as we enable the evolution of the players’ development to emerge from the experiences we share. 

 

If one of our central midfielders finds it challenging to recognise when to release in some of the pressing strategies explained in Chapter 9, we layer additional elements of this into the games and sessions the players enjoy. Further, when our press inevitably fails from time to time, and we end up outnumbered in deeper areas near our goal, this is a great opportunity for the players to be supported to learn some of the defending skills that are important when we are on the stretch and imbalanced. 

 

Analysis of individual players might also focus attention on the things that are important to them and the development of their game. 

 

Think back to the central defender in Chapter 8 and the ways we adapted the practice session such that they could work on receiving and finding passes from deep areas to develop our possession further up the pitch or, in the same chapter, the focus on the centre-forward who was practising dropping into deeper areas to receive the ball, link play and build their abilities to play between opposition lines. 

 

Alongside - and in league with the analysis of the team - there can be significant benefit garnered from observing, analysing, and, if appropriate, generating some data on individual players that, connected and aligned with the broader development and training programme, can deepen both player and coach understanding of progress. 

 

Similar to the examples highlighted within the overall team analysis, this increased self-awareness can sharpen and enhance perception of the influence that different types of situations and opponents have on this central defender and centre-forward. This can inform how we subtly constrain future experiences these players (and others) can be exposed to. 

 

Focused individual analysis of this type that sincerely and genuinely connects with the nature of specific individual players can also trigger a more meaningful personal connection. The feeling and attachment that more personal, individually responsive analysis promotes is a powerful purveyor, galvanising human relationships and appending immeasurable value. 

 

Several of the coaching approaches highlighted throughout this book can support us in connecting the insights that we garner from our analysis to our practice. Principally, that is why analysis exists; less so that coaches can ensure players can tell them what they should do in specific situations verbally; more to inform how we support and set up future experiences, enabling players to continue to learn how to play soccer. 

 

There is no suggestion that the reader should combine the specific data points highlighted previously. It might be we decide to align our commitment to pressing by measuring the number of final third regains and then synthesising this with how many final third regains result in chances on goal and goals themselves.  

 

This can be done via notation rather than needing more sophisticated data capture and can help us to consider how frequently we win the ball back high and whether those regains lead to chances and goals.  

 

Alternatively, we might measure and analyse some completely different things linked to the kind of club we are. We might measure smiles, laughs, and positive and purposeful interactions that occur between our players and/or the coaches. These are all things we can encourage, coach, and enhance, demonstrating and developing their value in our environment.  

 

Considering how we then analyse whether our coaching programme is delivering what we agreed on acts as an additional layer of self-analysis as to whether we (the coach) are helping the players to be able to do the things we collectively agreed are important. 

 

The second article from The FA Boot Room Magazine in 2015 focused attention on this.  

 

Coach Behaviour Analysis 

Analysing our own behaviour and coaching approach can support us in deepening our awareness of what we do. We can collect information on the programme we deliver, connect it to the things the players have agreed are important and combine it with the way we feel about our coaching sessions. 

 

Many academic institutions have promoted the notion of measuring coaching behaviour. As yet, few have connected what is measured to what is valued in a particular context. Instead, it frequently leads to generic coding and standardised, often comparative, data collection of coach behaviour. Perhaps better if these approaches support coaches to generate reflection strategies that are unique, individual and responsive.

 

This isn’t a lowering of standards but more an empowering of each coach and group of players to establish and commit to the highest of standards.  

 

However, these aren’t ‘standard’, universal or lifted from somewhere else. They are ours. We own them, ensure we enable them to drive us forward, and hold ourselves to account in alignment with them.  

 

We’re not comparing whether we are better or worse than someone else but focusing on bettering ourselves and harmonising our cares with the judgements we make as to how we are getting on. It’s less about less leading people to feel as if we have to measure up to external expectations which are imposed upon us (an imposition that fails to connect with every cell of our being), more deriving analysis that retains the rhythm of our reality. 

 

The nine questions in figure 10.2 are an example of some ways we might reflect on and review our practice sessions in alignment with some of the principles raised throughout this book. The principles highlighted in this reflection tool align with things that I personally value. They are used to focus attention on the importance of measuring what we value: 

Whilst these questions may not align with your context, establishing a reflection and analysis method that aligns with the beliefs of your environment can generate at least three benefits: 

1. On a sessional basis, enable us as coaches to analyse what we did and whether what we did was what the players and we wanted or needed.
   
   
2. Across longer periods of time, like half-terms, seasons, and whole player-development journeys, support us to analyse the broader diet of practice that players have been exposed to. If, for example, we reflect that our players aren’t very good at managing the ball in tight areas, we may consider the amount of exposure the players have been given to small pitches. Further, if the players aren’t good at timing runs to be onside, and we rarely include the offside law in our games, then that might be something to think about.
   
   It may also be that this illuminates any blind spots we have in our coaching repertoire. Blind spots such as stopping the practice sessions frequently or tendencies when using larger-numbered games to not influence individual player needs as readily.
   
   This synthesis of our coaching behaviours can contribute positively to our own development and that of the players within our care.
   
    
3. Finally, the opportunity to connect the analysis of our coaching behaviour to the way the team and the individual players play on matchdays (such as encouraged in the opening part of this chapter). 
   
   Are there certain approaches that may positively impact the ways the team play come game day, or which certain players share that they respond well to? 

A combinatory approach of this nature can support a session that had brilliant energy, emotion, and feel but perhaps misaligned with some of our other intentions to be valued for the positivity it elicited. 

 

Generate your own tools that are a reflection of what is important to you and the people in your environment, and involve the players and other adults. Connect these reflections across time and retain a reminder of what the players have experienced in previous seasons or iterations of our player development programme. 

 

Not all analysis needs to focus on data and objectification. Human beings sense, feel joy and mirror the emotions of others. We are lifted or affected by kindness, consistency and warmth.  This sense and feel is what often attracts people to soccer and the personal connection it promotes.  

 

Data is increasingly a constituent part of our ecosystems and should be embraced and seen as supportive of our collective growth and development. However, so many of the emotions that soccer elicits are very difficult to condense. Attribute value to and ‘measure’ this, too, even if we can’t pin a number to it. 

 

 

Our Development As Coaches 

Integrating the ideas across this book provides a platform for us to support our players’ development. This is also terrific terrain for coach development. Industry efforts to atomise coach development from player development have perhaps been well-intentioned commitments in demonstrating the importance of coaches and coach developers, yet have been unhelpful in placing the focus too greatly on the coach. 

 

This can over-emphasise the role of the pedant coach as central to the development of the player. Consequently, coach development can become disproportionately concerned with the wants and needs of the coach rather than attending to and contending with the cares and characteristics of the players being the identified needs of the coach. 

 

This is risky. If coaches have any value, it is in supporting the development of players. Our learning and development as coaches are then immersed in purposefully supporting them. 

 

In England, there has and continues to be a tension within governing organisations as to how we can: 

1. Support coaches to better understand the demands of their context. 
2. Design and enable environments and more formal coach education to flex in response to the contextual factors. 

The constraints-led approach can be a helpful way of thinking about our growth as coaches as well as that of the players. 

 

Progressive Coach Development 

Rather than standardised content offers and universal assessment frameworks, we would be better served by mapping our own cares and characteristics before deciding on the most appropriate content to be exposed to and how to assess, in the broadest way we might think about assessment, how we are getting on.

 

To repeat, assessment is principally a perspective from which we form an opinion or judgement, no more or less than that. 

 

The development of coaches has evolved in England across recent years, and the contextual factors that underpin some of these changes can provide a backdrop of how we might support coaches and coach educators to learn in a way that responds to their needs within a universal framework. 

 

It isn’t necessary for there to be a tension between these beliefs where we either have to choose between an individually responsive approach, which can be argued as meaning ‘anything goes’, or a universal ‘DNA’ that everyone ‘gets on the bus with’. 

 

Sceptics of the former suggest that without a strong, clear steer, it’s difficult to establish a cultural identity. However, a cultural identity that is governed by the same conditions and where decisions are made within a narrow bandwidth can be hugely limiting for the qualities of creativity, unique brilliance and divergence. These are reasons why many people are excited by the relatively unpredictable nature of football. 

 

Context is King 

Each country, particular regions of each country and even certain towns, cities and smaller parts of those populations, such as football clubs, have established and continually evolving environments that, hierarchically, value some things as greater than others. 

 

That is likely to be as different from Japan to England as from the North East of England to the South West. Recognising, being aware of and respectful of the things that are culturally significant to different people within their community are important factors in considering how we coach. 

 

Our understanding of both ourselves and the environment in which we coach, both of which are constraints, are solid bases on which to develop our coaching. 

 

In 2014, at The Football Association, a prototype for supporting coaches to inform their learning and to build their assessment within formal FA qualifications was established and over the ensuing years refined.

 

This emerged amongst the traditional tension of coach educators delivering what have often been referred to as exemplar sessions on courses, conferences and at coaching conventions. Typically, an audience watched a perceived expert deliver a session and then deduced whether they believed it to be good or not. As these sessions were frequently delivered as isolated events with players who often weren’t familiar to the expert deliverer, these constraints often led to: 

1. The coach educator stopping the session for significant periods to coach the players and the audience as a means of seeking to effect learning. 
2. The audience deciding whether they liked the session based upon how assured and effective the coach educator was at projecting their personality. 

Naturally, yet unhelpfully, these behaviours transcended coaching. Many well-intentioned coaches, me included, decided to stop sessions frequently to tell the players exactly how to do certain things, concerning themselves with projecting a very visible, eminent perception of themselves. Under these constraints, coach became King. This was, and still can be, a problem for a game that is for players, played by players. 

 

However, it isn’t enough to tell people the way they are doing things isn’t helpful; we can’t set fire to traditions, even if it’s unclear why we value those traditions in the way we do, without a viable alternative. 

 

Context Informed Assessment  

The prototype was used as the context for both the coaches delivering the session on a course at St. George’s Park and as the perspective for the observing coaches to view the session from (figure 11.1). 

Instead of the coach educator being the centre piece, one of the peers of the coaches attending the course delivered a session with the group of players they coached as their job. This generated a situation where the observing coaches were watching their peers coach a group of players they knew deeply. 

 

Rather than the observing coaches looking only or mostly at the technical detail that the coach delivered, they were challenged to uncover the backdrop to the following five areas. 

 

The Club 

Find out what cultural elements were unique to the club, such as geographically where the club was located and what were some of the historical factors that led to them being ‘who’ they were. These might be known as socio-cultural constraints – the social and cultural aspects that influence how we behave. An example of this might be a community built in industrial times upon an industry like mining that values hard work and personal sacrifice. 

 

Club Playing Philosophy 

What is the playing philosophy of the club? How do they believe the game should be played, and how was this articulated into a curriculum? 

 

The Individual Players 

Who are the individual players under the care of the coaches? What are some of their characteristics, and how has the coach come to understand the players? 

 

The observing coaches were challenged to glean this information from the coach who had come with their players to the central venue to deliver the session that they would have been delivering that day with their players back at their training ground. That backdrop then provided some context for the following. 

 

Coach Behaviours 

How the coach behaved. The subjective views of the coaches observing have a greater opportunity to be tempered by the background of why the coach is doing what they were doing. This may enable less ‘I don’t like that’ or ‘I wouldn’t do this’ with a more inquisitive ‘They’re doing that because of this’. 

 

Constraints of the Game 

The constraints of the game enabled the players to play football, an example of which is shown in figure 11.2. 

The rationale for the design of the session was: 

 

Player Organisation 

The group of players practise playing two systems of play; a 4-diamond-2 and a 3-5-2. In part, this was because the group contained three good centre-backs in addition to two centre-forwards who were relatively under-maturated. Playing with a front two supported both of the players to generate more match-time than if they played, for example, a 4-3-3 and to be less likely to be isolated against opposition centre-backs with a significant physical advantage, currently. It also enabled the three centre-backs to switch between playing in slightly wider areas when in a back three, which led to them defending the channel more and also, at times, being more advanced in possession. 

 

This had some subtle differences from when playing with a back four. The practice design reflects those systems, greens 2-3-2 to reflect aspects of the 4-diamond-2 and the blues 3-2-2 to reflect aspects of the 3-5-2, ensuring that the practice retains some representation of the ways the players will be organised on game day whilst being positioned in positions that were familiar to them. 

 

Playing Approach 

The group had a tendency in matches to play in transition; they attacked quickly, became quite stretched out, and were vulnerable when they lost the ball. The coach and players agreed on a condition that would reward them for successfully maintaining and sustaining possession in the opposition’s half – ‘keep the Ball in the opposition’s half for 25 seconds or longer and score = 3 goals’. The longer we keep possession, the more likely we are to increase the opportunity for us to be organised around the ball and better positioned to press to win it back when we lose it. As the practice developed, the coach allowed the timer to stay where it was when the ball was lost if we could win it back before the opposition got out of their half. I.e. we’ve kept it for 18 seconds and then lost it; if we can win it back before they enter our half, we can continue our attack on 18 seconds. This rewarded the players for quickly winning the ball back after losing it. 

 

Player Needs Out of Possession 

The two green centre-backs were boys who the coach explained were working on improving their 1v1 defending and managing the space both behind and in front of them. The organisation of the players enabled them to practise playing a direct 2v2 (2 centre-backs against 2 centre-forwards) with a screening midfielder in front for them to communicate with. 

 

Player Needs in Possession 

The three blue centre-backs were matched against a front two. This enabled players when in possession in the opposition’s half to move into advanced positions and practise playing passes to the front players. There were also opportunities because the blues were outnumbered in midfield, for the centre-backs to have to release themselves into midfield to press. 

 

Constraints of Time 

The game was played for two periods of 18 minutes (with a half-time). This afforded players the opportunity to: 

1. Practise for a sustained period without stoppages. It is helpful for them to spend time trying to solve the problem in varied ways before discussing, at half-time, with their team-mates and both their coach and some of the observing coaches, remember this session was in a coach education context, how things were going and how we might approach the second half. The uninterrupted play lasting for 18 minutes also challenged players to physically keep going for a relatively long period and ensure they practise complex skills like looking after the ball as a team and individually in the opposition’s half when they are beginning to tire. This might be something we want our players to be able to sustain late in a game, seeing a game out or calmly sustaining pressure in the opposition’s half when we are trying to score an equaliser.
   
   
2. Practise for a big chunk of the hour that was attributed to this particular coach education experience rather than it be stopped for long periods for coach educators to talk. This meant the delivering coaches and their players spent sustained time practising and learning in one practice rather than jumping from practice to practice. These changes and transitions can be unhelpful as they limit the opportunity for coaches and players to layer in more challenging progressions. Staying with one practice for longer supported players to spend a significant period of time adapting to and deepening their understanding of how to play football in a way that aligns with the clubs’ beliefs and playing approach. 

Constraining Coach Education 

This backdrop to why the coaches were delivering what they were delivering was the rationale from which the observing coaches observed, reviewed and reflected on the experience of the session. Rather than arbitrarily deciding whether they liked the session or not, there was an opportunity for a more sophisticated discourse about the degrees to which the coaches aligned their practice and behaviour with both their intentions and the perceived needs of the players. 

 

This is a constraints-led approach to coaching, considered and articulated through the context of formal coach education. The observing coaches were challenged to return to their own environment and plan, deliver and review their own work as a consequence of thinking about their own club history, playing philosophy and the needs of the players. Any experience they then design for and with their players should align their behaviour and, as much as we have control of anything, the constraints of the activity with their understanding of the club, its playing approach and who the players are in their care. 

 

This approach to and thinking within formal education experiences for coaches evolved to become a central element of the coach education terrain. Across the last seven years, in tandem, what became known as the England DNA evolved and emerged to enhance the clarity and coherence around England’s football identity and the associated ways that England coaches might best assimilate some of the principles of this perceived identity into the way England teams play. 

 

We coupled this with a commitment to supporting each coach across the nation entering formal coach education environments to realise an identity that best aligned with the nature of their context. 

 

This was a critical duality. Support the development and embodiment of the future England player whilst helping coaches up and down the country to do the same without enforcing a central disposition onto the population. 

 

The diverse nature of England and its population is a strength to be celebrated, and establishing a methodology that supported coaches to respond to their own diverse population within a centrally recognised framework was our challenge. 

 

The reader may wish to follow this process and answer the questions whilst it is explained.

 

The England DNA covered five main headers from which the federation defined its beliefs: 

 

Who we are – What do the people in your care value and believe is important - why do they come to football? 

 

How we play – When our parents, the opposition, and any other observers watch us play football, how do we want to be known - what is our style of play? 

 

The future player – What qualities do we wish to support the development of in the players? These may not just be football qualities – being kind, challenging, competitive or aggressive may be important to us. 

 

How we coach – How will we bring the answers to questions 1-3, above, holistically, into our curriculum design - what will we coach, and how will we do it? 

 

How we support – How will we interact with players and parents and support their development over time to enable us to strengthen ‘who we are’? 

 

Introduced at the beginning of each course from Level 2 to UEFA A, coaches could begin to populate the standard headlines with their context. Coach educators were challenged to: 

1. Respond to the things that coaches brought to bear in their answers to the five questions with content that responded to whole groups, small groups or individual coaches. 
2. Ensure coaches were challenged to align the way they coached and supported their players and teams with the things they understood to be important to their context by observing and supporting them in their context. 
3. Assess coaches against the criteria they established, rather than a central ‘checklist’. 

Cultural Change 

This approach to the development of our coaches was piloted within a grassroots setting in Cumberland, within a Level 2, as part of a UEFA B course at a Professional Premier League club’s Academy on the South Coast and on a National UEFA A course at St. George’s Park. This enabled these fringe approaches to be tested before becoming more mainstream. These initial experiences were consumed by volunteer parent coaches, computer illiterate ex-professional footballers and experienced, articulate career coaches, which was the aspiration; devise a process that can be, with the right balance of skilful support, universally adopted and utilised. 

 

The ex-professional player who was computer illiterate isn’t intended to be a generalisation or a criticism; it’s a statement of fact. However, the rationale for highlighting this coach’s skill-set is that an ability to use a computer isn’t a factor that limits a person from being a hugely skilful coach or from being able to complete a formal qualification. This coach wrote all of his work out by hand, beautifully and with great distinction. 

 

Coach education and development moved towards a more responsive, individualised approach and communicated a clear message of the importance of coaches doing the same with the people in their care.

 

The pressure for coaches to coach an arbitrary theme, like running with the ball, to a group of players they’d never met before, which was usually the other adults on the course, for a defined period, e.g. 35 minutes, was razed and replaced by an approach embedded in each coach’s ecosystem. 

 

Hence the historical arguments surrounding whether there is enough technical detail or individually 1v1-focused practice included in a coach education programme becomes redundant and is replaced by a commitment to respond to each individual or group of coaches through content that is aligned with their needs and those of their context. 

 

The notion that we are more attuned and likely to learn when the content attends to our cares and characteristics is fulfilled within a generic, yet specific, process of support. 

 

 

Individualised Coach Development 

The session in figure 11.3, co-constructed by a coach and me, is intended to exemplify this approach to a coach’s education.  

This was as part of an under-13 coach’s formal education. This coach had a group of skilful players in an Academy setting where the focus was on the individual development of players within a team. The coach explained that players had been finding it tough at that point in time as they had played a number of games in recent weeks where they had been beaten by physically more mature opposition.

 

The coach and I spoke about the importance of trusting the process of development over time and recognising that the players’ confidence in both themselves and the programme when things were challenging was critical.  

 

The building of the session illustrated was informed by:  

1. The desire to support tactical understanding with smaller numbers. This was achieved by matching centre-forwards at both ends of the pitch against centre-backs. Smaller numbered practices needn’t trade-off tactical benefits.
   
   
2. Opportunity for the players to practise defending and attacking with some variety. The greens defended a goal hence needed to focus on getting tight, blocking shots and preventing players from getting turned to face them. The blues were defending an end-zone that the attackers needed to run into or receive in to score; this supported them to practise defending against dribbles, give and gos and runs behind. The nature of reverse constraining is important here. If we constrain the attackers in the ways they can score, as described above, we naturally afford the defenders the opportunity to practise defending those types of attacks. Understanding and being thoughtful about how we design our environment to support this is key.
   
   
3. One of the green defenders, Luke, had a focus on regaining the ball and finding ways to get away from pressure. He was a fiercely competitive individual, so we conditioned him that if he kicked the ball off the pitch, the blues would get a goal – we wanted to develop a disdain for unnecessarily kicking the ball off the pitch.
   
    
4. One of the blue defenders, Jon, was struggling to compete with physically dominant, bigger boys. We were working on his defensive positioning and interceptions to help him succeed through other means than physical dominance. If he regained the ball with a ball-side interception, sneaking in front of the attacker on the side the pass came from, and his team scored, it was rewarded with two goals.
   
   
5. A time constraint of four periods of 5 minutes. This is quite a long period of time within a 4v4. We were looking to stay physically and mentally in the game when we fatigue.  
   
   
6. An environmental constraint of needing to win the game. Don’t get beat! 

Taken together, the coach and I intended for the longer-term commitments that the club and the boys had made (‘who we are’) to be aligned to the nature of the players (‘the future player’) and the way the team were intending to play (‘how we play’). This was embodied within a single session (‘how we coach’) and was delivered as part of this coach successfully completing their A-Licence.

 

The coach was exposed to content and consequent discussion with focuses around: 

1. What 1v1s looked like in the senior game 
2. Growth and maturation across the whole human system
3. How to integrate bio-psycho-social aspects of learning into environment design 

This enabled the content offer to the coach and his learning to be at ‘A-Licence’ level, yet in tune with his needs and those of his players. 

 

Discovering your DNA 

We would now urge you to take some time to piece the aspects of this chapter together. Answer the five questions below and design a session that integrates those answers into practice. 

 

Who we are – What do the people in your care value and believe is important - why do they come to football?

 

How we play – When our parents, the opposition, and any other observers watch us play football, how do we want to be known - what is our style of play?

 

The future player – What qualities do we wish to support the development of in the players? These may not just be football qualities – being kind, challenging, competitive or aggressive may be important to us.

 

How we coach – How will we bring the answers to questions 1-3, above, holistically, into our curriculum design - what will we coach, and how will we do it?

 

How we support – How will we interact with players and parents and support their development over time to enable us to strengthen ‘Who we are’?

Coda 

A constraints-led approach isn’t only the act of a coach placing an arbitrary condition on a training session. Players aren’t reliant or dependant on coaches being the only affordance or invitation to act, and as such, learning should be considered in much broader terms. 

 

Whilst placing conditions on sessions, games, or tournaments are constraining factors, if our view is narrowed to a constraints-led approach being only the use of conditions, then we are at risk of missing so much more of the human and environmental architecture that supports learning. 

 

Coaches developing this way of thinking into their arsenal have the capacity to extend and deepen the interactions we have with players. We are a combination of the constraints of our constitution and the experiences that our constitution contends with. Coaches have the opportunity to co-design, thoughtfully, environments and experiences that attend to the nature of the people in our care to inspire and engender both a continued love of football and the development of skill. This love is in part shaped through the skills players develop, enabling each individual to grow purposefully through their life. 

 

As briefly referenced earlier, the final practical example offered is a game-play example with a focus on the impact opposing teams have on each other. The only conditions this game-play has imposed upon it are the 17 laws of football; these laws sustain its perpetual state of tension. 

 

11 v 11 

Each team and individual player seeks to impose themselves on their opponent. Each team and individual player are effectively applying forces to each other that stretch them. Each team and individual player is flexing in response to each other and are in a state of flux. That’s one of the many facets that makes football such an enigma. Figure 12.1 is an example of this utilising game-play which, along with the accompanying backdrop, encapsulates this view. 

Whilst the example reflects 11v11, this game-play situation can principally be adapted for any format of football. 

 

The blue team are set up within a 3-box-3, and those players are ‘pitched’ against the greens 4-2-3-1. The pitch is ‘parameterised’ into vertical thirds, which act as reference points not to restrict any freedom of movement. This could reflect a game organised against an opponent or a training game. 

 

Whilst game-play is a critical aspect of a player’s development, within youth development, everything is practice, even the competition. Every event is an opportunity for growth and development, and whilst we should undoubtedly pursue victory fiercely, we should view each episode as part of a long-running, serial documentary with no single event having a critical endpoint. If we can view our football programmes in this way, it can support us to maintain a laser focus on the commitment to our players rather than individual event outcomes. 

 

If we look at the game set-up, the blues have a numerical advantage in the centre of the field, which may imply that the greens can benefit by encouraging the blue team into wide areas. This is where the parameters can become useful guides as we might encourage the greens to seek to regain the ball in the wide channels. This also links to the notion that if we would like to win the ball back from the opposition, having some sense or idea about where we intend to attempt to win it is helpful. To help us to succeed, we need to solve a few problems: 

 

Problem 1 - The Extra Player in Midfield 

Just suggesting we will force the opposition into the wide areas is nice, yet not easy as the blues are likely to attempt to play central to make use of their additional player. We’ll probably need to tease and tempt the opposition in certain ways. For example, the blue goalkeeper may play to one of their defenders to draw our green forwards up the pitch and create space to play into their deeper midfield players. Once this has happened, our green number 10 needs to decide on which deep blue midfielder is most likely to receive. One of our green deeper midfielders can then release themselves aggressively to press onto the other blue deep midfielder whilst simultaneously the centre-back on that same side releasing to pick up the spare advanced midfielder for the blues (figure 12.2). 

Problem 2 – Being Ready to Take the Opportunity  

Whilst our green team has allowed the blue team to play into their favoured central area, we have executed a defensive press that means we are well-positioned to win the ball back. The nature of the pass played by the goalkeeper of the blues, into the blue number 6, is inviting the next pass into the outside vertical third occupied by the blue number 7 and the green number 3. If we can ensure our green number 3 is marking on the ball-side, which is inside the blue number 7, and close enough to steal the ball, then we can feel confident that when they commit to regaining it that we are successful.  

 

This early success will naturally influence what both teams do next. This is what we mean about each individual and team seeking to impose themselves on their opponent and that those impositions are forces that stretch and change.  

 

If our green team succeed in regaining the ball, the blue may begin to seek alternative solutions, which our green team will need to respond to. If the blue team play past our defensive press, then it is likely to generate belief for the blues and perhaps some doubt for the greens. These are also constraints. 

 

Problem 3 – What to Do When Our green Team Wins the Ball Back?

Our defensive work was a success, and our number 3 won the ball in the wide vertical third. We are emboldened and confident. How do we respond? If we attack quickly, we might score, or we might be at risk of giving the ball back to the opposition and being unable to control the game with the ball. Neither of these are bad choices; just choices that are informed by a collection of additional constraints: 

 

What’s the score? If we are ahead, do we make a different choice than if we are behind? 

 

Who is the player on the ball? If they are a hugely creative, exciting player who we encourage to travel forward and beat players, that is likely to inform the choice. 

 

Where are the opponents positioned? If they are slow to react and are still stretched, it may be that we make a different choice than if they have quickly transitioned into good defensive positions. 

 

How are we, the coach, behaving? If we are animated and vocal, this might influence the choice of the player on the ball. 

 

This game-play and the associated situations are not things we as coaches have control over. The situations that occur within and beyond the ones illustrated aren’t things we are steering; they will emerge as a consequence of the players responding to what went before. 

 

The idea that the game of football is a game of chess where we move the non-human pieces into position to place our opponent into check-mate is erroneous. However, we may play a part in the design of the environments with an understanding of the nature of some of the problems that the players will attempt to solve. 

 

The players, however, will still, in the moment, self-organise and respond to all of the powerful constraining factors, of which we, the coach are, perhaps, a relatively insignificant, one. It is critically important that we understand this and don’t attempt to joy-stick the players through each experience. 

 

Influencing the Future 

Our skill is to thoughtfully and carefully design experiences that afford the players the opportunity to experience particular problems, such as those articulated above. We should then decide if, when and then how we support them, both within and beyond each experience, to support each player’s human systems to stitch the situations that they are exposed to into their being such that players can ‘reference’ it and draw upon it in the future. 

 

This isn’t the same as storing it. Our systems aren’t computers or machines; we came into existence long before the technological age, and we should be careful about using hardware, store-house metaphors with human beings. It is likely, however, that our historical experiences shape the way we perceive situations we are exposed to in the future, and there may be benefit in coaches logging the nature of the experiences the players and coaches have lived in order to provide some useful reference and guidance of how we may design the experiences in our future. 

 

This becomes the curriculum. It can be hugely sophisticated and detailed, or it can be scribbled notes onto paper that we staple together. This curriculum isn’t the future-mapped, standardised, topic-focused, subject-narrowing script that has overly constrained our past; rather a living, breathing, ever-changing ecosystem that is continually adapting its shape and size based upon the feel of the human beings that enjoy existing within it. 

 

This is what we measure, what we’ve shared and how it made us feel. This log of memories and its inevitable influence on what we do next is a more powerful measure of learning than some metric that ‘tells’ us that a player or coach has arbitrarily moved from the score of a ‘4’ to a ‘5’ or from 72% to 75% – these types of data references can be guilty of hitting the target and missing the point. 

 

By all means, generate data that aligns with the things that are important to your context; just be careful about it defining whether you believe you’ve succeeded or not. 

 

Football is affective; it elicits feeling and emotion. Whilst the collation of data, if approached thoughtfully, carefully and appropriately (particularly when adopted with young people), might support sense-making; it is critical that the aesthetic experiences associated with football aren’t over sanitised and objectified through machine learning processes that are better suited to more mechanical, less human pursuits. 

 

The emergence of the love and joy that football generates can be protected or better, cultivated, to ensure current and future generations derive the wonder and excitement that has illuminated the game as a worldwide phenomenon. That responsibility is in our hands. 

 

Keep that horizon in your vista; try not to lose sight of it…