Our Coaching Philosophy
Our core coaching philosophy is all that we aspire to. These are our beliefs. A 12-point plan that we aim to deploy across all our footballing activities.
THE BALL IS CENTRAL TO ALL WE DO
Our coaching philosophy is player centred and NOT results centred. Allow children the freedom to dribble and get tackled; allow them to make their own decisions.
Ball mastery is at the heart of that philosophy. If coaches have an hour a week at training, for 20 - 35 minutes the players should have a ball at their feet, or at least it be at their feet within 30 seconds to a minute, for example practise ball mastery/1v1 & 2v2/small sided games.
COMPARABLE GAME TIME FOR ALL
All children should be treated equally with regards game time. The roll-on, roll-off substitute system allows coaches to aim to share playing time equally. When making subs, please allow the children to have at least 7 ½ minutes on the pitch before making any changes during the game. Making irrational changes within the first 2 minutes of a game restricts team development and player development.
For an average game of 45 minutes, each child should get at least 27 1/2 minutes on the pitch. Plan your subs and team lineups prior to the game; scores/wins/losses are absolutely irrelevant at this age, and however the game is going, ALL children should be treated equally.
INDIVIDUALISED PROGRAMMES
Part of our coaching philosophy should be to provide individually based programmes for playing in a team sport.
We should build on the strengths and work on the weaknesses of all the squad players. Use an Individual Development Plan to record and monitor progress of each player, if possible.
WE PROVIDE A REAL-GAME EXPERIENCE
We should provide a realistic range of playing experiences and circumstances to our players. Some examples might be, rotating the captaincy, rotating starting line-ups, making substitutions to meet the playing circumstances.
Playing the same starting lineup every week and not rotating players is not good practice. Allowing your best players to start as subs or your weaker players to start as subs, is a situation that should be changed each game.
POSITIONAL ROTATION
We must put an emphasis on position rotation; with players playing in more than one position. Stigmatising a kid to one playing position is detrimental to their personal development. No child is just a defender or can only play as a striker; it is absolutely false to think otherwise.
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It is good practice to rotate the position of players and to ensure that you coach a range of exercises that allow the players to train in all positions too.
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ENJOYABLE & FAIR ENVIRONMENT
The grassroots journey will be over in a blink of an eye, so as coaches, we will make it the most enjoyable and fair environment for everyone, and that includes our coaches too.
Where necessary that means protecting players from the behaviours of supporters, parents, coaches and other players. Common issues to look out for are smoking/vaping, verbal abuse, bullying.
PREPARED, RELATEABLE SESSIONS
We must ensure that our sessions are prepared, and that they relate to the development needs of some, if not all, of the players.
Work hard to upskill your players, but be realistic about what you can achieve in the short time you have. Give and take feedback at their level. Working on set pieces at training is as bad as teaching 5-year-olds how to head a ball; it just shouldn’t be done. Time can be spent doing hundreds of different things.
FREEDOM TO MAKE & LEARN FROM MISTAKES
Our players and coaches will have the freedom to learn from their own mistakes and develop. When coaching from the sidelines in games, there should be minimal forced coaching; no coach should be telling kids where, who, and how to pass the ball. Give them the freedom to make mistakes, learn from them, and improve.
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We will have level ability teams, where possible to aid development. We will not take the competitive edge away from any child; however, it must be channelled in the correct way. We will give them targets during games and training; let them compete with themselves; challenge them to be better than they were the week before.
OUR CHILDREN CAN ALSO BE LEADERS
We will allow our children to lead to aid their own and their peer's development. If we have a child in a group who is more developed and finds our sessions easier than others, we may use him as an example when explaining things. We will ask that child to be the leader and help his teammates.
We will empower our players them to make their own decisions. We will encourage our children to self-learn from other children.
A DEVELOPMENT-BASED FOCUS
Our focus must be on development and not results. The result does not matter.
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We will have level ability teams, where possible to aid development.
OUR COACHES LEAD BY EXAMPLE
•Our coaches will lead by example on and off the pitch.
•Our coaches' attitude on the sidelines will eventually reflect on the kids' attitude on the pitch. So if they're screaming and shouting and contesting every decision, the players will scream and shout and not only contest every decision, but they will also start to question our coaches' decisions.
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Children are a product of the environment they are in, so if it’s a happy environment whether they are winning or losing, they will enjoy their football.
PREPARATION, PUNCTUALITY, POSITIVITY
We want to instil life-skills in our players, that they can apply across a wide spectrum of activities. At the heart of those skills are preparation, punctuality and positivity.
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Our coaches can encourage this be being prepared, punctual and positive and constructively feeding-back, where our players and/or their parents are not.