32: Grow Coach Newsletter
Football Coaches: Develop your Coaching Craft.
A warm welcome from JustCoachMD. We are happy to have you on board. We are looking forward to providing you with helpful content.
Here is what to expect:
Coaching Craft: Using Challenges to Inspire.
Full 60-Minute Practice: Receiving to Turn and Play Forward.
Coach Project: Create a variety of positional, unit-based and collective challenges.
" Football is simple. You just need to have the right mentality, fighting in every game, in every practice, and for every ball." - Hristo Stoichkov
Mastering your coaching craft is essential to becoming a better coach. There are many ways to achieve this. Using Challenges is one of them.
The word challenge is a call to participate in a contest, competition or duel. It is any task that tests a person’s skill or ability. The challenge could be a contest of skill, physical strengths or ability.
What are the benefits of challenges?
Skill development: They take people out of their comfort zone and help them to develop new skills or improve existing ones.
Resilience: Facing and overcoming challenges helps to build a resilient character. This makes people better equipped to handle future difficulties.
Problem-solving skills: They encourage thinking and creativity as the player devises solutions to overcome their challenge.
Achievement and Motivation: A sense of accomplishment is the reward for completing a challenge. It boosts confidence and motivates people to seek further challenges, and the next level up.
Learning Opportunity: A challenge usually carries a valuable lesson that can only be learned through experience.
Adaptable: Regularly facing challenges helps the player to become more flexible and adaptable under pressure.
Character Building: Challenges help to build traits such as determination, perseverance and patience.
By embracing challenges and the struggles they bring, players grow personally and professionally, which leads to a more rounded and skilled player.
Whilst challenges offer many benefits they can also have negative consequences. This is where the coach's skill comes into play. They need to manage the volume, amount and stretch that a challenge creates in a player.
Some potential downsides include:
Too much pressure: This can lead to a heightened amount of stress which can overwhelm the player and lead to a drop in performance. The coach needs to take the player to the edge of struggle and leave them there to figure it out.
Frustration: Repeated failure can create frustration and a loss of motivation. The coach should be mindful of this and offer words of encouragement, tips and support to help sustain the effort.
Negative impact on self-esteem: Failing to meet a challenge can hurt a players self esteem and confidence. This is especially true in players who internalise their failure as a personal shortcoming.
Lower productivity: If challenges are too frequent or too difficult, they can hinder productivity and lead to a drop in performance. Part of the coach’s role is to ensure the level of challenge is just right for the player’s age and stage.
How to create the perfect challenge?
There are some key steps to creating the perfect challenge.
Understand the player’s targets: A challenge can be created that aligns with these targets which can make its achievement more meaningful and motivational.
Understand the current ability level: The coach should have a clear picture of the player’s current level of ability. The coach must set challenges that are appropriate to the age and stage.
Set a clear objective: The coach and player need to be clear on the expectations. Is the challenge an individual, unit or collective team challenge? This helps the coach to establish who and what needs to be shared.
Include milestones: Break the challenge into smaller, manageable tasks or level it up so a player can move through stages as they become more skilled.
Offer feedback: Implement ways to give and receive feedback throughout a challenge. Feedback can help a person adjust their approach and adapt to any changing circumstances.
Encourage reflection: Encourage the player to reflect on their progress and learn from their experiences. Reflection provides insight and aids continuous development.
See below for some ideas for individual player challenges. These can also be applied to units of a team or the collective. It is up to the coach to implement a suitable format for the players they work with.
"Young players need freedom of expression to develop as creative players. They should be encouraged to try skills without fear of failure." - Arsene Wenger
Full Practice: Receiving to Turn and Score
Passing Activation | Playing Quickly to Score.
⚽️ Created On: @SSPlanner
Aim:
Use sound technique to pass and receive to slide in a player to the goal.
Set-Up:
Across the middle third of a suitable-sized pitch (age-appropriate).
Position the players as shown.
How to Play:
🟡s start the practice and pass to…
🔴s then pass to each other and move the ⚽️ to …
⚫️s who pass back to 🟡s to slide in a runner to score past 🟢 (GK).
Players move the ball through the passing pattern to slide in a runner towards goal 🥅 to score.
After each pass the players move around one space.
If the 🟢 collects the ball they score by throughout or kicking into the mini goal.
🚧 Constraints:
🏆Reward: 🟢 GK vs the Rest, see who saves or scores the most.
🚫Restriction: Apply a two-touch limit on everything.
👨🏫Review: Scan and plan before the ball! Ball speed and accuracy of pass (feet or space).
2v2 | Receiving to Turn and Escape Pressure.
⚽️ Created On: @SSPlanner
Aim:
Receive and turn under pressure.
Set-Up:
15 by 20-yard space with coned escape gates (Blue and Red).
🟢 Support player operates between red coned gates.
How to Play:
⚫️ Attackers score by dribbling through blue-coned gates.
🔴 Defenders score by dribbling through coned red gates.
🟢 Support player who helps the team with the ball.
⚫️s pass to 🟢 and go and get the ball back. ⚫️s combine to escape through the blue gates.
🔴s regain the ball and try to escape through the red gates.
Both teams can use 🟢 to keep the ball.
🚧 Constraints:
🏆Reward: ➕ Earn a 2nd ball to attack again.
🚫Restriction: Can’t pass back to 🟢 once the ball has been served in.
👨🏫Review: Player’s body position to receive the ball. Show the ball or Shield It🛡️.
4v4+4 | Breaking Out to Score.
⚽️ Created On: @SSPlanner
Aim:
Break out of central spaces to score.
Set-Up:
30 by 20 for the main playing area plus 20 yards break out zone to goal.
How to Play:
⚫️and 🔴s compete for possession.
🟡s help the team with the ball or be slid onto goal to score for the that set up their scoring opportunity.
The possession team try to complete 3 passes and then slide in a 🟡 to the goal.
The coach serves the next ball as soon as the first leaves the playing area.
Rotate the 🟡s with the possession teams.
🚧 Constraints:
🏆Reward: The first team to 5 goals wins the round.
🚫 Restriction: The scorer only has three touches to score.
👨🏫 Review: Secure possession or slide in a runner.
“In football, the result is an impostor. You can do things well but not win. There’s something greater than the result, more lasting — a legacy.” - Xavi
Coach Project
Objective: Create a challenge for each position on the pitch.
Considerations:
Create position-specific, unit and collective challenges for a group of players.
Use the image below to help you establish the challenges for the teams you coach.
The challenge can be presented in any format you wish. Using the field as part of the visual can be helpful to the player.
Please feel free to get in touch or share your ideas, actions, and interventions. We would love to hear from you. If you have any questions, post them here; we will do our best to answer them.
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