38: Grow Coach Newsletter
Football Coaches: Develop your Coaching Craft.
Welcome from JustCoachMD. We are happy to have you on board and look forward to providing you with helpful content.
Here is what to expect:
Coaching Craft: Co-Creation
Full 60-Minute Practice: Playing in Tight Spaces
Coach Project: Develop a Co-Creation Plan
"Your self-worth is determined by you. You don't have to depend on someone telling you who you are." — Beyoncé
Co-Creation - On the Journey Together!!
Co-creation between football players and coaches involves collaboration where both parties contribute to the planning, decision-making, and goals.
This approach leverages the unique perspectives and insights of the players and coaches to enhance team performance and cohesion.
6 Benefits of Co-Creation in Football
Enhanced Player Engagement and Motivation:
When players have a say in decisions, they feel more valued and invested in the team’s success. This boosts motivation, commitment, and accountability. Engaged players are more likely to put in extra effort both on and off the field.
Improved Communication and Trust:
Co-creation encourages open lines of communication between coaches and players, leading to a deeper mutual understanding and trust. Players are more likely to voice their concerns, ideas, or suggestions, which can help prevent misunderstandings or conflicts.
More Effective and Flexible Strategies:
Players on the field often have unique insights into the game’s dynamics, which may not be immediately apparent to coaches. Involving players in tactical discussions can result in more practical and adaptive game plans that better address real-time challenges.
Increased Innovation and Creativity:
Co-creation encourages the sharing of diverse ideas, leading to improved tactics and training methods. This verbal exchange can uncover creative solutions to challenges, whether in attack, defence, or game management.
Development of Leadership Skills:
By involving players in decision-making, they develop critical leadership qualities such as communication, problem-solving, and strategic thinking. This can help in nurturing future leaders within the team, creating a culture of shared responsibility.
Greater Team Cohesion and Unity:
When players contribute to and support a common strategy, it reinforces team cohesion. It aligns everyone with the team’s goals and creates a sense of unity and purpose that can improve overall performance.
10 Ideas to Implement Co-Creation in Football
Regular Team Meetings and Strategy Sessions: Conduct regular meetings where players and coaches collaboratively review past performances, discuss upcoming games, and brainstorm tactics. Allow players to share their observations, suggest ideas, and raise any concerns.
Feedback Loops: Establish structured feedback sessions where players and coaches exchange constructive feedback. Encourage players to provide insights into what worked and what didn’t from their perspective, both in training and in matches.
Role-Specific Collaboration: Involve players in creating and refining role-specific game plans. For example, defenders can co-create defensive strategies based on their experiences, while forwards can provide input on attacking approaches. This taps into the unique knowledge that each player has about their specific position.
Leadership Development Programs: Create leadership programs that train players to take on more responsibility. This could involve mentoring, strategic planning exercises, or sessions on communication and decision-making.
Player-Led Training Sessions: Occasionally allow players to lead training sessions, where they can introduce drills or exercises they find beneficial. This can offer coaches new perspectives and help players feel more empowered.
Open Forums and Workshops: Host open forums or workshops where players and coaches can discuss various aspects of the game, such as tactics, team culture, or mental resilience. This encourages knowledge-sharing and builds a culture of continuous improvement.
Player-Centric Goal Setting: Encourage players to set individual and team goals collaboratively with coaches. This ensures that goals are realistic and aligned with both individual development needs and team objectives.
Utilise Data and Analytics Together: Engage players in reviewing performance data and analytics. Allow them to understand the metrics being used and contribute to interpreting the data to adjust training or strategies accordingly.
Involve Players in Pre-Match and Half-Time Talks: Allow senior or experienced players to contribute to pre-match and half-time team talks, sharing their insights or motivational messages. This helps to create a shared leadership environment and leverages the players’ game sense.
Encourage Off-Field Team Building: Organise activities outside of football that develop collaboration, such as escape rooms, social events, or team-building exercises. These activities can build trust and improve communication channels between players and coaches.
Putting Co-Creation into Practice:
By integrating these co-creation ideas into your coaching, you can create a more inclusive, dynamic, and high-performing team environment. This approach not only enhances team cohesion and trust but also drives continuous improvement and innovation.
Pilot a Co-Creation Project:
Start with a small pilot project, such as involving players in designing a specific training session or creating a game plan for an upcoming match. Use this as an opportunity to demonstrate the value of co-creation and build momentum for broader implementation.
Evaluate and Reflect:
After implementing co-creation initiatives, hold reflection sessions to evaluate the impact on team performance, player engagement, and overall dynamics. Use feedback from these sessions to refine your approach and enhance the co-creation process.
Maintain Consistency:
Make co-creation a consistent part of your coaching philosophy by integrating it into everyday practices, meetings, and routines. Consistency will help reinforce the principles of co-creation and create a sustainable culture of collaboration and shared ownership.
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go." — Dr. Seuss
Full Practice: Finding the Spare Player
1v1 Receiving to play forwards | Players locked in Zones
⚽️ Created On: @SSPlanner
Aim:
Work on receiving skills under pressure.
Set-Up:
16 yards by 8-yard pitch space.
Split the pitch in half so players are locked into a half in a 1v1 duel each.
How to Play:
🟡s are support players for the team in possession.
⚫️&🔴s compete for possession.
⚫️&🔴s are locked in the zones in a 1v1 duel. They must work the ball to each 🟡 target for a goal.
If the defending team win the ball they must play to a 🟡 to start an attack.
🚧 Constraints:
🏆Reward: If both players can get turned to play forward without using a back pass it’s double goals.
🚫 Restrict: Players can only pass back to the 🟡 once then they have to pass forward.
⏮️ Review: Can attackers use different parts of the foot to hide the ball and turn to escape pressure?
3v3 +2 | Transitional Possession.
⚽️ Created On: @SSPlanner
Aim:
Finding the wide space to play through the pressure.
Set-Up:
30 by 20-yard pitch space.
Split the field in half and add a 4-yard scoring zone at each end of the pitch.
How to Play:
🟡s act as support players for both teams.
⚫️s and 🔴s are attacking and defending.
⚫️s start the attack they connect 3 passes in a half using the 🟡s then they must pass their way into the other half.
⚫️s have 1 player in the opposite half ready to receive the pass after the connected passes have occurred.
Once the ball has been played into the other half 2x⚫️s can join in and 2x🔴s can recover.
If the defending team 🔴s win the ball in the opponent’s half they score in the shaded zone behind the attackers ⚫️s.
If the 🔴s win the ball in their half they connect the 3 passes.
🚧 Constraints:
🏆 Reward: If the pressing team wins the ball and scores, they start the next attack from their half.
👨🏫 Reviews: Can you play forward off 1 touch and join in.
🚫 Restrict: You must find a 🟡 before transferring the ball into the other half.
4v4+2 | Use the Spare Player to Score.
⚽️ Created On: @SSPlanner
Aim:
Play off the🟢s to score.
Set-Up:
30 by 20 for the main playing area
Offset the mini goals. One pair of mini-goals is narrower and the other is wider.
How to Play:
⚫️and 🔴s compete for possession.
🟢s Help the team with the ball ⚽️- they are fixed between the goals (one at each end).
The possession team try to play off a 🟢 between the goals they are attacking then score in a mini goal.
The coach serves the next ball as soon as the first leaves the playing area.
Rotate the 🟢s often with the possession teams.
🚧 Constraints:
🏆Reward: Double goals for a forward pass followed by a 1st time finish.
🚫 Restriction: Can only pass to your 🟢 in the direction you are attacking.
👨🏫 Review: Body position to face forward, speed and accuracy of the pass.
"To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try." — Rosa Parks
Coach Project
Objective:
To create a collaborative environment where both players and coaches contribute to decision-making and training design.
Task:
As a coach, you aim to integrate co-creation principles into your coaching methodology over the next four weeks.
This task involves planning and executing activities that encourage player input, collaboration, and shared ownership around training activities.
Actions:
Integrate Player Feedback into Training Design: After each training session, hold a 10-minute debrief where players can provide feedback on drills, exercises, or specific aspects of the session.
Use this feedback to adjust future training plans, such as altering drill intensity, duration, or focus areas based on player suggestions.
Assign one training session per week where players design a segment (e.g., warm-up, small-sided games, or a tactical drill) and explain their choices.
Success Criteria:
By the end of four weeks, at least two training sessions should have been modified based on player feedback, and one session should be entirely player-led.
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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