Jamie:
Hello and welcome to Coachcast by England Football Learning. The coaching podcast designed
to give you expert insight, session ideas and a platform to discuss your coaching questions and challenges. I'm Jamie...
Tim:
And I'm Tim. Today, we're wrapping up our second season which saw us cover, four big topics to showcase how you can provide your players with inspirational opportunities.
Jamie:
Here we are again rounding off Coachcast season two. Yet again, we've loved hearing from the grassroots coaches and discovering the fantastic work they're doing up and down the country as well as chatting with our experts. This time we gained some fascinating insight into our overall theme of creating inspirational opportunities. For our final show, we're checking back in with two of our guest coaches to find out if the advice they received from our experts has helped. But first, as you may have noticed unfortunately Louise isn't here today and that's due to illness. So, hopefully you get better and will be back with us in the studio soon, Louise. So, that means Tim is stepping up to make his first-ever appearance on Coachcast. So welcome to the show, Tim.
Tim:
Thanks Jamie. It's a pleasure to be here and I'm really looking forward to it.
Jamie 01:21
Tim, not only are you hosting today's episode, you're actually equipped with some news to share I believe. So, do you want to tell our listeners first a little bit about yourself and then about your news.
Tim:
Yeah, sure. So, my role at The FA, is social community officer. And, I spend my time working on what is now called The England Football community. And the big news I guess want to share is to announce the launch of the England Football community.
Jamie:
You want to tell us a little bit about it and where it can be found.
Tim:
Yeah, absolutely. So, it's an online space designed to help anyone in the game connect, share and learn. So, there's a variety of groups in the community including the England Football Learning group, the referee's groups, the leagues and club's groups and the Wildcats. So my focus or our focus is on the England Football Learning Group which is currently the main open group on the community. And what I mean by open group is that all the content within it is freely available to anyone. So this includes a large number of blogs written by subject matter experts and currently we have four channels in the group which focus on youth club football, inside analysis, futsal and disability. And, there's so much great information offered in these blogs.
I particularly love the themed blogs that get posted each month within the youth club football channel. So for example, this month we're focusing on passing. These blogs tie in with the themed articles and sessions on The Boot Room, and content on YouTube and Twitter each month. And the amount of information provided is just incredible. There's so much there to help grassroots coaches. We also have webinars available to watch and there are podcasts like this one Coachcast for people to listen to which are also awesome. And then there are forums and these are safe spaces for people to chat to each other and FA staff. And, they can ask questions and start discussions. We also have monthly themed challenges for members to get involved with. And we also asked members to submit any problems that they're having with certain aspects of coaching or the game. So the FA staff can come in and help. What's more important is this is all free and it's available 24/7 for anyone to watch and engage with.
You can sign up really easily and quickly and the homepage is, is a bit like Facebook, I guess. You can personalize it, you can choose things that you want to watch, engage with, look at and ignore others that you don't. So you can bookmark channels, forums, you can follow fellow members and you can watch all of this activity and engage with as little or as much as you want. In terms of where you can find it, type it into the web browser community.thefa.com There's a link in the podcast episodes and it also forms part of the boot room on the FA website.
Jamie:
It's a really exciting project that you and the team have been working on and it looks brilliant. It really does. How would you summarize how it's been going, you know. What have you been doing to develop it?
Tim:
We've redesigned the community and rebranded it. So, some listeners may already be on the community and noticed that it used to be called the FA Community. now we've called it the England Football Community and that that's been done to encompass connecting the game, you know, joining everyone up and providing an opportunity for all. We've made it more member focused, more personalized, we've integrated with the coaching courses and as I mentioned earlier, we've got loads of great content on there for people to engage with.
But it's still young. We have loads of ideas for the community about how we can grow it, which is really exciting. But, our main focus is the community members and ensuring the community can be as useful and meaningful for them as possible. I think this can be a really helpful tool for football coaches to share problems, learn new things. So, I guess the next steps are to continue to listen to the members about what they want and what they need. We see it as a platform for all in the game and more importantly, it's their platform and they will drive it. So, I would encourage anyone listening with an interest in football, whatever your role, motivation background, to check the community out and get involved. And, I we would love to know what people think and what they would like to see on the community. Are there forums, are there blogs, are there webinars that would help you out in in your coaching or whatever role that you take part in. You can contact us coachingcommunity@thefa. com and please don't be afraid to send in your feedback.
Jamie:
It all sounds fantastic and hopefully we'll see plenty of coaches visiting the new platform.
Tim:
It's time to meet our first guest, FA youth coach development lead, Ian Bateman joins us in the studio today to help us catch up with our grassroots coaches as well as being on hand to answer any further questions they have. So, welcome to Coachcast, Ian. Can you tell us a bit about your role at the FA?
Ian:
Yeah, thanks for having us fellas. Yeah, currently I lead the youth coach development team. So, basically we work across, we've got 18 that work across the boys Academy program supporting coaches. Generally that's around A-licensed advanced youth award. But also looking at UEFA-B as well. It's great work, It's really exciting. You know, we've branched out a little bit into the grassroots game as well in supporting around all the new wards and obvious so. And. Yeah, really fortunate to have been here for so long and not really doing a proper job I don't think!
Jamie:
Brilliant, well. Hopefully we'll be tapping into that expertise just a bit later on. But first, let's take a moment to look back at some of the best bits from our second season.
[Coachcast recap audio clip plays]
Today, we're focusing on Futsal. Ian Parkes joins us in the studio now to tell us all about it.
Ian Parkes:
I think sometimes it's branded as a good game for foundation phase age players, maybe up to 11 or 12. And it's certainly really good for them. But, you have to only have to look at Max Kilman, You know, he started playing when he was 15 I think. and the credit he gives the game as part of his development into becoming a premier league player has clearly had a positive influence. I think in the teenage years where growth is taking place, it's a good game for helping players probably re-tune their brains with their bodies, you know. Their limbs are getting longer, it helps them with their coordination and lots of opportunities again to develop technically and physically. It's also a tactical game. You know, we've talked a lot here about the impact on individual skill. But there's also great learnings to be had around the tactics of two, three and four players. Which you can probably get to with older players of kind of 12-15. So, yeah. I definitely think it's a game that should be encouraged to all ages...
Louise:
In this episode. We're focusing on volume and variety of games in your sessions. Our experts for today's show is Mark Neville and he sat with us now in the studio.
Mark:
And think about the weekend or the match day experience for the players. So, if you are a grassroots coach, pick the phone up to the person you're arranging the games with. Have a genuine conversation with them about what you'd like to try. what you'd like to experience. What if we played two 5 a sides, before we played the 7v7 or the 8v8. What if, we played two 6v6 is across the pitch. And then we play the 11v11 because we've dialed up all the interactions that kids are gonna get more, shooting, more stopping more passing more goalkeepers, doing things brilliant. Then we play the 11v11 and there's your adult game. if you learn as well so that it's just smashing some conventions. I think, I think we've got a real responsibility as adults to decenter ourselves Remember, it's the kid's game.
Louise:
In this episode, we're focusing on different playing surfaces.
Jamie:
Danny Fenner is our expert for this episode.
Danny:
As a coach, how can you replicate those little 3v3 opportunities? The cage football opportunities to youth club opportunities to indoor. Or just playing football with a bit of freedom. There's this place in South London called Concrete Catatonia. And with that we've got players that are playing in the Premier League. Trevor Chalobah, Emile Smith-Rowe, Jaden Sancho, Reuben Loftus Cheek and they all came in this 10 mile radius of South London. And you think, In a 10 mile radius, this is where they are coming from. And the environment where they come from as well, Which is absolutely amazing. There's a stat as well. That is, 14% of English born Premier League players were born in this 10 mile radius and you think there must be something there that we might, we should replicate up and down the country.
Louise:
In this episode. We're focusing on the STEP framework.
Jamie:
Paul Holder is our expert today and he's with us in the studio now.
Paul:
If you can think a little bit about what's going to motivate, what's, where's the challenge for these kids? Where's the competition? How can I make it really competitive and changing the numbers can make a big difference. So, the lad or the girl who's struggling doesn't want to be exposed, and let the team down. So, give her or him more players to play with, they can be on the seven and if they want to they can get lost in that seven and not feel as though they're exposed. The ones who are really good, might want to show their skills off. The idea is to look at each individual, not worry about being symmetrical. We've got to have 3v3 there and 4v3 there and 5v5 there and you haven't. So experiment with the numbers.
[Coachcast recap audio clip ends]
Tim:
So, it's fascinating listening back and reflecting on, on the series, there's some really great information or throughout What's been your favorite moment of Coachcast so far, Ian?
Ian:
Well, I've generally enjoyed every, every episode. I think there's so much knowledge and information come from all the guys. It's been brilliant. I guess I'm a little bit biased. I've had a massive background in futsal over the past sort of 10 years. So, it really enjoyed part of his work. And I think that, you know, there's endless opportunities with that. Now to talk loads about the volume and variety and if we get that right, they can make it really exciting for the players. And I think with the cage football we've got something there that Danny clearly is passionate about. Brought some great information around what's going on in South London and the players that are coming through with all the work in the cage. And, that's kind of that freedom of Futsal And, and it's free for the players. That's the beauty of it. And I think, we, we forget that sometimes as coaches about letting the players loose and letting them free and then playing for playing for fun and all the things that will drop out of, of playing in those tight areas. And then Paul sort knitted it all together with the step principle. So everything links, I think that was the point and I think that's a great message that came through all of the episodes.
Jamie:
It's been a really great season to be a part of, so much insight. Really fascinating stuff and you've highlighted a really good overview there. So thanks for that. Right. Should we get our first grassroots coach on?
Steven from Nottingham featured in our second episode with Mark Neville, which focused on volume and variety. So welcome back to the show, Steven, how are you?
Steven:
I'm very well, thank you and thank you for having me back.
Jamie:
It's an absolute pleasure. But just before we do dive into a few questions, let's remind ourselves of your coaching challenge and what Mark said to you.
[Steven on Coachcast recap audio plays]
Steven:
You know, what hints and tips you have to prepare sessions that challenge those that can and need to be challenged and bring along those at the other end of the scale as well. In the same session.
Mark:
The type of exercise you put on will dictate whether they need a sparring partner for a real challenge or whether you think there might be an opportunity for one of the players who acts more experienced to help the player who has just come in. So, we get this also this almost social element of social and psychological element. Where they're teaching, that's the best form of learning for that really developed players to demonstrate what they know with the player that might be experiencing for the first time. If you're doing things like skills, in particular. We create like a topic of work, we might sort of say go and have a look at the Cryuff turn. So you practice that when you come back next week show me who's had a practice. And then when they come back, if you've got a couple of players that are really, really good at the Cryuff Turn for example. Will they become your mini coaches? You can then go and help another group and all of a sudden it'll be cool to be this little ambassador and you'll see people nailing it and then you get by the end of this session, you might have 6-7-8 ambassadors that are almost working on a 1 to 1 or 1 to 2 level. Helping the players that haven't quite got their technique yet.
Steven:
How often should we look to repeat drills and bring them back. Kind of where is the balance in bringing things back relatively soon to consolidate what we've learned without crossing that. You know why we're doing this again, "It's boring, we've done it before", kind of response.
Mark:
The variety is a sense of how you rotate that over a body of works in a month, six weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks. However, your club operates. But equally getting kids excited about what we're going to give us the name is always good. So we're gonna play, we're gonna play island hopping now and the kids know in island hopping that they're going to have to practice lofted finishes, headers, bicycle kicks, aerial control and they get really excited about it. So, it's the same game, but they understand that they're going to learn these skills when they're deployed in this game. Do you see what I mean? It's not, it's not about creating a new spicy game that's got added time multi ball and, And 15 different balls and how do I score in this? You know, if you're used to having to ask how you score all the time, we probably got a problem. But if they're familiar with it and they can get to practice a set of skills, great variety in that instant, hugely important. As long as you're not reinventing practices after practice and coming up with something new and fatty every week and the kids aren't learning the game, they're learning the drill. They're learning that particular moment rather than an aspect of the game of football.
[Steven on Coachcast recap audio ends]
Jamie:
Steven, just before we pass you over to Ian, How was your experience on Coachcast?
Steven:
It was absolutely brilliant. I mean, it was some experience. I mean, I took so much from it. I mean, Mark was absolutely brilliant. It's given me loads of, it's a really good practical advice, that kind of stuff you can take out there onto the field. But, I think what it gave it more was sort of confidence and reassurance that I'm not alone with this issue. I think grassroots coaches up and down the land probably had the same issue where they've got a range of ages, abilities and sort of drive of wanting to be there as well whether turned up just to you don't want to improve or you just want to play and have fun or just for the social side of it. So yeah, I think that reassurance that I wasn't alone and I think the confidence and the tools to go and address those gaps.
Jamie:
Fantastic. Well following that episode, do you want to tell Ian and the listeners, what did you try out and how did it go?
Steven:
Yes, I think some of the practical things I took away and implemented was the stuff around the sparring partners. I mean that was that was really, really interesting. It was really good Because I think I'd always pair up in terms of ability, Just age or ability. Just natural or if there's two Children to pair up, they would always go to friendship groups or they would always go to similar abilities and so I think the first time I did it, we didn't get kicked back. We've got something that was sort of raised eyebrows going on. "No, I don't, I don't want to." um "don't want to go over there" "I don't want to play with him or her, that's kind of better than me." "I want to stay with my friends." But, they went with it, they trusted it and actually what we saw was the better player sort of taken on that mentoring role. Really interesting. They thought about even if we're just doing a little warm up job, they were conscious of the quality of pass that they will give to the opposite number and the opposite number had gone over and it always kind of switch the brain on and really focused on the task. It was able to mirror and mimic what they've seen in front of them. And so we definitely saw some improvements with the sparring partner stuff. That was really, really good. And, it kind of got me out of pigeon hole-ding the kids. Because they fall into that trap as well. Like I say, when they partnered up, they think I'm just about here and actually it was really challenging and really throwing a curve-ball into say Good go and try it and they did and they were fantastic at it. So that has been really good.
Some of the stuff around the homework as well. He spoke about, you know, sort of getting mini coaches. Now, One thing that we always try to stress it is about scanning, scanning, scanning, scanning, especially 11-15's. But, sort of being from Nottingham, obviously we've got a lot of Manchester City fans in the groups that we work with. So, I was able to say to them when you watch city the weekend, watch Phil Foden when you sit here in possession, watch how many times he's checking his shoulder, watch where he is on the field because if it's good enough for Foden, you know, you'll bring it back, it's going to be good enough for you and yes, we still have problems with that. But just being able to point that out to them, you know, they'll be able to bring that back and if that's something where they can take that on board and bring that into future sessions, then that's going to be brilliant. So the homework was excellent as well. But I think the main thing that took from it, the main benefit of that conversation was Mark was around the volume and the variety. We've got a body of work and it's okay to go back to previous drills, drills we've done before. Just an example. I gave them a possession exercise where we've got two teams playing in a certain space either side of the pitch, we've got two neutral players, the team possession of trying to work it from one side, neutral player to try and get it to the other side as well. So they're trying to build from the back there, trying to play through the lines, all sorts of skills in there to getting loads of touches, loads of decisions when we did that the first week, they were good at it, They were okay at it. They got it, we had to explain what it was all about. I brought it back the second week and it was just so noticeable How much better they were at it because they understood what they were doing from minute one. I saw myself sort of stepping back and just watching them play and then stepping in at the right time with the right coaching points. The difference was amazing. It just gave me so much confidence that it's okay to revert back to those games.
Ian:
Yeah, brilliant Steven, you've got my mind spinning there and I think just linking all the episodes that we've had over the past few weeks. It's intriguing really. I think we get obsessed with trying to design new practices all the time and I don't think you need it. And I think the two things that you've really picked up on is returning to a practice. Maybe not every week, But, you know, children do like structure. They like to be doing some things that they're comfortable with and it takes them time to understand what the, what the practice of the drill or the game is all about. So the first time, I think it's quite normal players have to understand what the rules of the, of the practice are. And that's filling ahead just to understand about what you want them to do. I think once you've got into something like the second or third time, then they can start to think about, you know, the core skills that they're going after. So you can talk to them about scanning and you can talk to them about what techniques they're using, You can talk to them about time and a movement because they know what the practices and then you'll see something get better and better and better.
And I had, you know, lots of coaches talked to us about, the kids don't get this practice well. Yeah, because you've made it too complicated. So, you know, make things really, really simple. You know, have some simple rules and then, and then the beauty, I think of linking it with what you talked about with your sparring partners. You can play the same game, no, no games ever the same, Because you know, the weather is different. The time of day is different. The kids feel different. The players have learned something in the session before. So, you know, if you even going against the same sparring partner, it's not the same as what they did 24 hours previously. If you start mixing up the sparring partners as well. Well, you know, you've got to it's a whole different, you know, it can be exactly the same practice, exactly the same area, They've got a whole different challenge ahead of them, which, you know, and you can keep repeating and coming back and coming back to the, to the, to the same sort of thing all the time. So I think working, but that's a massive tool by the way, so don't underestimate. You know how difficult it is to get that balance just right and I think knowing the tipping point when, when a player is getting frustrated because they haven't, you know, they can't get past a certain individual and then just changing the individuals, so now they start to get a little bit of success.
And I know I worked with Mark really closely on lots of stuff and you know, we talked about this from an individual perspective and then also stretching that too when we're playing matches against teams. You know, you want some games that you're going to win by a lot, you're going to want games that you're probably going to get beat by quite a lot And then you want other games where it's really close and you don't know, it's where it's going to go to the very last second. And I think just, just that what we can play with as coaches to make sure that the players get all these different experiences is we can't understand it. And like I say, it's a massive, massive, massive skill.
Steven:
Yes, definitely. And I think in terms of being able to experimenting a little bit more about mixing those groups. We've played sort of possession exercise where I've gradually worked, we had four boxes and I did put the mobility to start with top to sort of the youngest or lower ability. And then we gradually did it where we started playing against each other, where box 1 would play against box 2, so fairly close and then box 3 against box 4, so it's slightly lower ability and then I split it, so box one will play against box three. So real high ability against a sort of medium to you know, And actually as I started working through and they got the drill to start with when it came to playing against someone better than themselves, they're at it, they kind of knew what was what and they raised their game and actually the difference wasn't as wide as what I thought it was going to be. So it was interesting to see that challenge from them and to raise their game. So there was better players that probably were expecting to do really well, you know, coming up against a good challenge.
Ian:
I don't think we should ever be surprised. If you set the challenge high and if they're in that right environment then they will thrive. And I think this is the beauty of, you know, I think there's a again it's the skill of the coach to make sure that the environment feels right. That the children feel safe to go and try stuff. You know, but possession games, you know, where teams are under loaded, you still managed to keep it, they'll find a way to do it. and that's what the game is. I think, sometimes we've made things a little bit too easy and we shouldn't make it easy. We've gotta stretch and just gets that right point of stretch where the not without breaking it, but we've, got to push them and if the players need that time to have a feel well, you know, this is quite easy, I've got a little bit of time. But then, push them on and then see where it might take them.
Steven:
Yeah, definitely. So we sort of got from speaking to Mark as well last time. So we've got that kind of stuck. Body of work, we've got games we can go back and rely on and trust now. We can throw them back into it and they will know what they're doing and we'll get it and keep improving. So you're watching the improvement and you can sort of tweak them around the edges a little bit and add different varieties and like to say we can overload. Scenarios as well and see how they cope with that as well. So, it's not busy saying making this sort of added time multi ball super thing is actually finding that stock body of work and then just keep on working at it and work at it and the improvements already, there to see.
Ian:
Yeah, I think keeping simplicity in the practices is critical as well. I know lots of academies now might have a bank of maybe it could be as low as six core practices that they go back to and generally those games are directional, they're opposed, you know, they probably matched up, they've got a they've got a target or a goal and Paul Holder talks about this in some of his work. You know, that's a critical thing. So if you've got those things, then the children are probably going to enjoy playing in those practices and it looks like and feels like a game so they can see the relevance. We've got a pretty good reason to do anything that hasn't got goals, direction, opposition. And I think understand as well there's times in the game, you know, if we think about when we're attacking, you you're probably under loaded as the attacking team if it's in the big game, and it's like there's probably about 10 behind the ball and eight people doing the bulk of that attacking, so that's a serious under load, you know, so how do we practice that?
And the players know what the game is and the emphasis of generally what what the game's all about.
Steven:
Absolutely. I think having that body work is what you talk about, you know, the 6-7-8 sort of stock drills. What that really helps with is a grassroots level, you don't know how many you're going to get turning up as well, obviously that's a real big issue. But if you've got something that, you know, you can adapt that if 10 turn up. We can do it. If 16 turn up, we can still play this, you know. It would maybe tweak around the edge and just may change the parameters just a little bit. But, that's the core of what we're doing this is why we're doing it. It's the skills we're going to get from it and you can make those sessions kind of adaptable.
Ian:
And it's simply, it's relaxing them for the coach I think as well. Great to hear by the way that so many City fans that are in Nottingham. I'm a Mancunian So yeah, it's, it's really interesting and linking back to some of the other podcasts that we've had on. So Ian Parkes talked about futsal and, and when you see the City players that have probably come from that futsal background to all the Portuguese guys. To all the Spanish guys. You know, so you look at the moment, yeah, all the, all the Argentinians, the Brazilians that's been through. So, you know, from Aguero to Ederson to.. Bernardo Silva, David Silva, you know. Really interesting things about what you said about the scanning Some research that's been done by UEFA recently was about players receiving with the sole. Because the surface is so regular and true as the ball's traveling, they can receive with the sole and they get their head up automatically. So that the, that gets ingrained from a really early age because, you know, those, all those countries that are mentioned don't have grass facilities and they're playing on a hard surface. So when they end up playing football around 12 or 13 years old, then that's, you know, that's just becomes the norm that they received with the head up and they can scan because they know it's going to stick it in the feet. That's how they can shift and manipulate the ball so quickly. So it's, yeah, it's, again, it's brilliant that, you know, the players are going home and practicing the scanning and you know, if the mixing up those. That the balls are using and what have you as well, that's, that would be probably really useful for them.
Jamie:
Were there any other further challenges that came up or do you have anything else you'd like any help with while you're here?
Steven:
I don't think so. I think that pretty much covered what I needed to get out of it. It was such a fantastic conversation, really good experience. And like give me the tools and loads of things to think about, to take the stress out of it a little bit and to make it a lot easier on me so I can relax. It's the basics, we teach the fundamentals, we're there to have fun as well. We're not professional. We're not training like professionals. We're there to sort of facilitate that fun and and how we do it through making a body of work for us. It's just been so helpful.
Jamie:
Really pleased that, that you've got a really good response to or the top tips that you got when you was on the show before. So thank you very much for appearing on the show again and good luck for the rest of the season as well.
Steven:
No problem. Thank you so much again for having me on.
Tim:
Next. We're going to hear back from the grassroots coach who appeared on our Futsal episode. It's Michael from Dorset. Welcome back to Coachcast, Michael.
Michael:
Hi guys, thanks for having me back.
Tim:
It's great to have you. Let's start off by recapping on what your challenge was and the advice that Ian Parkes gave you.
[Michael on Coachcast recap audio plays]
Michael:
Two, two real differences in terms of our players. You've got those who are there because they want to develop and they want to improve and they want to keep getting better. You've then got the players who just want to be there to play. How do we create that environment that continues to engage at both levels? How do you appeal to everybody all things at all time?
Ian Parkes:
My first point would be trying to make the practices game based because I think every kid loves the game-based practice. I think practices where they can be put into smaller groups, so groups of 3's, 4's and you're playing 2v1's 2v2's and then you might be able to group those kids that have similar drivers together within a big sessions that might be a mixed group in terms of the 15. But within that, when you do your 2v2 games or maybe a wave practice where they're all doing the same wave. When they come around the conversations and the coaching you do with one group of three or four or five or six or whatever it is. Maybe different to the conversations you have with another group. Even just asking them questions about how they might, how much you use your teammate in that situation. It's quite a low key soft way of getting them, still to think about how they might develop.
The other two options are when you're grouping kids is to put them the ones together. Or you start to say, well, actually, what happens if I take one of those competitive ones and say, your job is to help those three there that aren't so competitive and go and teach them your favorite skill that helps you. And then you're developing more holistic social skills rather than just the technical. Or have you got relationships with older age groups where they can come down and support?
[Michael on Coachcast recap audio ends]
Ian:
Yeah, Michael seems like you had a really good conversation with Ian, what key things landed with you?
Michael:
In training, we've been quite active in splitting the group and actually getting alignment of driver. And that's worked to some extent. What we tend to have is one organized group and then one really, really chaotic group with the balls flying absolutely everywhere. And that's quite difficult to manage actually, in a relatively small Futsal space. But again, it's from a sort of a practice design perspective. It's been interesting saying, okay, we're going to have two groups, we're going to do the same thing, but side by side. How do I actually physically create the space for them to do that? It is the more competitive group going to be in a smaller space or we're going to give them a bigger space and the play group that actually no, I'm going to force you to be more technical here, so you've got to be in a smaller space. And you know, it restraint naturally restraints, their desire to play to get my outcomes that I want as a coach, but at the same time they're feeling well, actually we get to play, we get we get to do what we want to do.
Ian:
And you work alone with the coaches or do you have a partner coach that works with you at the same time to help manage that?
Michael:
I've got two.
Ian:
I think it's brilliant if you've got a couple of coaches working with you even in a confined space, like a futsal hall. You know, it's, it can be really handy to get the most out of the coach. And also I think to help with managing the children, especially when you've got sort of two different groups going off. Anything else from you chat with Ian that's really landed with you? That's really helped?
Michael:
Something around, it was a very specific point around input about the sort of rotations, how that works and encouraging the players to always run forward. I don't think we've done anything specific in training about it, but as a coaching message, it works really effectively of actually getting the players here is one message, this is what you should do, trying things to do it. And just just repeat it from the sidelines. Are you running forward? How can we run forward in that, in that situation? We try and have these really short sentences that just capture things and remind players of how to play. How we want them to play.
Ian:
Yeah, and I know in futsal it's really critical that, I mean I think one of the messages we’re pushing out as an FA at the minute and all of our sort of coach development work is around sort of thinking forwards. Looking forwards. Playing forwards and running forwards. You know, it's not that's not saying that we go forward at every opportunity. You know, it's clearly not that. But you know, when you're seeing the top teams in the Premier League now, they've got the same principle. They play it and then they'll move the Liverpool of old. I'm talking about in the in the 90s, you know, that was their whole thing about play and move. The same principle. And generally, and particularly in futsal if you run forwards, it gives defenders something really to think about, if players can understand it and then, you know, then brilliant. Guessing, taking that into the football will be another challenge as well for you.
Michael:
It was interesting. So last weekend was our first 9 a side football match. Back out on grass and It was really interesting watching the team play because it was almost like they've forgotten how to play 9 a side football.
Ian:
It's funny, you know, we had Max Kilman around the England squad three or four years ago and where he was, he was playing in the conference around that time as well. So it, it's, I mean some weekends he was coming in towards training Friday night then playing in the conference Saturday and then coming back to, to train with England on the Sunday. He always talked about that actually if, if we'd been playing in competition or we've had a series of camps. how much extra time he had on the ball when he went to play football, he never felt rushed because it's it was so congested in on in the futsal when he, when he got playing on a big pitch, he felt he had all the time in the world. If he didn't get his futsal fixed. Suddenly the football seemed to speed up for some reason. You know, so I think there's always two sides to it. So, you know, it can be everything become to get used to just working and without the sort of two or three players around them. Probably a little bit more in futsal, I'm not aware of the bigger picture. And it's that game within a game. I think sometimes it's like just focusing on those small numbers around you.
Michael:
Exactly. It's one of the reasons why as a league, New Forest League is so keen to have this dual track approach to futsal and football. It's not it's not that just futsal is a great sport. Of course it is. But the benefits you get when you're playing football and you're right, it does give you that confidence and the time on the ball and It's amazing to watch players who we say, we say it to the best players in the world, it looks like they have so much time on the ball. I can show you some under 12's who look like they've got all the time in the world on the ball.
Ian:
It's fantastic mix what you're doing. Yeah, it's brilliant. What are the challenges are you facing at the moment? Whether it's futsal or with your football work?
Michael:
So off the back of the last, when I was speaking to Ian. I took it upon myself to actually talk to the players and say, right, what do you want? So I've got the opportunity really to build what their next season is going to look like. But, there is a real split. Some want to play just for fun, they just want to play in the purest sense. They don't really want to be coached in a strict sense, they want to be. You know, they'll take the input, but no, I want to play games. That's what I want to do in training. There's another group that I actually, no, I want to play competitively, three points for a win. I wanted to actually, and I wanted to be focused and everyone buys into this concept of competitive enjoyment was the phrase I used. But yet, how do we, how do we do that? How do we, as coaches say? Okay, actually know what we're going to deliver what you want. Is it possible to please everybody?
Ian:
12, 13 around about that age and even younger? I think there is exactly what you're saying. Some players want to be really competitive, it's all about winning. You know, they want to be the best in the town. They want to be the best in the county. They want to be the best, you know, in the wider region and I think we should embrace that. I really do. Because, you know, they're probably quite good, they want to get better. they probably enjoy the challenge that, that, that comes with that. And if the good you know, they want to test against the best. want to test themselves against the best. That's perfectly normal. So we have to embrace that and support them as best we can. I think it's, it can be tricky because we've got to make sure that that's done in the right way. We still want to be, You know, we want winning behaviors, we want winning attitudes. For those people, we need to give them what they want. At the same time, I recognize that there's loads of people that just want to be there and, and love playing the game. I think it's great that you're asking, it's the what next? But isn't it. Can you find that competitive league to make sure that everybody is being challenged?
Michael:
Yes. And I think we're not quite sure how training is going to work. Do we run two separate training sessions? Do we move, we need to move one team into a different league. To say, Okay, actually this is a more competitive league. It's a different environment. It's not going to be the same team that you're used to playing against. Do I need to go and create a midweek futsal offering for those players who want to play it.
Ian:
Yeah, I think given that opportunity for both though, I'm thinking around. And I think still even the better players, you know, that futsal option could come, like you say, it could be a midweek opportunity for some, and that becomes training. But it becomes a real competitive game where, you know, you're, you're playing other teams at futsal instead of training. You know, that I'm sure that gets, gets one or two players going. IT could be that it's loaded up at the end of the season or there's futsal tournaments that you go and enter. You know, I know at the moment we've probably played using it as a winter break. You know, use it in the, in the summer instead and just having perhaps some different phases in the season where they, you know, they go to places. On the volume and variety of play. We were seeing a lot that within the academy program where in the foundation phase is quite a lot of variety, so different formats playing on different surfaces. Different numbers when it gets to 14, it's a different story altogether. it's 11v11 players playing in one position. Yet we know players will be playing in different positions if they get to that first-team level. So, again, with the volume and the variety is gone when we're getting into the sort of the teenage years which we've, I think we as coaches, we need to be really aware of and trying try and address and can keep that variety going.
Tim:
Well, I've got to say that was all really, really interesting. Thank you both. Michael, It was great to hear from you again, thanks for coming back on onto the, onto the podcast. It sounds like you've made some great progress. Keep up the good work and hopefully hear from you soon.
Michael:
Thanks very much and yeah, I hope to do the same.
Jamie:
Now, here's the part I'm sure you've been looking forward to Ian. It's time for our swift session feature. This is where we challenge our guest to come up with a session idea that relates to the theme of the episode but as this one doesn't have a specific theme you have the chance to give us your favorite session as a bonus for our listeners.
Tim:
All we require is that it's fun, engaging and quick to set up. It can involve any number of activities. But Ian, you only have 30 seconds to explain your idea. Are you up for the task?
Ian:
I'm very up for the task. Can't wait
Tim:
Right Your time starts now.
Ian:
Right brilliant. My simple suggestion is get your kit on and play some games with some other teams. Play variety, have lots of variety in it and lots of games and plenty of volume. And every all your games keep score, play to a clock. So you can see how long you got left to play. A bit like doing this and understand the possibilities that you've got with all the facilities and the players that you've got available. So play good teams Vs bad teams. Play on different surfaces, different numbers, use different balls, play on lines and walls. Boom!
Jamie:
You just squeezed that one in, just there!
Tim:
Yeah, well done. So I think I know the answer to this but how do you feel about that? Do you think you got everything in?
Ian:
I'm quite happy with that. I'm happy with my performance, I think, Yeah, I think that you know what, there's some of the episodes that we've had recently. it's just summing that up, I think. If we can understand the possibilities that we can get. Just play, that's the exciting bit. Let's get that spirit of football burning brightly,
Jamie:
Great message there. Just play. Absolutely love it. Well, brilliant. Thank you very much Ian. It's been a pleasure to have you on Coachcast. It's been great listening to you some great advice there. So, thank you very much.
Ian:
Thanks for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure, thank you.
Jamie:
Anytime. Right, that's all we have time for today and that's it for Coachcast Season two. Just like last time you can let us know what you thought of the season by contacting us by coachcast@thefa.com and you can even do so by tagging coachcast into any conversations you have on the England Football community. As always, you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, England Football Learning, where there are tons of great resources to help you with your coaching.
Tim:
And you can follow us on Twitter where our handle is @EnglandLearning That way you can keep in touch with all our content. Coachcast will be back for season three. So keep an eye on our social media channels and wherever you get your podcasts. If you subscribe, you won't miss any episodes.
Jamie:
For the last time this series, from all of us in England Football Learning. Thanks for listening.