Please Note: The transcript is automatically generated by Supertranslate.beta in case you come across any typos or misquotes during your reading.
[Jamie]
Hello and welcome to Coachcast by England Football Learning, the coaching podcast that brings you insight from people across the game. I'm Jamie and I'm here with Louise, and today we're joined by Dan Simpson, a Game Insights Analyst, to chat about game state, phases, and moments, and what you can do to prepare for them. Well, hi Dan, welcome back to the show, how are you?
[Dan]
Hi both, really good, thank you, Good to be here.
[Louise]
Yeah, it's really nice to have you back with us again. Solo this time, but just as nice.
[Dan]
Yeah, I'm missing my winger today.
[Louise]
Just for anybody who didn't listen to the last episode that you were on, can you tell us a little bit about your role and what it is you do here?
[Dan]
Yeah, so like you mentioned there, my role is as a Game Insights Analyst and I sit within a small team within the Learning and Development Department and our role is to look at the game to see what we can learn and we try and provide insights into all levels of the game so you're looking at grassroots all the way up to the senior professional level working across the male and female game and ultimately with the purpose of supporting and helping all the wonderful coaches out there and hopefully some of them will be listening today.
[Louise]
I'm sure they will, very valuable work that you do.
[Jamie]
Absolutely, absolutely. We're talking about supporting coaches Dan. As this is a coaching podcast, the coaches could be on the way to training right now, so we always like to give them some good advice at the top of the show.
[Louise]
We're going to give you 30 seconds and we're going to ask you to give us as many top coaching tips as you can in those 30 seconds. Are you up for the challenge?
[Dan]
I think that's all the coaching tips I have I can fit into 30 seconds. But yes, of course, let's give it a go.
[Louise]
Okay, when the music starts, you can begin.
[Dan]
So, the first thing you've got to do is understand your purpose. So what is it that you're trying to achieve, whether that's on a match day or a training practice. This isn't just what you do on the grass, so what you do away from the grass is also really important because every time you converse with a player, it's an opportunity to get some message across and to gain an understanding of how your players are performing and how your players think they're performing in terms of what you're asking of them. Always have a plan, so know what you're going to look for when you're going to observe things.
[Louise]
Perfect. Brilliant. Did you have any more that you wanted to add in there?
[Dan]
I would say make sure you've got a safe environment first and foremost. The more comfortable your players are coming to training, the more they can enjoy themselves and enjoy being around their friends and having a ball at their feet or in their hands if you're a goalkeeper, then the better.
[Jamie]
Yeah, I say it's all important, isn't it? Like that safe environment and making sure that everybody has fun. Well Dan, as we mentioned it's been a while since you were last in, I think it was July 2023 and you were with Katie previewing the Women's World Cup then, but today you are going solo, so we'd kind of like to take a moment just to get to know you a little bit more and usually we kind of start this part of the show by asking I guess what was your first experience of football like?
[Dan]
Well I think as you can gauge from the accent I grew up just outside Belfast and for me it's very fond memories going back to my first moments in football when my grandad took me to watch Glen Torn. So I only just played as you do on the streets, curbsy and all that stuff and then my grandad took me to watch Glen Torn. So that was always a really fond memory for me. So looking back like I can still remember the smell of the burger van, the walk and the excitement of what feels like the steepest set of stairs you've ever seen in your life, to then coming out and seeing the players and almost sort of gaining some idols and then really idolising these players on the pitch. But when I look back, that enabled me to develop such a really strong bond with my grandda, but then that sense of community as well of, you know, we're all in this together, we all want this team to do well, we want my team to beat your team, and just every single weekend looking forward to finishing school on a Friday. I used to stay at my granny and grandad's every weekend, so I'd be there and straight away we'd be talking about, oh we're going to Glentoran playing tomorrow, which part of the country are we going to go to? And really, really very fond. Unfortunately, not won a league title since 2009 now I think, so probably overdue some success there.
[Jamie]
Yeah, definitely.
[Louise]
It sounds like a really lovely memory and a kind of part of your life that you've, you really cherish, which is, and I think that's one of those things, isn't it? That's what carries people's love of football through. When did you realise that you wanted to be involved in football as a job, I guess? And can you give us a bit of an insight into your journey from where you started to where you are now?
[Dan]
We're going back 21, 22 years now so it's a long time ago but I always played growing up like I mentioned always played but then unfortunately I got testicular cancer at the age of 17 So that kind of derailed a lot of things for me and I couldn't play anymore. And at that point I was at college, I was pursuing like a course in marketing, like an A-level in marketing, and if I'm being honest I didn't enjoy it at all. And I remember saying that, okay, let's think what you want to do long term. And if I got through that period of cancer, my thoughts were, I'm going to work in football. And I didn't really believe it at the time, wasn't sure if it was possible. So yeah, I just started doing some coaching and that's kind of how things progressed. When I started to really get a love for coaching primary schools. And I thought, you know what? Like I could really make a career at least if things go really well. So that was pretty much how I got into it, was pursuing something that I really love doing, rather than something that I kind of perceived I was OK at with the marketing.
[Jamie]
So It's kind of a quite powerful moment isn't it back then like quite young as well to obviously get through that as well and then obviously to have that vision and to go and obtain it is absolutely fantastic and it's fascinating story as well. So kind of where's sort of like your coaching journey start then from there?
[Dan]
21, 22 years ago something like that but I've mentioned there coaching in primary school so during that period I just got in touch with my primary school the one I grew up in, asked if I can help out support and take some sessions and went in. No idea what I was doing to be honest but just learning off somebody there, one of the teachers, PE teacher and started to really enjoy it and an opportunity came up when I was working within, not working but I was volunteering at a youth club. So kids are from 12 to 16 really, quite difficult, you know people with difficult backgrounds and upbringings and things and it was really challenging but I love working with them and just building rapport and building relationships with these people was fantastic. So an opportunity then came up to go and coach with Glyntorn and because I was working, I remember being, they needed some under-9s coaches, I think it was under-12s and under-16s, and because I was doing that youth work, they put me in with the under-16s. So, out of my depth, if I'm being honest, massively out of my depth, but it was an opportunity I couldn't turn down and I remember pulling on that track set and looking at the badge and thinking I've grown up watching this team week in week out with my granda who at that point was no longer with us so I just never felt so proud to pull on that track set but then I remember going to that first session and just stepping back and watching. And that's pretty much how things went for a long time, trying to absorb as much knowledge as I could before I could then try and pass some of it on.
[Louise]
Firstly, that must have been so exciting, kind of going and working for, being part of a team that you kind of watch and stuff. But how did you make that first step into actually if you were just standing back and watching did someone help you kind of start kind of making actions and moves into kind of taking the lead a little bit more?
[Dan]
I wouldn't say it was as much of a mentorship if you like I didn't really know what I was looking at and probably didn't have enough support to go okay watch how we do this, this is the reason why we're doing certain things. For me it was just the coach, he was a great coach, would put on sessions and I would try and figure out well why is he doing certain things And then I remember he couldn't take a week, obviously we're all voluntary, and there was a session he wasn't able to take on a Tuesday night and I just said, Dan, can you deliver it? And this was like the night before, so I was a bit, yeah, really, really nervous of, well, what am I going to do here? And I remember thinking, I know, I'll just copy everything that he does and that's exactly what I did. And looking back now, it's probably the right thing to do because the players were comfortable, you know, they knew the practice, it almost ran itself a little bit and it was up to me just to manage their efforts and the morale of the group and keep them on task, which was difficult for, what age would I have been? 19 maybe, 18, 19. So these kids are only three years younger than me, so that was a real challenge. Whereas if I look at it now, yeah, there's so much more resources available and if we look internally here within England Football Learning, the amount of session plans and resources to support coaches is fantastic. Back then, jeez, we barely had the internet so there wasn't an awful lot of that. It was just leaning on what you've seen other people doing.
[Louise]
I guess it's just the first steps isn't it? You do what you need to do to make the first steps into coaching and kind of finding your way.
[Jamie]
Yeah, it's a really touching story as well. I mean that's a lot to go through at a young age, like throwing yourself in there as well. I mean firstly before obviously your diagnosis, could you ever have imagined yourself going into coaching? Was that actually something that you was interested in? And then how did you get through that period of adapting through such a tough time for yourself personally but then learning something completely new?
[Dan]
Yeah, really difficult. First of all, no, didn't, yeah, at that age didn't consider coaching or anything like that. I was too busy being a child, being a boy myself, enjoying playing football with my mates, enjoying, yeah, mucking around at the weekends and all of that stuff. So I never really gave much consideration to my career and no one knew to could you really see me working in marketing? Like that's not something that, yeah, I was particularly passionate about, but it's something that I was getting good grades at. And I think when you're in education it comes to a point where you have to do something next and that's just what it was. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to be doing and from that it was very much when I started coaching just that thirst for knowledge I guess and first of all thirst to show that I kind of know what I'm talking about here, not to make a fool of myself, but that was a really good starting point and I think allowing myself to be a little bit vulnerable as well, to go, okay, I don't need to prove to you that I'm the best coach in the world because I've only just started at this, but as long as I can learn from good people around me, then we'll be okay. And that's kind of how I've always tried to live my career. But at a time when, yeah, personally it was really, really very difficult for me and my family, I ended up moving away from Belfast to Southampton to go to university and that's something that was really difficult for the first year, just being away from home trying to figure things out was really difficult. But when I got that first role at Portsmouth, that's when things clicked into gear for me and I thought, do you know what, just pulling on that track suit and walking into the training ground at Portsmouth made me think okay, not certainly not I've arrived but this is where I want to be and this is what I want to be doing day in day out and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get to that point and to be able to do that you can't do it on your own you have to try and absorb as much knowledge as you can from other people and then put it into good practice.
[Jamie]
Saying observing knowledge from other people, what would you say that is maybe the big takeaway that you might have learned from somebody during that time then?
[Dan]
Probably the biggest one is just being able to understand what we're trying to achieve. So you're not in this on your own, you're with a coaching team and you're trying to develop players in the same way. So making sure that your messages are consistent and as an analyst, when I'm watching the game, I'm watching almost through the eyes of the coach and through the eyes of player development, what are we trying to achieve here, rather than just trying to watch everything and come up with all of this stuff that might be really quite difficult to achieve.
[Louise]
What was your experience like in club football and what kind of insights did you discover and present to help staff and players solve problems?
[Dan]
I would say early on, very much about player development. How can we help players get better? And actually, if we step back before that, so how can we get players enjoying themselves, wanting to turn up for training, making it fun, making it engaging, all of those things, they give you an insight into which players really want to be there for a start. Are you taking these kids from potentially difficult situations, they might have had a tough day at school and now they're coming and getting to have some fun and putting them into a different environment. So then focusing on the more player development stuff, so what can players do, what can't they do, what are we trying to achieve, what's the curriculum within the club, so are we working on a player's ability to pass the ball, What does that look like when we break it down, looking at the key technical attributes of that and where are players at and where do we want to get them to. So then working with older players and you can start to bring in more of that tactics and strategies type stuff, the individual tactics of you know how can I get the better of my opponent, what type of things can I do to gain an advantage over my opponent? So then looking at twos and threes and working together to combine and take an opponent out of the game or getting behind the opposition, whatever it is. So then when you're hitting 16, you're starting to look more at the strategies and systems, if you like, of, yeah, we're playing a 4-3-3, this is my role within the team, and this is how what I do on the ball or off the ball affects my teammates, affects the space, affects the opposition.
[Jamie]
So if we kind of jump to today Dan, what do you enjoy about your role that you've got and how important is it that coaches can actually take insights from the game?
[Dan]
I love the realism of the role. So when we're talking about insights, we're generally looking at the game and seeing, well, what is it actually telling us and how can we practice in a more realistic way and actually listen to the tasks and concerns of coaches because the guys and girls who will be listening to this, I mean, it may be coaching and they'll all have different experiences, but ultimately, the game looks slightly different in every single context. So if we just take insights from the World Cup or from the Premier League or WSL, well, that's great, and it's a great start point, but we don't all have the luxury of working in that environment. So for me it's been able to take some of those insights and translate them into messages that everybody can help, everybody could use and work with their players, whether that's grassroots, senior game, whatever it is. Been able to take potentially the same insights, the same information, dial it up or down depending on what coaches might need.
[Jamie]
We're talking about insights Dan, today we wanted to get you on to give us an insight into the topic of game state phases and moments. So to start I think it's probably best that we pick these terms apart. So what do we mean by game state in football?
[Dan]
Yeah it's always important to split the terms apart so we know what we're going after. There is always going to be some overlap with with these things but when we're talking about game state we're generally talking about recognising what's going on at that stage of the game. So is your team winning, losing, drawing? So that would be the really simple one, the first one that you might look at. And that might change the way your team plays or how you approach a game, but obviously winning within the first five minutes is very different to winning in the last five minutes. So there's lots of different factors that come in for game state. So are you winning, drawing or losing? What time is it in the game? Are you home or away? And where's your team sat within, you know if you're working at the top level, where's your team sat within the league? So it could be that you're bottom of the league, away from home to the team at the top of the league, you're drawing the game with five minutes left, your approach is now going to be very, very different to if it was the other way around and you were top of the league at home to the team at the bottom of the league and you're drawing going into the last few minutes. So you might deploy more attacking players at that point, depending on what you're trying to get out of the game. So the game state dictates a lot of things.
[Jamie]
So that's game state then, what about game phases? Why are they important to understand?
[Dan]
So this relates a little bit more to who has and hasn't got the ball. So is your team in possession, Have you got the ball? Are they out of possession? Your opposition have the ball? Or is it that period of transition where we're maybe trying to get the ball back or we've just won the ball back and we're trying to either attack and counter attack or maybe gain control of the ball and possession or it's the opposite where we've just lost the ball and there's a chance to either counter press and win it back quickly or we might have to try and regain some sort of defensive shape and stop the opposition from from causing us problems. And yeah you'll see lots of different approaches to that depending on teams. So if you look at Bournemouth at the moment, for example, lots of high pressing. A team who may spend more time out of possession because that's what they're good at, compared to Man City, who will spend a lot of time in possession. And again the two things might link in as well. So generally if a team is 2-0 up their approach might differ in terms of they can either try and hold on to that lead by going into a low block and making them really hard to play against or they might want to solidify that lead and push on and actually dominate more possession of the ball, maybe take less risks so lots of different approaches but that would sort of be the different phases of the game that we would work with.
[Louise]
What does moments of the game mean?
[Dan]
Yeah, so that would be more the individual actions, so that could be goals, which obviously have a really big impact on the game and, you know, football, it's an invasion sport. Goals is probably the thing that occurs least often, but it could be goals, it could be key passes, it could be big tackles that happen, it could be crosses, it could be getting your players into really good positions. So Jeremy Doku for example, a really good 1v1 attacker and you've also got Beth Mead in the women's game, the exact same, it might be getting them into more advanced positions, getting them on the ball more often and that's where momentum might start to come in and we might talk about that shortly but those would be your moments or little things that happen within the game that have a significant impact on either the phase or the actual state of the game if it is a goal.
[Jamie]
For anyone that's new to coaching that's tuning into this then or anyone that's unsure about this topic, what level of understanding do coaches actually need around this and just the level of understanding that's actually needed, you know, and the way that these actually play out on match day. Does it change depending on the age and stage of the players that you're coaching?
[Dan]
Yeah I think everything, the way you approach anything is dictated to by the age and stage of your players. So if you're working with younger players it might be much more small-sided games 3v3s 5v5s and inherently if that's the case you're gonna see more goals, you're gonna see more core skills happening and you're gonna see more tackles, you're gonna see more opportunities to intercept, more opportunities to pass the ball and with that comes lots more variation. So one minute your team might be 2-0 up then they might be 3-2 down and this might change quite rapidly throughout the game and as a coach it can be quite difficult to manage that. So what are you doing if for example you're playing a 5v5, one team find themselves 7-0 up. So you look psychologically at your players and that might be great if you're 7-0 up and you're really enjoying scoring lots of goals and having lots of shots on goal, but it can be a little bit demoralizing for teams that are defending like that all the time. So as a coach it's having that flexibility to recognize, okay this is the situation we might need to change, we might need to put some constraints on the game to give that other team more of a chance, or we might need to swap some players around or change the format, whatever it is. But when you play with younger players and smaller areas, you're going to get more shots, you're going to get more goals and more core skills. When you're working with older players, more of the tactics and strategies start to come into play. If you're looking at the 11 v 11 game, you know, there's not an awful lot of goals scored. I think this season has been the highest in the Premier League for goals scored for a long time, but it's still a very low amount. So, Psychologically, that can have a big impact on your players of when you concede, how many goals you concede or how many goals you score. It's going to have a big bearing on the psychological impact. So if your team have been dominating possession, creating shots on goal, and then all of a sudden they find themselves one or two nil down, that might completely for players might be psychologically difficult to deal with. And as a coach that's where it's important to, okay, can you observe the situation, so can you figure out where are we at, what's gone wrong here that we are two nil down or what's going well that we're 2-0 up but individually can I start to notice which players respond in certain ways to these situations so it might be that you've just conceded a goal and you notice one of your players is their head down, they're looking demotivated and for the next few minutes it takes them a little bit to get going again? Or you might see somebody else completely rolling their sleeves up and thinking right we're one nil down we need to get back into this game and they almost become a bit of a leader. But that can be a really great way of starting to understand your players and their motivations and their leadership qualities but sometimes you need to be able to step back as a coach to be able to observe and to do that.
[Louise]
And as you've mentioned observing, do you have any top tips to help coaches improve their observation skills so they can become more aware of like the game state phases and moments on a match day or is it kind of is it just about noticing how people are feeling?
[Dan]
It's a little bit of both obviously there's going to be some reactive stuff there but I'll go back to one of the Coachcasts recently when Debbie Barry was talking about planning. For me, planning is so important. If you actually have a plan for what you're going to look at, the game state almost becomes, I don't want to say irrelevant, but secondary to what you're trying to achieve. And as long as you're communicating to your players beforehand, like this is what we're trying to do in the game, this is how it links to training, this is how it links to practice and to their development, those messages have to be really clear. But by planning certain things as well you can start to identify, okay when we are 2-0 up we might need to play in a slightly different way and actually work on that beforehand and bringing your players on that journey with you. So if you're coaching At a competitive level, you're able to amend your tactics and strategies based on that. So yeah, being able to have a plan and actually step back, communicate that plan with your players and with the rest of your coaching team, or the parents, whoever it is. As long as everybody's clear in what they're going after, it makes things a little bit easier.
[Jamie]
Yeah cheers for the plug there we'll have you on again Dan that was definitely go and check that episode out on planning if you haven't already. Just wanting to go back to a term that you'd mentioned just a bit earlier which was momentum. I suppose that kind of falls into this topic. I know kind of like in the stands as a fan, it's almost... I don't know how you measure it, but it's almost like you can kind of feel momentum growing or that you can feel one side getting on top of another. You kind of get that bit of a sense. So from maybe a game insights and coaching angle, how can that maybe actually be measured and what can coaches do to maybe swing momentum in the team's favour?
[Dan]
We've done a lot of work on this recently around the Euros and it was really interesting some of the stuff that came out. So when we go and speak to different course developers, different coaches working in the game, fans, whatever it is, you will get a million and one different definitions of momentum. And the word feeling keeps coming into it. Now, how do you measure a feeling? A lot of them are qualitative, asking people, how are you feeling right now? Asking your players, you know, do you feel like we're about to score? Isn't it certainly not something you can do. So there are a lot of companies trying to measure momentum, if you like. And one thing that we're seeing more and more often, if you watch whatever games, you'll see that momentum chart. Now I challenged who actually knows what that means and I had to do a little bit of looking myself and often what you'll see is a way of measuring will be how many times do we have the ball in the final third compared to you within across the game and it flows and you'll see it but the difficulty with that is it doesn't really give you an idea as to which team's on top because you could have the ball in the final third but you're not really doing anything with it compared to a team that get in the final third and score quickly. If you look at Chelsea and Man City in the WSL, they played against each other recently, but across the season it's really interesting. Man City spend a lot of time in the final third and therefore it looks like they have a lot of momentum, whereas Chelsea, when they get the ball in there, they're going to goal and getting shots away as quickly as they possibly can. And if you're a fan watching that, that would feel to me a lot more like Chelsea have a lot of momentum, which is the opposite of what the momentum chart says. And if we look at the FA Cup final last year, one thing is, there is that feeling of momentum. Are we about to score? Or are our opposition about to score? And how can we get that as a coach and get that as a team? Some of this can be planned, okay? So when we look at the FA Cup final from last year Manchester United against Manchester City and Man City had a lot of the ball. If you look at the momentum charts Man City had a lot of the momentum supposedly but actually if you watch what happens when Man City lose the ball, I think both goals scored were from counter-attacks, they were very comfortable sitting, being really organised, being hard to play through and then relying on really quick, fast forward players. And we always hear the saying, think forward, look forward. So when they're getting the ball back they're going forward really quickly and actually causing more problems than what Man City were doing. So when we look at it, momentum for a coach and for a team may be very, very different depending on the type of players that you have available. So Everton would be another example of this, certainly last season when they would rely on their defensive qualities and they'd be okay with the opposition having the ball. Whereas for a Man City you might be more reliant on individual player ability. So I mentioned Jeremy Doku earlier, this might be for Man City or for Belgium in the Euros that we've seen. You could feel momentum building when they got the ball to him more often. So if he was out of the game for a while, you didn't really feel anything. But then when he was getting the ball and running at players, the fans were getting off their seats and you could feel that that goal might be coming. But it is just a feeling. So what happens then if the other team go and score? So if you concede when you feel like you've got this period of momentum, psychologically it can be really tough for players. But as a coach, how you observe that and how you let that dictate your tactics and strategies and dictate what you're looking at and what you're seeing can be very difficult. So again, come back to just have a plan, what is it you're looking for? And if you're able to identify where on the pitch certain players or where the opposition might be causing you problems, you might be able to kind of kill that momentum before it happens. So in that case with Jeremy Doku, if you have a plan beforehand where okay we're going to double up, we're going to get two players on him or we're going to try and lock play down the opposite side so they can't get the ball to him, might limit the opportunity to build that momentum.
[Jamie]
It is strange isn't it, It is very much a feeling but I suppose for coaches that are listening this on a match day at grassroots is it still we've talked a lot about that in the professional game there but is it still quite a similar thing transferable in terms of you know just seeing what are the opponents doing, how are they maybe finding success and then just thinking they're gaining momentum here a little bit like because they keep getting through we need to find a way to stop them to kind of kill that momentum and maybe swing it in our favour then.
[Dan]
That'll come into it but I think also being aware of what your players can and can't do and what you expect of your players is really important because we all watch football at the top level, even grassroots coaches, they're watching more Premier League and more professional football than they are grassroots football generally, but what we can't do is see that and expect our players to be able to do that. So if you're looking at grassroots, we know that transition happens more to grassroots football than it does at the professional level. So players are going to make mistakes, we're going to see that, players are going to lose the ball. As coaches it's really important that we know that's going to happen, so don't get frustrated by it. Maybe look and see the reaction of your players to those moments. Your players aren't going to be able to pass the ball in the same way as Kevin De Bruyne is, So can we praise them for when these things happen? And maybe be aware of momentum shifts potentially in terms of how can we help our players. So if we can see the players are really struggling, we might need to put some strategies in place to support them. Or it might be, okay, I'm going to observe and focus my attention on this one player to see how they're solving a particular problem. Because that can be really important to especially check in and see how our players are developing. So it might be that Very often we would look at the actions that a player does rather than the actions that they don't, but I would always encourage coaches to think more around the intent. So can you see what that player is trying to do? What problem is the game presenting that player? And how are they trying to deal with it? Are they coming up with new strategies? And if we look at Luminium Mal, who many people hadn't really heard of until the last season and coming into the Euros, when he came up against Luke Shaw in the final, all tournament he was taking players on 1v1 assisting, he did four really good assists all from the same sort of area around the box, but when he came up against Luke Shaw, Shaw was winning every single 1v1, couldn't get down the line. So as a coach I'm then looking at that and going okay well what's he going to do now, this is really interesting, He's not getting the success that he usually does. So has he got a different strategy? What's he going to do? Is he going to look to combine with his teammates or do something a little bit different? And what he started to do was come inside. And by doing that, that gave Luke Shaw the question of, okay, do I go inside or do I pass him on? And all of a sudden, you're Malva's taking up these little pockets and creating goal-scoring opportunities and causing a lot of problems for England. So if you're watching your team on a Saturday or Sunday, Are you able to identify some of these things and some of the problems that the opposition are posing your players? But more importantly, what are your players doing about it? And are you going to keep them in that situation and see if they can figure it out? But at some point you might have to help them. You might have to help them by moving their position, by giving them some coaching information, et cetera. But it can be very easy to, as a coach, want to give your knowledge straight away. So I've seen this, you must do this because he or she is doing this, but actually you'll learn a lot more about your players if you're able to step back, observe them, and see how they're coming up with answers to the problems that the game's presenting.
[Jamie]
Yeah, I think that's a really powerful sort of thing to say as well, like just literally giving, you know, it's their game, give them a chance to play and solve the problems that they're being presented with. If they need help, that's when we can potentially go in and give them help, but give them a chance to figure it out first and foremost.
[Louise]
How can coaches use substitutes wisely to help them with all of this, would you say?
[Dan]
Yeah, so substitutes leads really nicely to what we're saying there about letting players solve game problems themselves. It can be very easy to think that player's not performing, so therefore we're going to take them off and replace them with somebody else. But from a gaining and killing momentum perspective, the fact that you can have five subs now makes a big difference. So you can change your entire front line if you want. You can start the game with 11 players and then change five of them. So that's a massive amount that you can change, and especially for the opposition as well. So if they're making all of these changes as a coach it can be very difficult to almost not lose control. You might think that okay well we've got five subs so that means that I can manoeuvre and manipulate the game whatever way I want, change my tactics and strategies etc. But that's a lot, that's almost half of your team and then you've got the opposition doing the same so as a coach it can be very easy to get lost and caught up with that unless you have a really clear strategy beforehand for okay if this happens and we might do this but again it can be difficult when you get really regimented within that so how do you then adapt to things that you might not have expected. In terms of gaining and killing momentum for your players we see this all the time and you'll see it very rarely do you see a lot of time wasting if you like in the first half of a game but as the game state changes when you go 1-0 up it might be that you start to take a little bit longer over free kicks, goal kicks, etc throw-ins and we've seen that so there is a trend that teams who are winning games do take longer over these things. Or it might be that you get the ball back in play quicker because you're looking to control possession or you're looking to catch the opposition out. So if the ball goes out of play and you can see them setting up in their defensive structure, you might want to get the ball back in quickly and take advantage of potential gaps within the opposition shape. The ability to change players as substitutes, and we like to use the word finishers, that's a Vinnie Halsall special, that one, I'm sure you've had him on the podcast many times, is your finishers. So are you bringing on players who are going to add something different? So are you bringing on a player who's going to pose a completely different problem for the opposition or are you bringing on a player because they're fresher and you know you're whatever player you bring them on for is looking a little bit fatigued and therefore you're not getting the maximum out of them anymore. So the reasons for changing things are very different and that can feed into momentum as well. So if you're bringing on a more attacking team, if the scores are level and all of a sudden you're taking off a holding midfield player and bringing on an extra striker, the fans see that. The fans get excited by that because they know, okay, now we're going forward. But your opposition also know, okay, they've made this change, that might leave them a little bit vulnerable elsewhere. So it's always a game of chess and how you do it really, but ultimately with momentum, I always like to think of it as how do you get your real game changes and your best players doing what they do best more often and the more you can do that the better but that's always going to be dictated to by your, by the game state. So if you're ahead in a game like I mentioned earlier you might want to look to control possession a little bit more. That might come from the bench, especially now with squad sizes. If you look at Chelsea and Jamie, I know you're a Nottingham Forest fan, the amount of players that have come through Nottingham Forest this past couple of years, they're now seeing a lot of success, but that provides many different options to bring on a different type of player. But then the flip side of that, if we look at Spain from the summer's Euros, they were really interesting because up to the final, they used every single available substitute, every single one. And what that allowed them to do was keep their players fresh as you're going through a tournament. So that's another thing we haven't mentioned in game state. We talk about in game state, but where does that one match fit within the entire context of a season, for example. It might be the last match of the season. You're not going to change position. You've already won the league, so you might be able to change your team around. Or it might be we're fighting for relegation. We need to win this game. So that's going to really impact things. But when we look to Spain, like I said, they used every single substitute all the way up to the final. That allowed them to keep players fresh. What they didn't have so much of was a massive variation of different playing styles on the bench. What they did have was players who really understood what they're trying to achieve and the way in which they play and they don't generally change too much. At times they might go a little bit more direct but being able to replace players like for like means that if you've got good players and a good structure and you have full belief in that system, your players have full belief in it, then you can almost gain momentum as you're going along through a season because you're getting better at the things that you're doing consistently. And having players on the bench who can come in when other players are tired, fit into the same role, can be really useful. So you'll see lots of different strategies in terms of substitutes. England, for example, ability to bring on different players. And impact games, we've seen it against the Netherlands with Olly Watkins' goal. So bringing on Olly Watkins and Cole Palmer had a really big impact on the game, two very different types of player. Actually that's a player we're now seeing who can change things himself. Cole Palmer can play in lots of different ways, he can play that possession game but also he can be really ruthless in playing through the opposition's defence.
[Jamie]
It's really an interesting topic, we could probably do a podcast alone just on substitutions because just to recognise the best time to do it, there's so much context, I mean if you're even thinking from a grassroots perspective, there might be people who are playing with roll-on roll-off subs. So there's even more than that five that they can potentially get. Or of course, you might not have the numbers, so you might only have one or two, so then you're there limited, but then you've got the game state, what's happening, what's momentum, all to consider as well. So there's quite a lot to weigh up on this, isn't there?
[Dan]
Yeah, and again, grassroots is very, very different to performance at the top level of the game. Top level of the game, we mentioned there the Euros, if you leave players out, you're generally not too concerned because you're trying to win the game. You're going to do what it takes to win the game and put players into the positions that you want them to be in to achieve what you're trying to achieve. At grassroots, I would always come back to fun. Are your players having fun? And it's easy to think about kids here but also if you're adult grassroots, do your players want to play? You ask any substitute. Nobody's turning up on a Saturday or Sunday morning going, oh I'm really excited to sit on the bench today and just do this all game. Making sure you're getting rotation, they're having fun, maybe playing players in different positions as well so it doesn't just have to be okay this player is a fullback so they're either playing fullback or they're on the bench but can you rotate players within their positions, give them different experiences, that's always going to be important. But again, it's easy to get caught up in the game, there's that much going on, especially at Grattsroost's level with the amount of transitions, the amount of shots, goals and the amount of time the ball's out of play, etc. Then that really impacts. So roll-on, roll-off substitutes are really valuable there. But actually try and have a plan for, OK, we're going to put these players on at this time, these players on at this time and try and give, I would always try and encourage at that level, you know, equal time to players. And that might not be within one game, but certainly across the season, you can't you average it out to make sure that your players are having equal time, equal opportunity to play and enjoy themselves.
[Louise]
And if we're thinking about players themselves, how can coaches support them to recognise and respond to different game states, phases and moments during a match?
[Dan]
Yeah, we talked a lot about being able to observe how your players respond to these, but actually putting your players in game realistic situations is really important and there's no better place for that than the game itself. So that might be on a Saturday or Sunday morning just playing regular games and we often see you know if there's kids stood on the sideline can you get another little game going with the opposition that might be one way. Working through the week in terms of in training to expose your players to different scenarios is really useful so and communicating your game plan So we always talk a lot about what you do on the pitch, but actually away from the grass as well in terms of analysis sessions or off-field coaching, you know, can you get some of your messages into your players that way so they know, okay, if we go 1-0 up we don't change the way we play. We will keep doing what we do. If we go 2-0 up then we might look to change. So as long as your players are clear and everyone's consistent in that messaging then it makes it much easier.
[Jamie]
And match scenarios maybe something that could be quite helpful at training as well, just thinking like, you know, you say there's five minutes left in a cup final, you're 1-0 down or you're 1-0 up, just see how the players respond.
[Dan]
Yeah, it's a really good way of doing it. What I think we can get caught in the trap of is saying to the players, okay, five minutes left, cup final, you're 1-0 down, you've got to get back in the game. I think if you say that to a player, if you say that to me as a player, I'm going, no I'm not, I've not conceded a goal, so how am I at 1-0? So I would probably encourage coaches to create an environment that allows that to happen naturally. So maybe you make it, you know, the game starts as 0-0 and you maybe tweak something or you make it more difficult or it might be, yeah, where you start the game makes it easier for a team to score and then once that happens then you can stop it and say okay now you're 1-0 up you're 1-0 down this is the situation now the players then buy into it a little bit more because it's real and they have lived that situation rather than simply saying no you're 1-0 up or 1-0 down and we're going to start from this moment, I think it just becomes a little bit more game realistic.
[Jamie]
And a bit more, yeah, and a bit more authentic isn't it really? Like, yeah, maybe just playing that game sort of thing and then when there's a moment, when something's happened, then maybe trying to translate and see how they react.
[Dan]
Or it might be you're playing a small number practice and just keep an eye on the score of if you're doing a little 5v5 keep an eye on the score and then transfer that score over to to a bigger game because now they have got a lead that they need to hold.
[Louise]
Yeah makes sense.
[Jamie]
Yeah I like that.
[Louise]
Is it important to understand how game state, phases and moments and even the environmental atmosphere can affect players and their decision making?
[Dan]
Yeah, of course. We're going to make different decisions based on the state of the game, that's a fact. So if we're 3-0 up, for example, we might take less risks than what we normally would because we don't want to give the ball to the opposition. So we might not play forward just as much as what we would, but if we're trailing in a game we might need to take a little bit more risk with our passes and play forward a little bit more, try and get the ball in behind. For example, where you're playing can have a really big impact as well and it might impact sort of the players you expose to certain situations. So for example, if you're going away from home against a team who have a really lively lively crowd, That might be a great opportunity to look at the type of players that you have and the personalities that you have available, but who's really motivated by that and who's, yeah, who's going to step up and be a leader in those moments when you're maybe trailing away from home and the fans are loud and all of a sudden you can't get into that groove and that rhythm that you normally would or have you got players who are really quite consistent and the crowd almost doesn't matter, the state of the game doesn't matter, they've got complete trust in their ability in terms of what they do. We've seen lots of examples, we spoke earlier about a team going, you know, bottom of the league, going to play top of the league, that might be one example, but it can also go the other way. So if you look at from a fans perspective, if a team's really struggling and we've seen it in the Premier League and we see it all the time, if a team's really struggling and they're playing at home the opposition might think, do you know what, we're gonna go all out from the start, we're gonna try and get an early goal, use that hostile environment against that team and all of a sudden that team's then being put under pressure by their fans and they're starting to take more risks because their fans are telling them to kick it long etc and that can be really disruptive but being able to understand and observe and recognise what our players do and The decisions they make under really high pressure is really important. So do we see consistencies in those players or do we see players doing things slightly differently and really reactive to what's going on?
[Jamie]
Is there anything that coaches can do to maybe help players develop the ability to kind of deal with all the emotions that the game brings, the atmosphere, and kind of give them the ability to cope with it but also read the game and adapt to how it's moving?
[Dan]
Yeah, true training environment is really important here as well. So, an interesting one that we've looked at recently is, if you look at Barcelona, Barcelona women, they consistently win Champions League etc. And they're consistently miles ahead, miles ahead of everybody else in their league. So, we're looking at it and going, well, if their league fixtures aren't hugely competitive how are they able to go and compete at the very very top level of the game, the Champions League, if they're not getting that regular competition. But then when you speak to coaches and look at their training sessions it is really intense. And the same can be said for for a man city etc. The training during the week when you're constantly up against the best players in the world then that's where you get that from, that pressure. So pressure can come in lots of different ways. It could be the game state where you've got to win the game and I can guarantee you all of those practices will be competitive. If you speak to any player, regardless of whether they're grassroots, etc, they want to have fun, right? But also they want to win. Of course they do. If you speak to any player, they want to win that game. No one's going into a game thinking, oh I don't really care about the result. As a coach, we've got a judy from a player development and fun point of view to make sure that's happening, but the players want to win the game. So that's, I can guarantee, that's the case at the top level of the game where every single session is competitive. You've got two sides, they want to win those games, whether it's small sided, full sided, whatever. But also, if I don't perform well, I know I've got somebody who might just come and take my place.
[Jamie]
Just looking at the time, we've kept you for quite a while Dan, so thank you very much for that, it's been a great discussion. If we can kind of look back at everything that we've discussed so far, can you kind of summarise the key top tips that you want listeners or anybody watching this to take away from this episode?
[Dan]
Yeah, always have a plan, So plan your observations, plan what you're trying to achieve within a game. But when we're talking about game state, phases, moments, be aware that it's going to change as the game goes on. Games ebb and flow and one minute you might be ahead, the next minute you might be behind, or you might be dominating possession, getting lots of chances, and then you'll have a phase where that changes. So are you able to recognise what your players do in those moments? Look for those consistencies and look for how your players solve problems, Or are you just putting them in the same situation over and over again that they almost become robots and don't have the opportunity to develop that problem solving skill themselves? And then how can you use competitiveness in a really positive way to help with those moments?
[Louise]
Brilliant. And if you were to give coaches a challenge to kind of start to put some of these things into practice or start thinking about it in a different way, what would you suggest that they do?
[Dan]
Like I mentioned, their competitiveness. So I think the small side of games are really useful for, first of all, practicing core skills and getting the opportunity especially with younger players to just strike a ball and build relationships and within those little twos and threes or or just build those individual tactics to try and gain an advantage over their opponent. I always think the small side of games are great and actually when we talk about small sided games we do often talk about like the frequency that gives you to perform these core skills but actually if you look at the 11v11 game or 7v7 game whatever your team plays you will see those situations those small sided games happening all the time across the pitch. So if you look at an 11v11, very often it's just a series of 1v1s. Or at times you can stop it and there's almost like a game within the game where you can draw a box or a square around a certain section of the pitch and you will see a 3v3 practice going on. So being aware that actually when we're working on these small number practices that can transfer into the bigger game.
[Louise]
And I guess they're really useful opportunities for the coach to kind of observe how the players are reacting in all those situations. Yeah exactly.
[Jamie]
Right well we are coming up to the end of the show now Dan but we've just got time for our Swift Session feature.
[Louise]
Yep so another little game for you where we ask you to explain a session idea to us in 30 seconds. It is tricky, but we think you can do it. You up for the challenge?
[Dan]
Yeah, we'll give it a go.
[Louise]
Okay, once again when the music starts you can begin.
[Dan]
So the game is Chaos. When we watch it, there's so many transitions that happen in the game's chaos, I would encourage that chaos and encourage that competitiveness. So one thing I would like to do is play a small set of games and play a massive variety of things and keep the score and add up the scores as you go along. So you might have a 3v3, you might have 7v7 etc or you might have one goal shooting into a big goal, another into two mini goals, or it might be you play underloaded, overloaded, matched up and then combine all the scores so then the players are dealing with different game phases and moments as you're going along.
[Louise]
Sounds fun, chaotic fun.
[Dan]
I love chaos.
[Jamie]
Brilliant. Thanks for that, Dan. It's been a pleasure having you back in the studio with us after a long time. It's been great listening and diving into your story, but then also into this topic as well. I've really enjoyed it and I'm hopeful that the listeners have as well. There's so much to discuss we probably could have got another hour in and another episode out of this so hopefully you've enjoyed it.
[Dan]
Yeah I've really appreciated it, it's been great chatting to you both.
[Jamie]
Right well that is all we do have time for today, but don't forget to check out the description for the transcription of this episode and for all the links to our platforms. There you'll be able to click through to the England Football Community and this is where you can post your coaching questions for us to discuss on the podcast or just simply to connect with loads of wonderful coaches.
[Louise]
Yep, we'd love to help you out with your coaching questions so please do check it out. We'll be back soon with another episode of Coachcast so if you haven't already, hit subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode. From all of us at England Football Learning, thanks for listening.