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[Jamie]

Hello and welcome to Coachcast by England Football Learning, the coaching podcast that brings you insight from people across the game. As always, we're Jamie and Louise, and today we're joined by Lee Brown who's returning to CoachCast to talk about returning to training and getting players active again. Well, Lee, welcome back to the show. How are you?

[Lee]

I'm good and yourselves?

[Louise]

Yeah, good. Thank you. Thanks for joining us again. It's great to have you with us. So for anyone that hasn't tuned in into an episode that you've been on before, can you just give our listeners a reminder of what it is that you do?

[Lee]

Help coaches. That's the easiest version of it. So I work regionally, I cover kind of a, an East Midlands area and yeah, help coaches and support and develop coaches that's the easiest way to explain it.

[Louise]

Brilliant thank you.

[Jamie]

Brilliant and as you know we always like to help coaches at the top of the show so we like to give them some really good top tips before because they might just be on the way to training and need some top tips to help them with it.

[Louise]

So we're gonna give you 30 seconds we're going to ask for as many top coaching tips as you can in those 30 seconds. Are you up for that?

[Lee]

Yes let's go.

[Louise]

Okay when the music starts you can begin.

[Lee]

I'm gonna give you three P's one is personality one is practice and the other one is playing time like bring your personality to coaching give the kids the personality or the young people or the adults the personality that they need, make sure your practices are relevant to the game and the other one is playing time, give them playing time so they develop and learn how to play the game.

[Louise]

Perfect, no need for any more time.

[Jamie]

I love that, really concise.

[Lee]

What did I get, 28 seconds maybe less?

[Jamie]

You absolutely smashed that. Perfect. There was about 10 seconds left I think.

[Louise]

Really good and punchy. Really good and punchy,

[Jamie]

nice and concise, easy to take away. Now Lee, it's currently pre-season when this goes out. So kind of looking back at your experiences as a coach and also developing other coaches, what does this period of the year look like for you?

[Lee]

Yeah, it's a really interesting question because I think the first thing we go to when somebody says pre-season training is it's got to be about fitness and it's got to be about running and preparing us for games in that sense or preparing us for the season ahead in that sense ahead. But there's a lot more to it than that. So how do we want our teams to play? That would be a big question. And do our training sessions and does that period of time over the summer help us to be able to do that? How do we build connections with new players? How do we make sure we're connected to the existing players? So there's still some questions to maybe unpick as we go through the podcast that I think are really important to this period over the summer where we're kind of preparing for the next season.

[Louise]

Do you have any top tips to help coaches with training in pre-season?

[Lee]

From my perspective is maybe don't go into it with a perspective of this is all about fitness. That would be my big one. Like granted, that might be really important if you're working in the adult element of the game. But that doesn't mean to say that there's not importance on other things. So how do you develop relationships amongst your players that are new, potentially? How do you integrate them with players that are existing? If you've set up a new team, how do you create some kind of working environment with the mums and dads and adults alongside it? In terms of the players, how do you, yeah, how do you build those relationships from a practice perspective? So I think there's some really key things to put into the training sessions. So yeah, the key is not to consider, right, this is about fitness, but actually have like a holistic view of what outcomes you might want from that period of time.

[Jamie]

It's quite a lot to potentially think about there as you come to pre-season. So just thinking off the top of my head is a question in terms of what's maybe the most common problem that coaches might actually have with pre-season?

[Lee]

I think that's a big question for each coach in terms of the problem I guess people being on holiday would be a really big one like it's rare regardless of the format that you play, whether you get a full squad or a full group of players at training. And I think that's a big challenge. So on that basis, my advice would be to stick to some key principles. So if it's something that you want to, I don't know, get the ball into wide areas and put crosses in, just make sure that's a consistent message that you give to your players. If it's a case of you want them to help each other out when they make mistakes, because that's going to happen, make sure that's a consistent message that you get. So if that is a problem that, yeah, I think we'll have people being on holiday, people not being at training and not getting consistent numbers, maybe keep your messages really consistent. So if they do miss training sessions, they can pick things straight back up and there's no kind of, yeah, ambiguity as to what you want to achieve as a coach in that period.

[Louise]

Yeah, you can see that being really helpful for people know where they are when they turn back up to training. With players returning after potentially a long break, what should the focus be when they first get back into training?

[Lee]

My big thing is around connections. Like how do we speak about what they've done if they've had a break over that summer period of time? How do we make sure that, yeah, they feel comfortable? There could be a new player that they don't know. Do they see that person as a threat? For example, are they going to take my place in the squad? Have we got a bigger squad and therefore my game time could be a little bit less, even though it might be even, it could be slightly less. I haven't seen one of my best mates for maybe six weeks. How do I give them opportunities to talk with each other, to chat with each other, to talk about the new signing that their favourite team have made or a player that they've lost or the experience that they've had if they've had a summer break on holiday, wherever that may be. So my big, big thing as a coach and my advice to other coaches is really focus on some of those connections, some of those relationships between the players, but also between you and the players, between you as a coach and the parents as well. So you create that thriving kind of learning environment and that environment where the players want to turn up every week, the mums and dads bring in if it's kids along, they understand what you're trying to achieve. If it's an environment where you don't have that parental support and you're working with senior players, some older players, that they're really clear on some of the outcomes that you want to try and achieve over the, I guess the first four to six week period, if you've got that period of time. So yeah, I would definitely have a huge emphasis on relationships and connections and building and developing the environment that you want to go into the following season.

[Jamie]

Yeah, that social corner is so massive, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't matter what age players that you're actually coaching, but just think in particular with the younger ones if they've not seen their friends for quite a while over the summer break, summer holiday, you know, as coaches we might have plans in terms of what we want to get across and stuff like that and diving straight in but actually the players just want to catch up and have a bit of a laugh and you have that social element as well as obviously getting active as well.

[Lee]

Absolutely, absolutely. So I guess it's then coupling things together. So if you want them to kind of get active and you want that the physical element of it where you're trying to the fitness bit as people would call it and you want players moving how do you then couple a practice up together where the players have got to engage and talk to each other and work together, but at the same time, they're gonna have to run or dodge and weave or twist or turn or slow down or speed up, all those sort of things associated with a game of football. So coupling a practice, which has got some physical returns in it as well as ones where you're building relationships with players are quite crucial. The other element to that would be that if you are giving players practices where they're a parent, is there opportunities for you as a coach to go and speak with mums and dads on the side of the pitch if you're working with young players. So you're building relationships there. So it's thinking about the practices that you provide. The outcomes could be very much around social, the connections, the relationships. There'll be elements of the players are going to have to run in those practices or move in different ways and if you give them autonomy to take part in the practice there might be opportunities to speak with mums and dads, people on the sides of the pitch, it may be that there's players that are injured or can't train or are late for training or don't train, you can have conversations with if you're working with adults. So it's thinking about, yeah, how do you frame shapes and practices, some activities for your players that have got multiple outcomes?

[Jamie]

Last time you were on the podcast, Lee, you spoke about movement skills and it was a really good episode. I think one of the clips that actually went out on it was in terms of like the importance in your opinion of like including tag games in training and thinking about players coming back from holiday and they might not have been too active over a long period of time presuming tag games brilliant for that sort of social development but then also the movement skills as well which you talked about before.

[Lee]

Absolutely, so playing things like Stuck in the Mud or playing Bulldogs. The one, here's one, my daughter came home last week and said she wanted to play Toilet Flush. I was like what on earth is a Toilet Flush? It's basically a game of tag where you stick your arm out and somebody pushes your arm down to flush the toilet and you can go and play again. That's stuck in the mud in my world. But that was a new one for me. But it's still stuck in the mud a game of tag. And of course I had to play it in the garden at home and I'm running around and almost spoil a hamstring but no I'm running around and trying to play this game of toilet flush, as she was called, but it's a tag game. And she was dead keen to play it, but it's a tag game. So yeah, absolutely going back to the question, if you want players to develop some of their movement skills, and I think in a second we'll talk about like growth spurts, but certainly to kind of refine, develop, reconnect them with different types of movements. So you're dodging, you're weaving, you're twisting, you're turning, you're accelerating, you're decelerating, all those kind of things are really important for those type of games. So yeah, I'll be a huge advocate and providing players of any age with those type of activities.

[Louise]

And I think it's really nice for people being creative, like you just mentioned there. A lot of people might picture pre-season training as running laps around a pitch to build fitness, but there are so many better things that you could do, as we've kind of just discussed.

[Lee]

Yeah, I think on that, my take would be, if you want good 400 metre runners, get them to do laps around the pitch. If you want good sprinters get them to do runs back and forth across the pitch. If you want good football players get them to play football but make sure that there's some physical outcomes as well so yeah I think just be very careful with the physical activity that you give players because they might not necessarily be relevant to what the game is going to require.

[Louise]

Yeah, no that's really good point and I think it's like the same in a lot of fitness. I know when I do stuff in the gym it's kind of you almost do the same motion that you're going to be doing rather than doing something completely different because that's why you're going to pull a muscle or something. In the movement skills episode you mentioned fundamental locomotive and football specific movement is it just vital that any activity which allows players to experience these would be a good one to use in pre-season?

[Lee]

Yeah, I think going back to the tag games, yeah, making, yeah, the dodging, the weaving, the twisting, turning, but then you've got the mechanics of movement as well. So there might be some straight line things to, yeah, straight line sprints if you like around the mechanics of the movement but certainly yeah the dodging, weaving, twisting, turning, jumping, crawling, all those kind of things around the movement skills would be really important. The football specific stuff then starts to come out in your practices. So that's when you need a ball in play. So as soon as you start putting a ball into it, you're then going to get some movements which are really specific for football and striking a ball and receiving a ball and moving in ways to outwit defenders, moving in ways to create space. So then you start thinking about, yeah, what movements are associated with football in the game and that's when you get a ball in play. So yeah there's two elements of that is practices which have got a specific outcome around movements and the physical element of it. They'll also have other returns not just the physical, we spoke about the connection of relationships but it's thinking about well when we introduce the football what does that give our players from a movement perspective but then you can start to think about a football perspective as well. So now we've got the social element of it, the physical element of a practice and then we're thinking about some of the technical or tactical element of it based on the practice that we give our players. So you're starting to build things up slightly with the players.

[Jamie]

Just thinking, I probably should have asked this a little bit earlier to be fair, what is the to kind of look out for to help players be mentally ready to come back to play? Like I say they've probably had that break, had that holiday, I mean they're excited to see the friends and whatnot and to get back involved but mentally prepared to sort of be back to return and what can coaches maybe look out for and how can they help players with that?

[Lee]

I think the one around the psychological element of the game is an interesting one because if you are, I'll call it training over the summer. So you might've had a little break, you're training over the summer. My question would be, when does that flip into what I would call pre-season training, preparing the players for the upcoming season? And training over the summer may be very much, maybe during the month of July, for example, if you're working with young players, it may be a case if you work in the adult game and you just want to keep the players together because you don't want to lose them or you want to include new players into it and that's a way of doing it. But I would go, that element from a psychological perspective would be around that engagement with the players and keeping them kind of active in football to a certain degree. I then go, when do you flip it into this pre-season mode and we're preparing for the following season? I'll be quite cautious around trying to have that mentality for the youngest players. I think just let them play the game quite raw, if you like, to a certain extent. But I think, yeah, still that training over the summer, the fun kind of activities then starts to flip into, actually, we're doing a little bit more technical, tactical work with our players to prepare them for, yeah, the first game of the season and beyond. So I think the psychological bit, going back to a point earlier, would be how do I want my team to play? If it is young players and I want them to be really creative when they have the ball individually, we'll just make sure at some stage when you're starting to think about, okay, well, we're getting ready for the first game. How do we make sure we give players lots of the ball to be really creative on it? If we want the players to work in pairs and play little one-twos or wall passes, as we might call it, make sure we have practices where they're going to get lots of opportunities to do that. If it's a case of you're working at the senior game, adults, the top end of youth football and you've got a really quick striker that you're putting into a position and you want them to run in behind defenders, well give them opportunities to do that. Give players opportunities to play longer passes or defence splitting passes where players are going to have to get on the end of it. So I think the mental side of it as you framed it Jamie or the psychological side of it as we might call it, I think maybe just yeah consider when is it training over the summer, when does it become pre-season and also when is that age specific as well because I wouldn't want to advise coaches to you're working with the sevens eights, right, it's preseason training, you've got to do all this sort of work. I would keep maybe messages consistent with those players, but maybe think about when you're starting to get to your kind of top end niner side football into eleven a side football, how you might develop some concentration skills amongst the players, how you might develop their confidence to apply whatever you want them to apply. If it is, I use the example, getting the ball into wide areas and putting crosses in the box, at what point do we get our players into that mindset, if you like? And I would just, yeah, as coaches, be creative with that, make that an individual decision for coaches, but maybe just have that conscious mindset of what's training over the summer if you're keeping them together and what is preparing them for the season ahead, your pre-season training, as you might frame it, and what does that look and feel like to you as a group.

[Louise]

If you had to give one top tip to coaches to help them make their pre-season training fun but effective, what would it be?

[Lee]

Question every player asks when they turn up for training is when are we playing a match? And if that's the question that they ask, why don't we just give them what they need? Now that doesn't mean to say that we go, right, there's 14 of you, go and play seven a side the whole time. But what they're asking for is that they want a method of scoring at both ends of the pitch and they want players to compete against. So if you've got 14 players, you might have a 2v2 and a 5v5. Of some description, you might have a 5v4 and a three versus two with mini goals or a target player or a target zone or a goalkeeper and a goal you can have different scoring methods but the players are asking for a competition against the different group of players and they're asking to be able to score at both ends. So if you've got that within your practices, whether that be odd numbers, even numbers, so like matched up, overloads, underloads, give the players that opportunity. So we're kind of giving them what they want to a certain degree and coupling it with what we believe they need as coaches. So that would be a bit of a tip that I would give on that one.

[Louise]

Yeah, it's a really good simple way of kind of dealing with that as well.

[Jamie]

Have you ever used like other sports during like pre-season training at all?

[Lee]

Absolutely. So it could be that you have a game of like handball. So that might connect with some principles of the game so how you create space if I was to use handball and pass the ball with my hands the ball is going to move probably move a little bit slower than if I pass it with my foot so in terms of giving players an opportunity to plan out their movements to give them an opportunity to figure out how I create space, it might be a game of handball that you use. I sometimes play a little game with younger players called football cricket, I'll come on to that later on, but it could be a little fun game where you use other sports in a way. So it could be a game of football tennis as an example. During the summer, really hot, you don't want the players running around loads, you're engaging them in something, a little bit of a competition as a way of scoring at both ends. Wimbledon might be on the television, they might be quite into their tennis. Yeah, little games of football tennis. So certainly, yeah, be creative and use other sports to incorporate some, yeah, some football elements or some fun elements into it. Absolutely.

[Jamie]

What would you say an ideal pre-season would look like in your view?

[Lee]

Oh, what a big question. I think that is a very personal question based on the group of players, the club, the environment that they're on, the age that they are in. So if I was working with with non-league players, that ideal preseason will look a lot different than if I was working with seven or eight year olds. The big message which I hope I'm getting across is have some clarity on what training over the summer is, if you're working with young players, and the outcomes that you want from training over the summer. And then what pre-season training, if you're going to frame it as pre-season training, what that looks and feels like depending on the age group that you're working with. So I would encourage coaches when it talks about the physical element of the game, go and do some research on the game, like how many sprints do players make during matches? If you're a midfield player, how many sprints? How often are those sprints? What's the distance of those sprints? Because that might give you some clues into some of the practices that you provide your players. So that's a very personal question. I would encourage coaches to have a really personal answer to that around the outcomes that they want to achieve on different moments of that, and also go and do some research. And if it is the physical element of the game, what are the requirements, certainly from an adult perspective, now the top end under 18s, what are the requirements physically and how do my practices look based on that research that you might do? So for me to start saying, this is the ideal training session, will be unfair on somebody listening to the podcast. So I think it's, yeah, I would be really encouraging of people making their own decisions, but making those decisions really informed to get some real clarity on the outcomes that they want.

[Jamie]

Now I like that, like I say, it's just, it is, yeah, it's an unfair question to ask in terms of, but it is in terms of like, thinking about who you're actually coaching and what's the purpose and whatnot and the really key messages to take away rather than it being sort of like an approach that everybody takes across all ages of course.

[Lee]

Absolutely, but there are some real key similarities. So there's going to be new players. So most teams I would suggest have got new players. So the consideration is how do we integrate new players? How do we reconnect players? We've spoken about that already. So that will be something that is fundamental to every group. How do we create an environment that we want to create? Is it a case of it's a winning environment, because that's the environment that we're in? Is it a participation-based environment? Is it development environment? Like what is the environment we want to create? So that's something which, yeah, building connections, building relations, everybody is going to have to do. Being really clear on the environment that you want to create is something that you're going to have to do. Be really clear on how you want to develop your players or how you want your players to play the game. That's really clear. So there's some real clear, I guess, research or really clear things that you could come up with, what those look like in training, what those look like in practice, that's a very personal thing to the coach. But yeah, have some of that clarity in place because that will start to inform some of your decisions about what you do over the summer period.

[Louise]

It's almost like setting the foundations isn't it for what you want to achieve over the season?

[Lee]

Absolutely, we're putting the foundations in and we're putting the walls on and we might be putting some windows in but actually the Yeah, the building the rest of the house is probably gonna come during the season.

[Jamie]

While we're talking about training Just feel like it's a really good idea and a good time to kind of just tell everybody who's listening or watching this about our six-week session programs that we've got that are free on the England Football Learning website for you to download. PDFs, graphics, videos there just so that if you haven't got any ideas in terms of what you want to do in training, there's free resources on our website for you to take away and for over a block of six weeks you'll be able to work on different themes that will be enjoyable that have that sort of environment there for you but then also getting those returns as well and I'm reliably told that there is a webinar that's going to if you want to learn more about these programs and how you can create one yourself there is a webinar in August which will be able to help you with that so keep an eye on our socials and our website to see how you can sign up for that.

[Louise]

Just quickly on that what would be your main piece of advice for coaches looking to create their own six-week session plans if they didn't want to use the ones that we've made?

[Lee]

My big bit of advice will be on the design of your practices linking to this training over the summer. So When we talk about training over the summer and we talk about all the things that we spoke about, the physical element of it, the social element of it, the technical element, the number of players that you have available, the space that you provide players, and the time in which they play each practice has an impact upon intensity. So if I was to do a really tight area with 10 players, let's call it a 10 by 10 area, playing a game of tag with 10 players, that's a really tight area. So the movement that I get in those is going to be different than if I have 10 players in a 20 by 20 area. So I need to recognise I'm going to get different types of movements. Same if I have a 30 by 30 area, we might have more sprints, for example, in playing tag, but you might also get more rest periods in that time. So certainly that around the six week program, consider the number of players that you are going to have, the space that you use in any given practice, and then how long that's applied for. So if I was to have 10 players in a 10 by 10 for three minutes, again, that's going to have a different intensity than I have 10 players in a 10 by 10 for 30 seconds. They might actually work a lot harder for those 30 seconds so I might work into little blocks. So yeah the three things, think about the number of players that you have, the size of the area that you are going to put those players into, and the duration that they are going to play for, because those three things will have an impact on the intensity in which they play practices. So over a six week period, you could really vary those things to benefit the players, not necessarily from a just a physical perspective but also from a technical or tactical perspective in terms of how they how they play the game.

[Jamie]

If coaches are working with younger players they may find that over the course of the summer they've grown and this is something that we highlighted, well you brought up in one of your earlier answers about growth spurts. So yeah, so they could find that maybe they've grown over the summer when they've returned and that could take them maybe a little bit of time to adapt to. So do you have any advice to help players and coaches manage this change?

[Lee]

Absolutely, The first thing is like don't worry when they turn up for training because you've had like six weeks off or a couple of months off whatever and they look like an inch taller and you're thinking if somebody put some like and feed like fertilizer on you for the grass like what's happened there like don't be concerned with that because those sort of things happen. The big bit of advice will be to recognize that because that could have an effect on somebody's confidence. So if I was the one of the better players for the want of a better phrase in the team and I was great at some of the movement skills to receive the ball and all of a sudden I've had a growth spurt, that could have an impact upon my coordination and therefore I might not be able to control the ball as well. So recognizing that as a coach and supporting somebody to go through that process as a young person to recognize they have growth spurts, one to give them some reassurance, but secondly to provide them with practices that start to refine some of those movement skills which then have an effect upon their technical skills would be really important. The other element to recognize in that is that they might have a social standing within their group in some way shape or form as one of the better players again for the want of a better phrase but they can't control the ball as well and all the rest of the players are going what's happened to to he or she over the summer what's happened there so to really recognize that it could knock somebody's confidence the the impact upon the that growth spur impact them in terms of how they perform physically, has a knock-on effect on them technically or tactically, I think they're big things to recognise. And then it's the coaches' responsibility, one, to recognise, secondly, to provide some reassurance, Thirdly, to provide some practices and activities which help them refine some of those movement skills that they may have had that they're going, why can't I do these the same anymore? So that's on the coach to support them through that process.

[Louise]

Do you have any examples of type of things that you could say to kind of reassure them or would you kind of go to the parents or how would you handle that kind of thing?

[Lee]

First thing is for coaches to go and do some research on growth spurts every single player, I say every single one, most players are going to go through some kind of growth spurt and change at some point so again I've mentioned this before that should be the coaches responsibility to find out about this because it will happen to you as a coach to find out about that. The second one is just have open, honest conversations with players. They go, look, there's a thing called a growth spurt. They might not know about it. And it might be like in adolescence, those early teenage years that it might be going through it. Girls tend to go through those growth spurts slightly earlier than boys, so that's a consideration. And go through puberty, maturation slightly earlier sometimes, but that's not an exact science, so consider those kind of things. But yeah, certainly as a coach just find out about it, find out what's this thing called a growth spurt, why does it happen? But just have open conversations with some of the young players if you're working with them to go look, there's this thing called a growth spurt, everyone's going to have one, I think you're going through one at the moment so don't worry about it, things will change, we're gonna help you through it. It then might be some quiet conversations with with mum and dad because mum and dad might not be aware of what's going on, so again it's speaking to parents, just have an open conversation, say look there's this thing called a growth spurt, are you aware of it? I feel as though your daughter or your son may be going through this. These are some of the potential effects of that could have an impact on them. Just want you to be aware of that so you can support them through it if you feel as though that's happening. Of course, it's down to mum or dad, what they think and what they feel. But certainly as a coach, just have some open conversations which show you care so it goes back to the environment again that actually you want to show the players and the mums and dads that you are there to you because you care about the the young people that you're working with if you're working with kids so yeah I think having those open and honest conversations based on developing some knowledge of them will be quite crucial.

[Jamie]

Yeah, and I think that's a really important tip, like just that awareness, having that open conversation, it's absolutely fine, and being patient as well in the actual sessions themselves if it takes a little bit of a while to maybe getting the stride, controlling the ball, whatever it may be, movement skills, whatever it may be, just having that patience and that understanding.

[Lee]

I think that's a key word, Jamie, like patience. I think if you understand this thing around growth spurts and yeah maturation and young people are going to change, patience is a huge word because if I look at it, it could be a top tip I don't know, but there's a 100% guarantee when you get to a training session that the players are not going to do what you want them to do 100% of the time. And that might be to do with this kind of growth spurt element of it, it could be to do with something else. But having patience to recognise that young people are going to be up and down in terms of their development, whether that's social, emotional, physical development, whatever it might be, they're going to have different days. And I think the word patience is really crucial.

[Jamie]

Before we kind of jump on to the next part, well kind of the next part, we've got a few more questions. I think it said if anybody wants to kind of look into like growth and maturation we do actually have an episode on it that we did with Paul Holder, I believe it was last season. Do go and check that out, That's got quite a good review on that, quite a few people's watched that. Go and have that as your starting point if you want to learn a little bit more.

[Louise]

Another change that coaches and players may face when returning for a new season is that they'll be playing a larger format of match days. What do coaches need to consider here? Is there stuff that they need to think about?

[Lee]

Absolutely. Over the summer, if you get an opportunity to train on grass and bigger spaces, use the space available. So if I've gone from five a side on a 30 by 50 pitch, and I'm now going to seven a side on a 60 by 40 pitch, clearly as you've articulated there's going to be a different size. Make sure you give your players opportunities to operate in the spaces that they are going to operate on a match day. Likewise if it is a 60 by 40 pitch at 7b7 and you're going to 9b9 it's now an 80 by 50 pitch plus you've got two extra players on the pitch give your players an opportunity to play in bigger spaces that doesn't mean to say we have pre-season friendlies all the time but if you do get an opportunity to train on the grass over the summer absolutely utilize the space that you've got available to help your players figure out how to use the space that they're going to have in training. Because the big thing will be, and we recognise that coaches have small areas, it could be you've got a five a side pitch, it could be you've got a quarter of a 3G pitch, or it may be you've got a third of a pitch, some people are lucky to have a half, in training over the winter. So in the summer, yeah, I would be a huge advocate of making sure that you give the players some of the spaces in training that they're going to have to use when it comes to a match day. So maximise the space that you have available to support the players and their appreciation and application in different spaces.

[Jamie]

How much of a change is it when you actually go up to a larger format? Like how big of a change is it for players and coaches? I think for the players they sometimes relish it because they're like,

[Lee]

oh, it's closer to 11 a side, especially when you've gone the mini soccer. My experience of speaking with coaches, and you might be listening, this might apply to you, it might not, but we'll be, oh, we're doing off sides if it goes to nine a side. And you ask the kids what's offside, they'll tend to tell you. So I would be, don't worry about things like that in terms of a change. Just make sure that you get them to apply what offside is in training, and they'll get it wrong because they're young people. So they can articulate things like what is offside, great. Can they apply it? And they'll get it wrong sometimes. So if you give them opportunities, one, to play in bigger spaces, but secondly, to play linked to some of the rule changes, if you're moving formats, certainly when it comes to nine-a-side or 11-a-side, yeah, just accept that Some of them will be able to articulate and understand what it is, but actually applying it is what they're gonna need some support with around practice. So it goes back to what we're talking about, practice design. What outcomes do I want for my practices? And am I including off sides, for example, if I'm going up to nine-a-side football, am I including off sides? Little things like the retreat rule. So that will be taken out at nine a side, which will be a mini soccer. So again, what am I doing to prepare my players? If I suddenly go from a retreat rule in training where nobody can go and press on a goal kick to almost everybody can press, that might be quite a challenge for some of the players to overcome. So it may be, if I'm moving up four mats, or let's say this season I'm playing under 10s, and the season after it I'm gonna go to nine a side, potentially, it might start to actually entrain in, I might have one or two players that don't have to be behind the halfway line when there's a goal kick, for example. So you're kind of scaffolding some of that information up to support the players in that transition. But certainly if you're working over the summer, just think about if there are any rule changes, what they are and how you make sure you apply them in training, but don't worry about them too much, like because the players will probably understand what those rules are. Could be taking throw-ins as an example. Some of them might not be great at taking throw-ins. They'll understand it. It's our job as coaches to support them through that process. So, I don't know, something on throw-ins. If you have a narrower pitch, the ball's going to go out of play more. Guess what? More throw-ins. So you get a chance to practice it so I wouldn't do a training session just on throw-ins goes back to what I said about pitch size a narrower pitch ball out of play more more throw-ins more chance to practice them So there's little things that you can consider but don't worry about them. It's just to support the players to understand them and figure them out and start to apply things.

[Louise]

We've spoken a lot about movement on the physical side of pre-season but do you think it's still important to make sure pre-season focuses on the other corners of the four corner model?

[Lee]

Yeah absolutely and I think yeah the physical bit of it is not necessarily in my opinion the most important initially and certainly not when I'm working with young players. Yes I have to consider it and I might have a different percentage if we're talking about the FA4 corner model. So we've got the social, the psych corner, and we've got the technical corner, and we've got the physical corner. So you've got all of those corners to consider. And you might put a percentage in terms of the importance on each. So it might be the social corner is 70% and the others have got 10% importance on them. And that's down to the coaches as to what they feel. If I'm working in the adult game, you might go actually the physical part of it is 60% of it and we're going to split the other percentages by the others. But that might be on any given moment and that might depend on how many training sessions you've got for example. So yeah, think about as a coach, like what outcomes do you want to achieve? And it might be like a 25% split across all of those four corners, and that's fine. But it's really key for the coach to consider, like what do I want to get from training? And what do my practices and sessions do to get me those outcomes in those four corners so yeah that absolutely has to be an important on all four of those corners I'm just mindful of working with the younger players what that looks and feels like and it's more around some of their movement skills which yeah obviously you can go back and have a listen to the previous podcast, more around their movement skills, as opposed to fitness for football, because if you develop their movement skills, that will have an impact upon them playing.

[Jamie]

Brilliant, we've spoke quite a lot in terms of, covered quite a lot in terms of talking about movement skills, the four corners, and we've talking about the six-week session programmes, growth and maturation, we've fit quite a lot into this podcast. So looking back at everything that we have discussed, what would your main top tips be for coaches to take away from this episode?

[Lee]

Yeah I think I'm going to go back to the top tips that I gave in, what did you say, 21 seconds as opposed to 30 at the start. Yeah. I think that personality is key. So bring your personality to coaching, but consider like, who do your players need you to be at any given moment? So yeah, have your own personality, but just think about them, your practices that you provide. So making sure that your practices are giving the players what they want, but coupled with what they need. And that goes, the things that I spoke about around the number of players, the size of the practice, practice area, how long you do that for, which has an impact upon intensity. So the practice and then the playing time element so actually giving them opportunity if you want them to learn how to play the game they need to be able to play the game for periods of time which support them to do it so one player playing for 60 minutes and one player playing for 30 there's going to be a disparity in what they can can yeah develop if you like so just think about the play in time so those three P's personality practice and play in time would be yeah some really key things to consider I guess that's during the summer period but then also moving forward as well.

[Louise]

And if you were to say someone to listen to this episode and they want to approach their pre-season slightly differently What would you suggest that they do first after listening to this?

[Lee]

First thing would be to think about how you are going to develop relationships and connections Like that's the most important thing in my opinion. How are you going to do that? But what do you want that to look and feel like as an environment. So be really clear on what your environment you want it to look and feel like between you and the players, between the players and the parents, between you and the parents. Make sure that you've got real clarity on the environment that you want to create and how you're going to create it. And that goes across the board, that real clarity on yeah some of your vision, some of your values, some of the things that are non-negotiable as well and some of the things that actually you can co-create with the players and the parents. So it could be codes of conduct, those kind of things. So have that in place and have that really transparent at the start. That for me would be the key. The second part would be be really clear on how you want your players to play. If it's around a performance environment, trying to win games of football, or if it's around developing the players What is it that players need based on their age and stage of development? During the course of the season, but also in the summertime So if you've got that you've created the environment you're really clear on how you want them to play, how you want to develop your players, your practices and sessions can be designed as a result of that information. So they will be, yeah, they will be the really key things that I would, the two key things that I would encourage people to do before they've even got back into working with their players.

[Louise]

Brilliant. Thank you.

[Jamie]

Well, we're coming up to the end of the show now, Lee, but that does mean it is time for everybody's favourite feature, the Swift Session. We're going to give you 30 seconds again,

[Louise]

and we're going to ask you to explain a session idea to us in those 30 seconds.

[Lee]

I'm hoping, because I only used 21 seconds, you're going to give me 39 for this part.

[Louise]

We'll see, we'll see how it goes.

[Lee]

Okay, okay.

[Louise]

When the music starts you can begin.

[Lee]

So this one I'm going to say it's a fun session over the summer and I'm going to call it football cricket. You want eight footballs on top of cones and they're gonna be the wickets. You want a square that the coach is gonna bowl from, which is a pass, and that goes towards the wickets. The players in front, two teams, one fielding, obviously one batting, have gotta smash the ball as hard as they can and they can get a six or a four and you can create the boundaries. If the ball is caught, you lose five runs. If it's valid, you lose two runs. Nobody actually gets out and everybody carries on playing to score a run. Oh, 30 seconds, I've still got 10. To score a run, every time you kick it, you have to run. And to get one run, you position a cone in a distance five to ten yards maybe up to you but to the left and the right of the wicket so they have to run round. A little fun game over the summer that the players will love especially in the hot weather.

[Jamie]

I love that nice and creative as well like As soon as you say football or cricket you can just picture it as well. So, yeah, really good idea that.

[Louise]

Really good. And even though you went over, it kind of all matched up in the end, beginning and end.

[Lee]

Thank you, you weren't already against me.

[Louise]

No way.

[Jamie]

Absolutely not. Well, thank you very much again, Lee, for joining us in the studio. Been a really good chat and hopefully everybody's taken away some really good top tips to help them with preseason and for training and getting ready for the season to begin so hopefully you've enjoyed being with us again.

[Lee]

Yeah appreciate you having me in here hopefully there's some useful snippets of information that people can take away and apply to their sessions.

[Louise]

Really good, thank you.

[Jamie]

Right, that is all we 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. As always, you can head to the England football community to post your coaching questions for us to discuss on the podcast or you can drop them in the comment section for this episode.

[Louise]

Yep, we'd love to help you out so please do send your questions in. We'll be back soon with another episode focusing on tournaments so if you haven't already hit subscribe to make sure you don't miss it. From all of us at England Football Learning, thanks for listening.