The Coach Diary Football Blog

Month: November 2012

  • Campaign for Positive Sports Coaching

    Campaign for Positive Sports Coaching

    Football Coach Mike Geoghegan wrote this article about promoting positive sports coaching. This is something I have a keen interest in and I know most of you, will also. I hope to get Mike to write some more for the blog.

    What type of coach are you?

    It’s being a hard week in work; your boss has really gotten under your skin. On the way out the door your wife asks you to carry a bag of coal in from her car. ‘Damn, I’m already late. Come on son get in the car now’. You rush to the meeting point for your team’s under 10 game. There are nine kids and about seven parents waiting for you. ‘Tough night last night’ your assistant Phil shouts at you. You swear under your breath but smile. Then it starts. ‘Sorry Mick I can’t go today, can you take Steven for me then the same for Rashid and Brian. You think ‘Some parents just don’t care about their kids not like me.’ Then off to the match in a small convoy.

    You arrive at the park at 10.15 with fifteen minutes to kick off. Of course the pitch is the other side of the park. ‘Come on lads get a move on, I won’t tell you twice.’ Your voice even sounds loud to yourself. You run across the park with the jersey bag over your shoulder. You make it with ten minutes to spare and give a quick team talk.

    ’ Remember last week we put in no effort. You are good players but you can lazy, you need to try a lot harder or you will be beaten again. Now these are no good so go out and beat them’

    Ten minutes in, two down. Your son loses the ball in midfield. ‘Shane you roar, how often have I told you not to dribble in midfield, Pass It. ‘Rashid misses an easy chance. ‘Rashid, Rashid the goal, hit the goal.’ The ref is coming towards you. What does he want? ‘Would you mind stepping back off the pitch.’’ I wasn’t on the pitch.’ ‘Yes you were and have being since the start.’ ‘Sorry, yeah ok.’ You step back off feeling hard done by. ‘I wasn’t on the pitch was I Phil.’

    ‘God, Brian is brutal today Phil says in reply. ‘Yeah your right.’ ‘Brian come off and take a rest. ‘Paul go on and see can you do better.’ It’s two one when Rashid scores. Well done Rashid I knew you could do better. Shane then tries a pass through midfield which is cut out and they score. ‘For God sake Shane I told you not to pass through midfield, down the sides down the sides. ‘Shane looks hurt but if only he would listen he could be a good player. ‘Shane head up you’re a lot better than this come on.’

    Half time whistle and your team is three one down.  You sit then down and you and Phil stand over them looking down at the. ‘Have your drinks and say nothing. ‘Look lads you’ve done nothing we worked on in training, remember our passing out wide, remember our shooting. There is no point us teaching you things if you are going to ignore them. Now get on the ball and no more silly mistakes. Shane you’re the captain, you need to do a lot better’’

    Second half no one wants the ball, no wide passing, no shots now five one and you have stopped shouting and stand with your hands on your hips.  ‘There number six is huge, couldn’t be under 10 looks at least eleven and the number three is not far behind him. ‘Phil says in your ear. ‘Always the same down here ‘you reply wishing the game was over. The ref finally blows it up.  Ok see you Tuesday on the astro.’ Back in the car with Shane.

    ‘What time did you go to bed at last night?’ ‘Half eight.’ ‘Huh you did not’ ‘I did.’ ‘Well it didn’t look like it’ ‘I did my best’ ‘Yeah.’

    You catch you refection in the rear view mirror and see your own cross face. You look at your son in the mirror staring out the window looking miserable. You get home. Mary asks you ‘How did it go? ‘Terrible’ you say. ‘How did you play? She asks Shane. ‘Terrible’ he replies. Shane goes up stairs.

    ‘Why do you coach she asks if you don’t enjoy it.’ ‘I do enjoy it.’ ‘Doesn’t look like it to me she says and goes into the kitchen. You sit in the lounge. And ask yourself the same questions. ‘Did I enjoy it?’ No. ‘Did the kids enjoy it? No. So why are we all doing it?

    You look into the mirror how have you come from being the Dad who wanted to help out, to watch his son play to the Coach who shouts gets angry at nothing has no patience. You have become the accidental Coach Bully. Sound familiar.

    Bullying of all sorts is a big issue at the moment.

    We mainly concentrate on child to child bullying including cyber bullying. What about Coach bullying. We see it all the time. I know bullying is a strong word and will cause offence and defensiveness. Of course most coaches do not set out to bully and are well meaning adults. It is however easy to become the accidental bully. There is so much stress and pressure in modern life. We all want our kids to do well. So when there is a match and it all boils down to forty, sixty or ninety minutes, sometimes we can get caught up in it and the other stresses in our lives can come through. Then we have the raised voices at kids and at refs and at opposing coaches. The problem with accidental bullying is it causes as much harm as intentional and more if it comes from a person the child trusts.

    We see it every week.

    Coaches standing on the pitch shouting at young players. Coaches using very negative phrases and harsh tones to little kids. Coaches giving half time and full time lectures to kids who cannot understand the message. The accidental bullying is not physical but can have a huge effect on the kids’ self-esteem and enjoyment of their sport. Coaches have probably the third most important adult relationship with kids after parents and teachers. Coaches have a duty of care and must remember that a single loose negative remark can be carried through life. Kids by the age of eighteen have heard 50,000 positive remarks about themselves and 250,000 negative one. We are losing a lot of kids to the game at around 13 or 14 years of age. Some say it is because kids have so many distractions, other say it is peer pressure. I suggest they give up the game because they no longer enjoy it and will no longer go just because their parents want them to. No one wants to be shouted at and feel they are disappointing someone week in week out.  Let’s as coaches help tip the scale in favour of positivity and get the kids to have fun whether they are winning or not.

     Coaches have a duty of care and must remember that a single loose negative remark can be carried through life. Kids by the age of eighteen have heard 50,000 positive remarks about themselves and 250,000 negative one.

    Here are some of my ten hints to help you become a positive coach for younger players.

    • Leave your work and home issues behind you.
    • When stressed breathe slowly and deeply.
    • Get to training and matches with time to spare
    • Don’t make statements, ask questions.
    • Smile.
    • Praise the players.
    • Enjoy the matches.
    • Ignore the results.
    • Confine your coaching to the midweek sessions.
    • Do your coaching courses.

    Become the Coach Guide and Friend not the Coach Bully.

    Article by Mike Geoghegan: Academy Director  Kildare and District Underage League and Head Coach Naas AFC

    I always like to hear your opinions. Please comment below or email me info@thecoachdiary.com If, you don’t have anything to add then please forward this on to a friend. Thanks for reading. I’m also on twitter @Coachdiary

  • Youth Academies in Europe – REPORT

    Youth Academies in Europe – REPORT

    I haven’t read this report in full yet and will review in time. I came across this piece on a friends facebook, Dave Hannigan discusses a lot of the things I have been pushing, to be introduced in Irish schoolboy soccer.

    Will the FAI ever learn from Ajax?

    The Dave Hannigan column in the evening Echo

    LEAFING through an explanation of the philosophy employed at the Ajax academy, somewhere between the part about making sure their teenage talents don’t overtrain and the stuff about all exercises involving the ball, there is the following quote.

    “When they are not training, young academy prospects should play on the street with their friends.
    “This can be crucial to a player’s development both as a person and a football player.
    “Under these conditions, they can play with no one telling them what to do and they can be totally free.
    “It is this very freedom that enhances and encourages their creativity.”

    They want them to play street football. Not just for the skills they can hone in that environment but because it will help them develop as human beings too. This is the Ajax way and, well, their record would suggest they know something about how to produce some of the world’s finest footballers.

    Following their recent heroics against Manchester City in the Champions’ League, the Dutch club, the home of total football, has been back in the spotlight. Much has been justifiably made of the fact one of their starting XIs against City cost a whopping 3.5m to assemble.
    Little wonder then Ajax was chosen as one of the clubs to feature when the European Club Association produced a report into Youth Academies in Europe. Piecing together case studies on nine of the most renowned facilities, this fascinating production, running to nearly 200 pages, compares them in terms of cost, size and success.

    Sporting and Ajax, two of the top 3!

    The statistics are astounding. At any given time, 30 per cent of the players in the Dutch First Division will have spent some of their formative years at the Ajax’s De Toekomst, a place where they are taught confidence on the ball is a priority. If the Dutch have always been celebrated for nurturing talent, they are not alone.

    As Diego Matos, Sporting Clube de Portugal’s Head of Youth Academy points out, the Lisbon outfit is the only team in the world to have developed and trained two FIFA world players of the year, Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo.
    When asked to sum up their approach to training, it’s simple: The same exercises for all age groups (starting at 7), always with the ball. Only intensity and complexity changes.

    11v11

    It should also be pointed out that none of their kids play an 11 v 11 match until they are 12 years old (u13), Imagine that! Maybe that approach explains why Portugal regularly field seven Sporting products in international matches and why 100 of the club’s graduates are currently playing professionally around Europe. All of those players came through the ranks since 2002.

    Portugal has a population just over twice that of Ireland. 

    How come one academy over there is able to produce so many more good players? Does anybody in the FAI ever wonder about that? If they don’t, they should.

    Intelligence

    There are several recurring themes in the report. One is the emphasis clubs place on honing the intelligence of their players.
    Not just their football intelligence, their actual intellectual development too. They all seem a lot more serious about academic matters than English clubs are known to be.

    • At Inter Milan and Bayern Munich, the best teenagers are not allowed train or play if they fall behind in the classroom.
    • At Standard Liege, one of the shining lights in terms of player development, the approach is all about “brain-centred learning”.
    • At Barcelona, 11 of the players in the B team today combine playing with studying at university.

    “The player should be trained in such a way that he can imagine the best solution during the action and have the technique that allows him to implement it,” reads the Barcelona entry.
    “At Barcelona, there is a strong belief that players will only succeed if sports training, education and a strong family unit are part of the players’ lives.
    “This will help them become well-balanced, elite players.”

    Problem-solving is another buzz phrase in this document. The idea is that all training is built around the players being put in positions where they have to figure out the best way forward for themselves. Anybody who has watched the Irish team in recent years can only wonder did any of the players who currently tog out for Giovanni Trapattoni ever get exposed to this kind of thinking at any stage in their development.

    Academies and the small sided game

    You wouldn’t think problem-solving is a strength looking at them in recent games. There is so much in this that it should be mandatory reading for everybody in the FAI. At Barca’s now fabled La Masia, the boys play 7 v 7 matches until the age of 13. The same at Racing Club Lens in France. While at Inter Milan, they play 9 v 9 until 13.
    These are the academies now ranked the finest in Europe and they feel the best way to groom young players is to have them playing small-sided games on small pitches. Yet in Cork, we still throw undersized 11-year-olds on to full-sized fields where the big, fast fellas dominate and the skillful kids don’t get enough touches to develop.

    Perhaps the most impressive element of the report though is how much these market leaders (and they all talk about running their academies as businesses) have in common.

    • Every club talks about prizing training with the ball over physical work until the boys are 16 or so. 
    • Every club has variations on the theme about technique being the most important attribute to hone in a young player.
    • If you’d expect that in this day and age, there’s also the matter of discipline.
    • A lot of the academies now ban tattoos, baseball caps, jewellery, dyed hair and the wearing of shirts outside the shorts.
    • Some even insisted the youngsters must wear black boots. 

    As the father of a 12-year-old with salmon pink Nike Mercurials, that might be the rule I liked the most.

    Post by Dave Hannigan – Cork Evening Echo

  • The leagues Fuel Elitism…

    The leagues Fuel Elitism…

    So this weekend we come up against a team that is a year younger than our boys. Now, this is something I have huge issue with and after my conversation with the league this evening, has turned me to writing about another big concern, in relation to football development in this country.

    When this team suddenly appeared on our fixtures, after most teams had played 6 games and more; I was interested to find out who they were and why they have suddenly been entered into our league??

    Yesterday I was told that they play SSG Sunday A (They top that league) and were moved to our league (11v11) because they were too strong for the league (11v11) they had just come from. Just in case you have lost me, this is a premier team that plays 9v9 Sunday and 11v11 Saturday age above.

    The league are fueling Elitism

    When you take into account the amount of teams playing football every single weekend the majority play the game for fun and see it as time with their friends and an opportunity to get some much needed exercise, whilst improving.  The team I coach, play 3 leagues down from Premier, most of the kids in this league could be late bloomers but are not premier level players just yet and I now most have the desire of playing at a much higher level. However, most play for enjoyment that team sports brings.

    Currently the games every weekend are fairly even and the kids are at least playing against kids of the same age and same ability. Well, that was until an u11s Premier team suddenly appeared in our fixtures.

    ‘This goes against everything I believe in and it make it hard to be a part of it’

    So, what my problem, you might ask? Well, let me tell you:

    • They might be older but most of the kids in our league would not be of the same ability as the u11s Elite team.
    • The Elite team are the best at their age and even by playing a couple leagues lower does not make it’s acceptable.
    • The leagues say they try to make the division as competitive as possible, but yet they allow an Elite teams to play in different age group.
    • We are now in a league that is NOT age related nor is it ability related.
    • An underage team playing 11v11 before their time is not player development, it is club development and another way for the Elite clubs to get ahead of the rest. It is unfair to community clubs like ours and others in the leagues above and/or below us.
    • Another issue I have, is that some 11 year old are almost twice the size of 9 year olds, so not only is there a significant height issue but a huge physical difference also. So who is responsible if a 9 year old gets hurt by an 11 year old??
    • In organised sports age should be playing with age when possible.
    • Not only are the clubs and coaches of this team being completely irresponsible, the parents have to question how is this going to benefit their child.
    • The league say, ‘they can’t do anything about it’, but it undermines nature and it undermines everything that many good coaches and clubs are trying to change. We want kids playing the SSG for longer not moving to 11v11 at age 9.
    • Everyone knows that this has nothing to do with player development and everything to do with adult egos and club success.
    • Why should teams in our league have to be part of this? Kids don’t want to play kids younger then them, they want to play kids who were born in the same year, they wan’t to compete against their own age group not the year younger.

    “So-called “better” or “more talented” players do not deserve to play with similarly “gifted” players. At below u12s, every child deserves the chance to play, the best coaching, and to play on the best pitches.  This is especially true given the fact that it is close to impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy which players at age nine, ten or eleven will be “stars” at age fifteen, sixteen or seventeen”

    Summary

    Once again the league rules allow for elite teams to take advantage of flaws in the system at the expense of the smaller clubs. The lower leagues have now become feeder leagues for Elite clubs push to success.

    If these clubs want to get ahead of each other, then why not train for an extra day or play each other in a 11v11 game once a week. Why should ‘none’ elite teams have to play a part in the success of these under age Elite teams – they can have elitism just don’t bring the lower placed teams into it.

    I’m a coach who knows about program development and I think we should put stop to segregating kids, and allow all kids the opportunity to develop equally. Let’s face the true reality, the kids you see on Elite Teams now will most likely NOT be starring or playing in the future. In so many cases Elite Teams build false hope among entitled parents at the expense of destroying many other kids hopes to play with their friends and develop athletically.

    There is no proof that forcing “better” players to play with those who appear at an early age to be less skilled somehow keeps them from developing their “talent.” Developing your talent is control by you, the player. You have control over your effort and how much you get better.

    As Michigan State’s Daniel Gould observes in a 2004 article, 

    “all children need coaches who are trained to be positive and encouraging,” and that “young athletes who play for such positive and encouraging coaches have higher motivation, enhanced self-esteem, lower anxiety and lower dropout rates than children who play for coaches without these qualities.”

    Conclusion

    This has to stop, it doesn’t benefit the kids and all it’s doing is building up certain parents and coaches egos. The leagues say they want change, they want to encourage player development and age specific games. I just hope the community clubs around Dublin and Ireland will stop this from happening next year. Leave the kids to play in their own age group and keep them in SSG for longer, what’s all the rush!!!

    -End

    If you want to promote a tournament, please get in touch or comment below or just email me info@thecoachdiary.com If, you don’t have anything to add then please forward this on to a friend. Thanks for reading.

    I’m also on twitter @Coachdiary

     

  • How The German Machine Was Built From The Bottom Up…

    How The German Machine Was Built From The Bottom Up…

    Germany impressed everyone with their attacking displays en route to the semi-finals of the last World Cup, they performed so well at the Euros in Poland, losing to Italy 2-1 in the semi finals and we all saw how they ripped Ireland apart last month at the Aviva.

    But it is only 8 years ago that, like Ireland at the recent Euros, they were returning home early from a major tournament and wondering what the future held. In an interview in 2010 with the BBC, Jurgen Klinsmann spoke how he had to chang things from the bottom up.

    Germany had to rebuild..

    after the disaster of the 2004 European Championship in Portugal. We did not win a game and failed to get out of our group. I got the chance to decide on the direction we took when I agreed to take over as Germany coach that summer, with current manager Joachim Loew as my assistant. 

    ‘Jogi’ and I began the whole regeneration process by trying to give our national team an identity.

    We eventually decided to go down an attack-minded route, passing the ball on the ground from the back to the front line as quickly as possible using dynamic football. Klinsmann and Loew designed a new blueprint for German football from that, we created a style of play that this Germany team in South Africa now really lives and breathes. Since 2004, we have reached two World Cup semi-finals and the final of Euro 2008.

    You need your own style

    Can England recover from their poor showing in South Africa as quickly as Germany did six years ago? Yes, but they cannot just copy the German style and expect that to succeed for them. Every nation has its own culture and specific environment as well as its own footballing identity.

    “England have to develop their own vision and decide how they should play”

    As I found, making that vision work is not an easy process. It will take time and England’s results might not be positive while it takes effect. England will also need the help of the Premier League. Every club coach will have their own philosophy but I tried to work with those in the Bundesliga to build something together. 

    There are a lot of foreign players and managers in England but that should not make a difference. You simply have to explain to them what the style of play is that you want to develop and be prepared to persevere. When Jogi and I took over the German side, we made our plans very public and made it clear that we were trying to rebuild from the bottom up. 

    The German association fully backed the plan..

    The German Football Association (DFB) helped us by putting a lot of pressure on all the first and second division teams in the Bundesliga to build academy programmes and ensure talented young players were coming through but we still had to decide on our playing style.

    “Whatever approach the England team decides on, everybody in the English game needs to sign up to it”, 

    Jurgen Klinsmann 

    To do that, we quizzed everyone we could. We held workshops with German coaches and players, asking them to write down on flip charts three things: how they wanted to play, how they wanted to be seen to be playing by the rest of the world and how the German public wanted to see us playing? 

    If we could define all of that, we thought we could lay out how we wanted to work and then, from there, sort out the training and paperwork behind the scenes. What we ended up with amounted to 10 or 12 bullet points laying out our proposals. We then announced that it was our intention to play a fast-paced game, an attacking game and a proactive game. 

    That last term was something the Germans did not really like because they did not really understand what proactive meant. We just told them it meant we did not react to what our opponents did, we played the way that was right for us. Once we had done all that, we created a curriculum for German football and presented it to the Bundesliga and DFB boards.

    At that point, I told them I did not have the time to implement the strategy at all levels because I only had two years to prepare for the World Cup, so I asked for Germany’s Under-21 team to adopt it and that was it. I brought in a former international team-mate of mine, Dieter Eilts, to run the under-21s and said they had to play the same way as the senior team because they would be a feeder for it. I was always looking long-term but I knew our plans would be measured by our success at the 2006 World Cup. 

    Negative Media

    There was a lot of negative media at the start. Everybody agreed German football had to change after 2004 but nobody actually wanted to adopt our proposals. 

    For example, we told the Bundesliga teams and coaches that their players needed to be fitter to play the kind of football we wanted to play.

    The change

    That meant carrying out fitness tests every three months, which did not go down well with some clubs because I was able to prove that some of them were training their players properly and others were not. I was basically doubted for the two years I was the coach – and when we lost 4-1 to Italy in a friendly game three months before the 2006 World Cup, everybody wanted my blood! We had another game three weeks later against the United States and we won that one 4-1. That victory saved my job and kept me in charge for the World Cup because the DFB had been ready to make a change.

    They wanted the conservative approach again, not the revolution. But I kept on being positive, explaining that this was how I wanted us to play. I did not know if we would master it in time for the 2006 World Cup but we would give it a shot. We had the players for four solid weeks before the tournament began and were able to get our thoughts across. They agreed to train the way we wanted them to and do extra work. Soon they started to believe in the system.

    Germany will prove to be the most influential team at this World Cup, that was crucial because, no matter what your job is, you need to identify yourself with the work that you are doing and be happy. I was happy because, as a former striker, I liked the style we intended to play. I could never coach a team that played defensive-minded football. I also think the players understood that I was the one taking the risk and that if it did not work out the DFB would send me packing back to California! 

    2006 World cup

    We started well at the 2006 World Cup and the public began to feel that something special was going to happen. In the second game, when we beat Poland with a last-minute goal, the whole nation embraced us and said “yeah, that’s our team and that’s how we want them to play”. We lost in the semi-final against Italy but I was still very proud. 

    After that World Cup, I was burned out after two years of banging my head against a wall but I made it clear to the DFB that Jogi had to take over after me to continue the job we had started. He has continued to develop that initial style of play and is enjoying success. It has taken Germany six years to learn to play it properly – and it has developed along the way – but the players are completely comfortable with it now. Germany’s style of play might work for England because, in a way, Germany now play a lot like a typical Premier League team, with the emphasis on pacy attacks. But whatever approach the England team decides on – whether it is attacking or defensive, patient or high tempo – everybody in the English game needs to sign up to it. After all, it is the players, coaches and clubs who will help to make it work. 


    Jurgen Klinsmann was speaking to Chris Bevan in Cape Town back in 2010