The Coach Diary Football Blog

Author: The Coach Diary

  • Local football Business

    Below is a list of football business I have come across in the last year and who have helped me in some way or another!

    iGoal

    They are made of PVC with a terelyne sock inside which encases another tube of PVC, a system the many Armies use for their dinghies. Carried one-handed in a kit-bag, the goals are pumped up with an integral net – the goals come with a ONE YEAR GUARANTEE. Robust enough for competitive play but made of lightweight material to help avoid injury.

    1. It can take up to 25 minutes of valuable lesson time to set-up and dismantle other portable  soccer goals
    2. There is never enough storage facilities for other goals.
    3. Need to cut short the lesson at the end of your sessions to put equipment away so that children can go to next lesson or go home!
    4. When posts are taken down in the summer what do older teams use for posts during training?
    5. Wear out your goalmouths because you can’t move larger goals around and end up with mud!?

    The good news on this which every PE teacher and coach wants to hear are answered by IGOAL!

    1. Goals take less than 5 minutes to build – so unpack, pump up and play football – it really is that easy!
    2. Portability and storage is made easier – you can fit multiple goals in shed or even boot of a car!
    3. No need to waste valuable coaching time – everyone goes home quicker!
    4. There is no longer a need to use cones for goalposts – you can play football anywhere, anytime with these goals!
    5. Not anymore because we can do shooting practice anywhere into full size goals that are easily portable

    iLite

    Using the same patented unique rigid air technology as iGoal the newly launchediLite offers easy to use portable floodlighting – the future of sports lighting but also suitable for use by emergency services and construction sector.

    No wiring, generators, just carry the light in its bag to where you need it – or use the hand held lighting house as a torch to guide your way. LEDs are also environmentally friendly and non-toxic. We recommend that you use minimum of 4 preferably 6 units to illuminate a 60m x40m mini soccer pitch.

    Click here to bring you to their website →Igoals

    Classics TeamWear

    Classics were born in 2001, the brainchild of two ‘serious’ amatuer tennis players. Starting out as a supplier as high end wear for tennis players Classics has since expanded its product line to serve the needs of players of other sports.While Tennis wear and accessories still make a large part of Classic’s sales, the core today’s business is the supply of sports teams, mainly football . Strong points: Quailty control of all product details, high quailty/price ratio, quick leadtimes.

    Classic are also bringing in High Quality football boots → Zeus Sports

    For more information please Email classicssportswear@gmail.com  or call 085 8866005
    Click here to bring you to their website →Classics Teamwear

    Phoenixembroidery.ie

    Phoenix Embroidery in November 2010. Since then Phoenix Embroidery has grown rapidly to become a leading embroidery and supplier of sportswear, corporate clothing, and Pennants and Badges.

    Click here to bring you to their website→Phoenix Embroidery

    Terrific Trophies

    Are 100% Irish owned and specialise in selling football trophies at discount prices.  They cut out the retailer by selling direct to you the final consumer.  There trophies are of the highest quality and our prices are the most competitive in Ireland due to our low over-head costs. .

    Contact them @ sales@terrifictrophies.ie or Click here to bring you to their website→Terrific Trophies

    If you have a football business you want me to advertise get in touch!



  • Socrates Dies

    Socrates Dies

    Former Brazil captain Socrates died on Sunday aged 57 from an intestinal infection.

    Socrates — who in 1982 captained what is widely regarded as the best Brazil side never to have won the World Cup — was taken to the hospital late Friday after suffering food poisoning.

    He was hospitalised twice in August and September this year with bleeding in his digestive tract, and recognised after these incidents that he had problems with alcohol, especially during his playing days. A smoker and heavy drinker even in his playing days but renowned as probably the best play-maker of his generation who played for Brazil at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups.

    BIG SKINNY

    Born on February 19, 1954 in Belem, a northern city on the banks of the Amazon river. One of the most elegant midfield generals in soccer history, Socrates, began his career in Botafogo. He was never a teenage star and didn’t make his debut in the Brazilian national team until he was 25. He was blessed with wonderful skills, vision and seemed to have so many options when he was on the ball. He was able to play the ball wherever and whenever he wanted. His heel-kicks became famous world wide.

    He joined Sao Paulo club Corinthians in 1978 and stayed for six years.

    Bearded, thin and popularly known as ‘Magrao’, or the Big Skinny One, Socrates was part of a golden Brazilian generation that included midfielder Zico, Junior, Falcao and Eder.

    The brilliant Brazil side of 1982 was regarded as one of the best never to win the World Cup title after they were upset by eventual champions Italy in the second group phase of the tournament in Spain.

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    The Golden Heel

    An astute passer and reader of the game, he earned his nickname of ‘The Golden Heel‘ with a uniquely nonchalant playing style, using the backheel to telling effect and scoring memorable goals with both feet.

    His languid penalty-taking style, eschewing the traditional run-up to merely step up to the ball and lift it into the net, backfired at the 1986 World Cup where Brazil lost to France in the quarter-finals on penalties after one of his lazy efforts was saved.

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    Brazil, Corinthians & Polictics

    Socrates was included in FIFA’s list of the best 125 living soccer players in the world, a list compiled by countryman Pele. Socrates played 63 matches with the national team, scoring 25 goals. At Corinthians, during a time of military government, he was a leading figure in the Democracia Corinthiana movement where everything was decided by a vote of directors, technical staff and players.

    The team would send messages to the country’s government by taking to the field with banners demanding ‘Direct elections now’ or “I want to vote for President’.

    Italy

    Socrates had a short and unhappy playing spell in Italy with Fiorentina and, shivering from the cold in a bizarre postscript to his career, Socrates was not an ordinary athlete, infact he didn’t look at himself as an athlete. He smoked a pack of sigarettes every day, and that was one of the reasons to why he never settled in Italy when he arrived there in 1984. The lifestyle didn’t suit him and he went back to Brazil a year later..

    • Latterly, he gave seminars about leadership and human relations while also practising as a doctor and working on a fiction book about the 2014 World Cup due to be held in Brazil.
    • Socrates also played for Flamengo winning a Rio state championship before ending his career in 1990 playing for Santos.
    • Socrates briefly coached and played for Garforth Town in England in 2004.
    • Socrates is survived by his wife and six children.

    His younger brother Rai, also a midfielder and a Sao Paulo favourite who spent several seasons at Paris St Germain in the late 1990s, was a member of the Brazil squad that won the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

    (Writing by Rex Gowar in Buenos Aires, editing by TCD)

    Brazil 1982 – The Art of Football

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  • The EURO 2012 Draw at 5pm today

    The EURO 2012 Draw at 5pm today

    The great and good of European football are gathering in Kyiv for the UEFA EURO 2012 finals draw which takes place at the city’s Palace of Arts at 18.00CET (19.00 local time) on Friday with full coverage in UEFA.com’s DrawCentre.

    The Story

    Reigning champions Spain defeated Germany in the 2008 final, as well as overcoming Joachim Löw’s men en route to FIFA World Cup glory two summers ago. On the eve of the draw, Spain coach Vicente del Bosque said it is the Nationalmannschaft he is keeping an eye on. “On the face of it they will be the most dangerous team,” the former Real Madrid CF coach said. “They are keen to play us and they’ve improved a lot as we saw in their [recent friendly] wins against Brazil and the Netherlands.”

    The draw

    takes place in Ukraine’s capital, and while József Szabó, a former coach of the co-hosts, feels a group of “Russia, Greece and the Republic of Ireland” would be a good outcome, current boss Oleh Blokin has identified a renowned force within one of those teams. “Giovanni Trapattoni is one of the most respected managers in the world game,” he said of the Ireland coach. “He is known and liked in the world of football and it is no different in Ukraine. We know him as a great manager and we will respect his team.”

    The tournament’s

    other host nation, Poland, are taking part in their second consecutive EURO and striker Robert Lewandowski is excited about taking on the cream of the continent’s talent. “I’d prefer not to play Germany, Portugal and France, but we don’t fear any team. In November we lost against Italy, but that’s gone now. We could play them again and fight for the win.”

    Draw process

    The 16 teams will be drawn into four groups of four teams each (Groups A to D). Four seeding pots will be created, with the host associations Poland and Ukraine being top seeds. Poland will be automatically placed in Group A, as A1, Ukraine in Group D, as D1.

    The remaining teams have been allocated to the four pots according to their respective national team coefficients.

    Pot 1: Spain, Netherlands
    Pot 2: Germany, Italy, England, Russia
    Pot 3: Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Sweden
    Pot 4: Denmark, France, Czech Republic, Republic of Ireland

    National Team Coefficient Ranking

    The draw will start with Pot 1 in order to fill position one in Groups B and C. The draw will continue with Pot 4, from which a team will be allocated to each group consecutively, from Group A to Group D. This procedure will then be repeated for Pot 3 and finally for Pot 2.

    The position of each team within its group (2, 3 or 4) will also be determined during the draw.

    UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino will conduct the draw, and the ceremony will be hosted by Olga Freimut and Piotr Sobczynski – two renowned TV presenters in the UEFA EURO 2012 host countries. The show will include three entertainment acts: the P. Virsky Ukrainian National Folk Dance Ensemble, Ukrainian singer Jamala and a surprise international artist.

    Furthermore, and supporting the motto ‘Creating History Together’, UEFA has invited legendary players from all previous editions of the tournament to participate in the show. In addition, the official match ball

    of UEFA EURO 2012 will be unveiled during the ceremony.

    The draw will be shown live by more than 70 broadcast partners, covering more than 150 territories around the world

    How the Groups will work?

    Group A (Is Poland’s Group)

    Games are played in Warsaw and Wroclaw, if we get this group we will most likely have 3 Games in Wroclaw.

    Group B (Games in Ukraine)

    Best outcome is to get 2 games in Lviv and the last one in Kharkiv

    Group C (Games in Poland)

    If we don’t get Group A then we want to be in this Group with the best outcome being 2 matches in Poznan and 1 in Gdansk for the last group game.

    Group D (Is Ukraine’s Group)

    Another group to avoid with games based in Kiev, Donetsk and then Kiev again….way to much travelling we don’t want that!

     

    Even as group runners in Group A we get to stay in Poland!

  • Mental Performance

    Mental Performance

    My good friend Mark O’Sullivan of http://footblogball.wordpress.com/ has been reading some articles recently by football psychologist Dan Abrahams.

    Mark picked out some points he  felt were relevant to players who want to push themselves to be the best footballers that they possibly can be. Mark says, “The “win” 🙂 word makes it hard to say at what age you should  reccomend this approach but I am sure that there are useful and relevant points here for all ages”.

    It is not the will to win that is important. It is the will to prepare to win

    Footblogball Points

    • How do you talk to yourself on the pitch is as important as your ability to  control the ball.
    • Body language is as important a component of performance as the ability to head a cross.
    • To be well prepared for a match is more than just what to eat and remember to bring football boots for the big game.

    A football player must be good at managing their emotions and managing their thought processes every second of every game. What scientists have discovered is that the brain makes sure that people feel emotions of 10-20 milliseconds and think consciously 500 milliseconds later. – Your brain is your football game.

    Confidence can  be the most important skill you have as a footballer

    As a coach your goal is simple: to help your players to build and maintain a positive football images related to their games. So maybe as a footballer you keep in mind  the chance you missed to  last week (MEMORY). And that makes you assume that others think you are not good as a striker (PERCEPTION). And to reinforce this by thinking that you are not good as a striker (THOUGHT). And you spend time imagining missing a chance in the next game (IMAGINATION) …

    Lionel Messi is brilliant at perceiving things in a positive way and then think about the situation correctly. Messi refused to allow his physical size handicap him. In fact, he used it to his advantage. “I’m more flexible,” he said. “I can learn to play with the ball on the ground better than any other”.

    If you can become an even more effective thinker, and if you can build an even stronger football Image, then you will be the best football player that can be.

    Check out http://www.danabrahams.com/

  • Grassroots Conference in Warsaw

    Grassroots Conference in Warsaw

    The polish trip was a well worth exercise. Academy Coaches from AC Milan, Celtic, Spanish FA, Le Havre AC, Ajax Cape Town, UEFA Training Ground, FIFA Grassroots, Ivory Coast, Legia Warsaw, Polish FA, German u15 all took sessions over the 2 days. The coaches in attendance at the conference, were also treated to a first-hand display of the benefits of UEFA’s TactX, which if you haven’t heard is a revolutionary coaching software from the UEFA Training Ground. (well worth a look)

    The Conference

    ,led by the PZPN’s Tomasz Zabielski Grassroots Coordinator and Robert Graf Grassroots Dept , was attended by more than 1,000 grassroots football coaches from all over the world.

    The morning session commenced at 9.30am and ran right through until 6pm without stopping. All the coaches started with a Theory session, discussing there clubs and development process, then that was followed by a practical. Each Academy had roughly 1.5hrs to 2hours on the pitch. Main topics during the convention include technical and tactical practices for all ages & abilities for both boys and girls.

    • Theory Sessions
    • Practical Session
    • Academy Ethos
    • Structures
    • Player requirements and responsibilities

    One Goal

      It was great to see so many different styles coaching but all with the same goal…..to promote the game at the younger ages and to get kids touching the ball more, whilst having fun. The 2 day event was a total success and the feedback from the attendants was all positive; certainly the Polish grassroots coaches came away with some very exciting phases of play and in dept knowledge of other countries style of coaching. Personally I would have loved to have seen more of the of the coaching over the 2 days, maybe next time or maybe in Dublin next year????

      This was a well worth exercise and Polish FA certainly earned some much needed brownie points. They recently cause controversy by removing the traditional white eagle emblem with a generic effort, purely for the fact that this new logo can be copyrighted easily, thus making it easier to punish counterfeiters. This change has caused such uproar that even the recent friendly with Hungary was part-boycotted by fans. This may have worked, as the Polish FA have decided to ‘review’ the change… Which will certainly give Nike a headache, as the shirt was meant to have been released on November 15th.

      Legia

      Whilst at the Polish FA Coaching Conference with were invited to go see Legia Warsaw V Zaglebie Lubin (3-0). Th Stadium was just across form the conference venue. I was very impressed with the standard of football, certainly Legia played some great 1 and 2 touch football. We got the Full VIP service and the fans did not disappoint either. I have been to many stadia around the world and come across some of the most passionate and vocal fans…but the Legia Fans are a different class, they were singing half an hour before the game and they didn’t stop until well after the final whistle went. Role on Euro 2012

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      Lets hope we get Poland!

      For more information about TactX please click on tactX

    • Think Poland…..!

      Think Poland…..!

      With only a week to go before the EURO 2012 draw, if we all think hard about getting Group A so that we are based in Wrocław for all 3 games, we really don’t want to be moving cities for different games and being in Pot 4 if we get GA we will be the only team that gets to stay in the same city!

      At second best Group C with 2 matches in Poznan and 1 in Gdansk for the last group game. If we get Group B, that’s 2 games in Lviv and the last one in Kharkiv and then Group D is Kiev, Donetsk and then Kiev again….way to much travelling we don’t want that!

      Even as group runner up we get to stay in Poland…

      So big thoughts guys “What you think about can come about” We don’t want Ukraine….

      Wrocław here we come…..!

    • SFAI have it all WRONG………..it’s time for change.

      SFAI have it all WRONG………..it’s time for change.

      Over the last few weeks we have all witnessed some outrageous scores in the SFAI cup and you only have to go to there website and click on any of the ages group to see how teams have absolutely demolished their opponents.

      Scores like 13-1, 10-1, 11-0, 12-0 our listed at u11s and the same for u12s and so on. The biggest score I saw was 16-0 and I only looked at 2 age groups.

      Children Suffer

      I just don’t see the point of cup football at such a young age, nobody likes to lose and certainly nobody goes out to lose, but to have to be endured a mauling by any team is both harmful and destructive for the promotion of the game. No child wants to lose never mind be beaten by over a dozen goals to Nil and this certainly won’t help the development of a player.

      What does this say about the SFAI?

      Well, it just shows how far removed they are from the game and from children of all ages. If they think that a child wants to be beaten in a cup game; a game where they stood no chance to compete in, even before the first whistle was blown, well, THINK AGAIN!!!

      These MEN and TWO WOMEN (as listed on the SFAI website) continue to prove how little they know about the UNDERAGE game in this country. National cup football is not good for the development of a child in any country and by all accounts in Ireland; and particularly at such a young age. If you look to Europe national cup competition doesn’t start until u14s.

      Going by some of the scores recorded this year it is both damaging to a player, a team and a club and I believe these types of scores have no place in kids football. Ok, freak scores can happen but we all know that a C or D team has little or no match for a Premier side.

      Time for change

      Something needs to be done and FAST, the age for National cup football should come in line with Holland, Germany and the rest of Europe. Once again we have proven that we have taken to doing things our own way and not even looking or accepting that in Europe they are doing it the right way. Kids come first, the focus is very much on the development of the player.

      Michael O’Brien and his Council need to wake up and seriously consider these cup competitions for the younger age groups. Every year children fall out of love with the game and with scores like the ones on their site, you don’t need to wonder way.

      Its getting embarrassing at this stage, C’mon it’s time to wake up and make the changes are kids game so desperately needs and national cup football at u12s is not the way. Wouldn’t these kids better off playing on smaller pitches with smaller numbers. Not adult size pitches with adult size goals. Never mind having to travel half the country to play an hour of football.

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      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