If you are a soccer coach, you are responsible for your players’ development and - more crucially - enjoyment within the sport.
Whether they realise it or not, when a child takes up soccer they are trusting their coach(es) to teach them the game, and guide them through the age groups with proper, and productive, educational information.
They may only be taught by a handful of coaches (or even just one!) throughout their childhood years and will inevitably shape their whole understanding of the game by what they are told and shown.
The demise of unorganised football
A generation or two ago, a child’s soccer education was different. Particularly in countries such as the UK, many coaches will remember playing before school, at lunchtime, and after school until the sun went down - as well as any other chance they could find at the weekends outside of training and match days.
These days, childhoods look a lot different. Technology plays a much bigger role in everyone’s daily life. Mobile technology, including smartphones and tablets, is an integral part of daily life in 2024. Children use a screen in the palm of our hands for communication, entertainment, work, leisure, and even education.
On average, children between the ages of eight and 12 spend up to six hours a day looking at a screen (Link) and, unsurprisingly, that figure rises dramatically for teenagers.
The Coaching Manual’s founder Chris Barton said: “It used to be easy. I don’t remember having to be told to exercise. When I was a kid, you’d have to drag me back inside kicking and screaming, clutching on to a muddy ball as I demanded another half-hour running around with my friends.”
But the numbers show that life isn’t like it was ‘back in our day' - a report by The National Trust in the UK found that children are playing outside for an average of just over four hours a week. This compares unfavourably with 8.2 hours for us (their parents) when we were children. Children are not supplementing their learning with dawn-til-dusk immersion the way they used to.
Obviously, there are serious health and well-being consequences that come with this downturn in ‘extra curricular’ physical activity, but where coaches should be concerned is the fact that players on their team are not supplementing their soccer education with countless hours of free play, ball time, and ultimately, practice.
And, as the statistics show, young players are more likely to spend time consuming soccer ‘information’ from video games and YouTube personalities, giving them unhealthy and unrealistic ideas about the sport. A child’s coach needs to be able to cut through all the nonsense and provide a proper environment for enjoyable development.
Moving through the ages
Another aspect of soccer education that we don’t see as much of these days is the mixing of ages. ‘Kickabouts’ on the local playing field would see six-year-olds play with eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds play with 11-year-olds, and so on. Around 20 years ago, you would have teenagers playing with young adults on a regular basis.
This was beneficial for a player’s development because the ‘step up’ became less of a shock, particularly when it came to the Youth Development Phase where children come in all shapes and sizes, or when moving into the adult open-age format with much more experienced (and physical) players.
As we have it today, a player might spend their whole formative years playing only with children their own age. That’s no tragedy in itself, but as coaches we must be mindful that we also bear the responsibility to ensure we are constantly preparing players for their next step, and eventually for open age football.
How can we fulfil our responsibilities?
Simply put, we as coaches need to ensure the sessions we are running, the information we are providing, and the environment we are creating, are all conducive to a player's continued development and enjoyment. Formal coach education and accredited qualifications are great but don't always represent a well-rounded breadth of experience that will be optimal for our players.
Learning by immersion is important for coaches too. In days gone by, coaches could show up at professional academies with a notepad and take notes from the pros - maybe even get a chance to pick their brains after training. However, the days of open-door policies are long gone and real-life professional coaching standards are hard to come by.
That's where The Coaching Manual comes in. As part of our new campaign #BeTheCoachTheyNeed, we take a look at a number of experienced and highly-regarded coaches who have reviewed sessions on our platform, and explain why they think the content represents the gold standard in soccer education.
In our first instalment, here's what Sherlen Lindsay from Fulham Football Club has to say about Danny Maye's session on finishing in and around the box filmed at Southampton FC - click here.