Making Football The Best Part Of Your Players’ Week!

No matter the level, as coaches we have a responsibility to our players to ensure  that football is the most exciting and enjoyable part of their week. We want to see our players turning up for training with a smile on their faces, ready to enjoy the beautiful game feeling inspired and excited about football. The question for us all though is, how do we make that happen?

Here in this article I hope to give you two tips to ensure that your session truly is the highlight of your players’ week!

Understand why your players play.

Players play the game for all different reasons, be it to be with their friends or make new ones, to stay active and healthy, because they enjoy the game and what to emulate their heroes or because they want to maybe, just maybe be like their heroes one day. The challenge for you as a coach is that in your team you may have a mixture of all of the above and each player will have a mixture of all of the above!

So It is crucial for you as a coach that you take the time to understand your players motivations before you begin coaching so that you can tailor sessions towards these motivations.

For example, if players play to be healthy and active you can incorporate rules within games to enable conditioning to occur such as time limits if the ball goes out of play for it be returned into play or you could play smaller games such as 3v3 or 4v4  so that each player has more football actions. For those players seeking enjoyment out of their football and want to emulate their heroes they see on the TV then it’s important that as a coach we give them a chance to do this. Some ways to bring this to life are to ensure your sessions have goals and ways of scoring as much as possible in all components or finding out who your players heroes are and providing them with individual challenges linked to their heroes super skills.

As mentioned some players are looking for social connection then provide this for them by allowing times during your session for players to talk and connect, this might be that in groups they design a rule for the practice or they come up with their own tactics and formation for the match, or simply having a team rule that before every session you must say hello to someone new and find out something about their day.

Finally you may have aspiring players with dreams of rising through the levels of the game to maybe become their hero and wear the green and gold of Australia. You as a coach can help them on this journey by encouraging these aspirations but also providing honest feedback to support them to be the best they can be, challenge yourself as a coach to find the answers for the questions they may have or the football knowledge that you need to develop their technical or tactical skills. It may also be that you provide opportunities for that player within training at your club to develop by training with an older age group or a female player training with the male program or signposting them to the next level of the game on their journey.

If it works, keep doing it! 

As a coach sometimes we feel the need to constantly reinvent the wheel when it comes to design sessions. However If you find the players really enjoy your activity and it gets the outcomes you desire then challenge yourself as a coach as to how you can keep that activity fresh and do it again. Below are some ideas how to do this:

• change the focus of the activity. One session you may use the activity focusing on defending and your coaching points and rules bring out the defensive outcomes and behaviours you are seeking. Then the following week you can use the same activity but change your focus to become attacking.
• Think of ways of making your practice harder as the players get used to the activity over time. It may be as simple as the area size or the method of scoring or it could be a little more complex and suddenly you introduce zones or restrictions within the practice
• Speak to your players about the activity and seek ways that the same practice can be used. Don’t underestimate your players, a little ownership goes a long way and you may well be surprised at what ideas they have!

Hopefully these two tips help you on your coaching journey and remember, make your session the best part of their week!

Chris Adams

Manager, Coach Development – Football New South Wales