The I in Team
In a previous article I wrote about the importance of a coaching syllabus when looking to develop young players. I stand by this, and believe this is critical in aiding the long term approach needed to facilitate and strategically plan appropriate challenge/focus for your evolving footballers. But is this enough? After all, every player is different, with their own wants and needs, so how do you as the coach ensure you are serving them appropriately? Well have no fear, I will (hopefully) provide some clarity on this, so buckle up!
As a coach working with young players, it is our duty to help them get better. That is fundamentally, or at least should be, the biggest slice of the pie, taking preference over anything else. (Note - if you are a coach who isn’t in agreeance with this, then please leave now as we are on very different pages). But as we now, every player is different, and every player will require very different challenges to fulfill this goal of making them better. So how do we incorporate the needs of the individual into a session structured around a theme which lends itself more to the team? The answer? Planning and creative session design.
Let’s create a fictitious example to help paint a picture. You are working from a syllabus and the topic for your session is “Emergency Defending” (blocking, clearances in the 18yd box etc.). This will be the main topic for the session which all of your players will work on, however your Midfielder has a different need at this moment in time - “work on executing penetrative passes from Midfield” let’s say. Our challenge as a coach is to find a way to build this element into our practices so that both the individual and the wider team can work on their objectives simultaneously. Here is an example of a practice which might achieve this:
In this practice the Attacking (red) team play to goal, with players working in specific zones of the area (7 and 11 in wide channels, 4 in a Midfield area, and 8, 9 and 10 in a central attacking third zone) replicating realism for a GK-4-3-3 formation. The Defending team (blue) are all situated in the area closest to the goal they are defending, with all players locked into their specific zones to begin with. The objective of the game is for the red team to score in the goal, with the blue team working to prevent them. The practice starts with the Server (yellow), who also can replicate a 9 for the blue team or a 5/6 for the red, playing into the red no. 4. Note - this is the player with the specific challenge of “work on executing penetrative passes from Midfield” from above.
So the setup of the practice should enable two things - a. the blue team have endless opportunity to find themselves out of possession and close to their goal, against a team who are throwing the kitchen sink at them in order to score, and b. the red no. 4 is able to see plenty of the ball in a position where he has forward passing options beyond opponents.
But the setup of the practice is not merely enough, your role as coach within this is also vital. How can we further ensure that the players in question, in this instance the blue team plus red 4, have lots of goes at trying to improve said objectives? Here is a few examples of how restrictions, challenges or incentives can be used to enhance this:
The practice will always start with the ball being passed into the red no. 4 to enable ample opportunity to work on their objective
To further increase opportunities to do this, scrap throw-ins and corners, with play always restarting from the yellow server who plays to 4 to begin the practice
If the blue team regain possession, they have 6 seconds to hit the yellow player. This should result in the ball being with the red team more than the blues.
Play for X minutes, introducing a scenario to help with motivation for the defending team - “you are winning 1-0 in the champions league semi final, with only 5 minutes left to play” - defending the goal now really means something
Award the red no. 4 a point every time he/she can play a penetrative pass to a teammate (below head height) off 1 touch
As with any practice, you may choose to alter the difficulty level depending on the players you are working with and the rate of success they are having. In this example it may involve adding direct opponents for the red 4, or allowing the blue defenders to enter the wide channels to defend.
So, hopefully this example sheds light on how we as coaches can tick various boxes in terms of serving the needs of our players. Naturally some topics will fit more easily with others, for example a team objective of “playing out from the back” and an individual one of “recognising how to make play predictable from the front” for a no. 9. With some careful planning and creative thinking though, we can hit a number of team/individual topics within one session. If you are fortunate enough to have a number of coaches on the training pitch working together, assign each other roles, with one leading the session itself (the team objective) and the other working with the individual. It should be said that when looking to take this approach, only look to work on 1 or 2 individuals on top of the overall team topic as trying to build a practice with 12-16 different individual factors plus a generic theme for the whole team could be pretty mind blowing, let alone confusing for your players!
Give it a go, share your sessions and let me know how you found it!