FA – The Coach Diary Football Blog

This week I spoke with Irish Coach Ray Power. Another Irish Coach making his way across the water.

Ray is a 31-year old, A Licence football coach. Although from Waterford, Ireland he is currently based in Nottingham, England.

He is currently working as an Academy Manager full-time with under-19 players at Conference/Football League level and he is also a coach education tutor for the English FA.

TCD: When did you start coaching?

RP: I came to England in 2007, following two years as a teacher in Switzerland. I had dabbled in grassroots coaching prior to arriving in England, but once here I began working in the Academy system.

Love this quote “Otherwise I’m a bit of a magpie – I pinch ideas and traits from others that I incorporate into my work”

TCD: What is your coaching style and how did you develop it?

RP: That’s a difficult question to really pin down. I suppose it has evolved through the years and I guess it is still evolving – I think it has to. My style comes from me as a person I guess. I like to create a positive environment where the focus is on the players learning, so is player-centred rather than being all about the coach. Therefore I like to use methods like Q&A and Guided Discovery where possible, as well as Skilful Neglect. If it’s optimal for player learning to be more command-like, I’ll use it, but this is very occasional.

All the work we do is based around the game. That sounds a little obvious but you would be amazed at the amount of coaching sessions where players are involved in activities that are barely football-specific! Everything involves a ball, and puts players in situations they will find themselves in come match-day.

TCD: Have you any mentors and if so, who?

RP: Loads – whether they know they are mentors or not! When I fist came to England, Steve Welsh at Boston United gave me my first opportunity to coach academy players and I learned lots from Welshy – about the game, but also about presence and manner with players. The one that comes straight to mind however is Dick Bate. Dick is now at Cardiff City but was the head tutor on my A Licence. He was so knowledgeable and immersed in the game that you felt that if you could get anywhere near his level then you were on the right track. Otherwise I’m a bit of a magpie – I pinch ideas and traits from others that I incorporate into my work.

TCD: What are the most important traits of the modern coach?

RP: I devoted a whole chapter of Making the Ball Roll to this, but the traits are virtually endless. We all know – or should know – that we as coaches are role models and teachers, but being a modern coach is that and more. First of all you need to know the game – the modern game. We need to produce players that can cope with the evolving nature of football. So, for example, rather than coaching strikers to play in a 1980s style ‘big man, little man’ system, they need to be able to play as a lone striker, be more multi-purpose – added to evolutions like false 9s, inverted forwards etc.

Coaches also need to embrace technology (this is the world of our young players), use appropriate learning and coaching styles etc.

“SKILLFUL NEGLECT” The art of knowing when to do or say NOTHING. Because YOU know that THEY know the answer and they will work it out!

TCD: What part of the game do you prefer to coach?

RP: In recent years I’ve adopted a model known as Tactical Periodisation – something we speak about in the book. This involves practices and games that are simultaneously technical, tactical and physical. Simply because the game involves exactly that – all at the same time.

Players need to be worked with in all areas – attacking, defending and transitions so I suppose if I favoured one area I wouldn’t be doing my job correctly. If they leave the system having improved across all areas then I’m satisfied.

TCD: What kind of player to you prefer to coach. A technically gifted one who lacks work rate or a good player with excellent work rate?

RP: For too long we have prized the worker over the technician. Hard working ones were praised (and rightly so!) but any tricky players get lambasted for doing too much. Obviously to be successful a player needs both. Every individual though will have different needs, and therefore a different programme of work, targets etc. As a team game you need both. Look at Jordan Henderson. He’s a decent technician but is vital to Liverpool as his work rate allows the technically gifted players like Suarez and Coutinho the freedom to express themselves.

It’s easy maybe to teach a young player to run around all day, but he’s obsolete if another player has work rate AND technique.

TCD: What’s the future of the grassroots game in the England and what changes are happening or need to happen in order to develop players with game intelligence?

RP: Youth coaching in England gets a lot of stick – and maybe justifiably so in some parts. But change is afoot. There are lots of good people leading a drive for a better standard of grassroots coaching, through coach education, mentoring and books like Making the Ball Roll.

Like I mentioned above, players need to be put in game situations. Game intelligence can only come from constantly solving real-game problems. We have a big issue in this area. Players are often put in sessions where they warm-up by running laps of the pitch, then stand in queues to either pass or shoot. There’s very little decision-making involved in unopposed ‘drills’ like these so when players are in games, they can’t solve problems once opposition are in place and a game is going on around them at 100mph. I also believe we are ‘two-touching’ the flair players and dribblers out of the game by constantly putting ALL our players in two-touch games, when they need it or whether it’s their style or not.

At youth level if we can take focus away from match results, allow players the true freedom to express themselves and place them in game situations regularly, this can only improve.

TCD: Tell me about your book, what is it about and what inspired you to write one?

RP: When I started coaching I had to go to hundreds of different places to find what I wanted – books around technical practices, tactics, physical development – others about psychology and communication; conferences around Talent ID and goalkeeping. What I wanted was a “one-stop shop” that included it all! So I wrote it!

The book has 15 distinct chapters that relate to different aspects of youth development – and added to by some wonderful stories from youth coaches. If the reader wants further information on psychology for example, then the chapter signposts them to the best sports psychology resources available.

See chapter breakdown:

Chapter 1. Understanding the Argument for Development Over Results
Chapter 2. Understanding the Modern Youth Development Coach
Chapter 3. Understanding Teaching and Learning in Soccer
Chapter 4. Understanding Psychology in Soccer
Chapter 5. Understanding Communication in Soccer
Chapter 6. Understanding Leadership and the Team
Chapter 7. Understanding Age-Specific Development Needs
Chapter 8. Developing a Coaching Philosophy and Syllabus
Chapter 9. Understanding Technical Development and Skill Acquisition
Chapter 10. Understanding the Tactical Development of Soccer Players
Chapter 11. Understanding the Physical Development of Youth Soccer Players
Chapter 12. Understanding the Modern Goalkeeper
Chapter 13. Understanding Talent Identification and Assessment of Players
Chapter 14. Understanding Parents
Chapter 15. Looking in the Mirror First

Where can TCD readers get your book?

The book is available in the UK and US through amazon and via bennionkearny.com/power and The book depository website also distributes worldwide with free delivery.

-End

The Coach Diary would like to thank Ray for this interview. You can follow ray on Twitter @power_ray

Right, I’m off to buy my plane ticket to Lisbon…… Thank You UEFA!

I always like to hear your opinions and views. If you feel you have something to say and want to be the next coach on COACHTALK, 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. As always, thanks for reading.

I’m also on twitter @Coachdiary

‘Small-sided games are the pathway to success’

Sir Trevor Brooking told Special Report on Sky that more must be done to foster technical ability in youth football.

Brooking, the FA’s Director of Football Development, wants to change the way children are coached in order maximise their potential. Plans to stop under-13s playing traditional 11-a-side games on full-size pitches are included in the Young Player Development Review that he presented to the FA last month.

“We want to take the pressure off the youngsters who get that intensity from the sidelines, whether it be the mums and dads shouting or the coach or the manager”. Brooking Explained

“I could win, perhaps, a mini soccer league by playing two or three big lads at the back who could launch it to the end of the pitch, pick up the pieces and we’d win more games than we’d lose but over a three or four-year period we’d never develop them technically”. “So we are just saying forget that. Yes, every game is important but it doesn’t mean [winning] is the be-all and end-all.”

Child Centred

Converting a full-size pitch into four smaller-sized ones is a relatively straight-forward process.

It takes little time and carries minimal costs, but FA Development Officer Nick Levett said it could reap significant benefits. “The main idea behind the proposals is to make the game more child-centred,” he explained.

“We have very much an adult-based structure that we put onto children assuming that the adults want the same as the children. “But the children’s expectations within the game are very different from the adults; they value fun and participation and engagement at a different level to the adults that have a lot of ego-driven values within youth football”

Format

“So we are trying to make sure that youth football in the future reflects what the children want from the game because it’s their game and not necessarily what the adult values are.

“So some of the format changes we are looking at for under-sevens and under-eights, making the game five-a-side as mandatory so they get more touches, more shots, more dribbles and more fun within the game by just being involved more.

“Then at under-11 and under-12 level, we are talking about making nine-against-nine mandatory, which again is a similar thing; the jump from mini-soccer to 11-against-11 at the moment is huge for many children and nine-against-nine gives us, we feel, the natural stepping stone in terms of development so that we don’t have 10-year-old children playing on the same size pitches as 26-year-old internationals.”

Pathway

The move will bring England more in line with Scotland, under-eights play four-a-side games and 11-a-side games aren’t introduced until players reach 13.

Neil Mackintosh, SFA Head of Youth Development, said:

“The new national player pathway is something we’ve been working hard on for probably about two years now, although Andy Roxburgh said it actually started 27 years ago – so that’s maybe a sad indictment that it has taken us this long. But small-sided games were introduced in Scotland 27 years ago”.

“But what became apparent was it was a random development; there was a lot of good practice in Scotland and we had teams and associations playing in different leagues and in different formats, in different age groups with different rules and it became messy” (Sounds like a place I know)

“So we decided to have a look at a national player pathway that had best practice. For us we are starting with four-a-side, so we now have six to eight-year-olds playing four-a-side football; that’s the smallest number that you need to teach the principals of the game and that’s shown throughout the world to be one of the best teaching tools for young children”.

“Seven-a-side football is the next step; we’ve been doing it for a long time and it’s very well resourced in Scotland. People believe in the small-sided game and it’s a logical step.”

Proper

Mick Dennis from the Daily Express, a guest on Special Report by Sky Sports, admits that he has been won over by smaller-sided games for children.

“When I started playing football in primary school, you played on an 11-a-side pitch and I thought that was proper football,” he reflected. “So when I first heard Bobby Robson talking about restricting the size of matches, I thought ‘that’s not proper football’.

“But I’ve refereed youth football for 15 years and I’ve watched the introduction of small-sided games for younger age groups and there’s no doubt at all that the kids get better at football but, almost more importantly, they enjoy it more.”

Keep following The Coach Diary on his path to change for better coaching systems throughout Ireland. We need proper structures and we need to get the adults with only their own egos in mind out of the game for good. This game is for kids not adults, if you want to get involved in adult football then over u19s football is not for you!