gives us a bit of an idea where to start.

spose if you chuck in the four core skills......running with the ball...........one versus one........;striking the ball........ first touch.........it gives a bit of a framework for the average bloke out there on the park.

That is a big statement to make, unless you've completed C, B, and A Licences.

I'm sure they are cheaper.

invest in the following

http://www.amazon.com/Attacking-Center-soccer-method-ebook/dp/B005AQ1H6A/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2

http://www.amazon.com/Build-Up-Play-soccer-method-ebook/dp/B005E0USQC/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1361869873&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=henk+merrimen+soccer+coaching+method

http://www.amazon.com/Attacking-Flank-soccer-method-ebook/dp/B005ET5AUM/ref=pd_sim_kstore_3
http://www.amazon.com/The-Soccer-Method-Defending/dp/1591641063/ref=pd_sim_b_3

much cheaper and more informational than any FFA course

The football philosophy is about how you would want your team to play in every possible situation; on the ball, off the ball, when your 2 has the ball, when the opposition 8 has the ball, when the opposition 10 drops deep, when you play against a 3-6-1, when you go from BPO-BP against a 4-4-2, what you're doing on a corner from the left, a throw-in from the right, etc., etc.

Basically, potentially endless notes on positioning and how and where they press, pass, everything else related to playing the game.

It's not an easy task and I've no doubt it would change constantly if you were to put pen to paper in trying to figure it all out.

Thanks.

I'm pretty clear on these.

Break it down into little bits, how do you want your team to play in each of the 4 main moments. Set pieces? Tempo? Passing combinations? Zonal/man marking?pressing? How high a line do they hold? Etc etc

Yeah pretty much the same, just observe and analyse to see if the skill introduction and skill training topics are being used in the game

I think you are right when everything else is equal. Fair point.

I'm not sure if they pushed this message in your last FFA coaching course, which I think was pretty recent, Striker, but now FFA is advancing the message that the most important quality in a coach is communication skills.

The problem with some former top players is their lack of communication skills. There have been some articles written by Simon Kuper, in Arthur's thread about Articles and Research, discussing the advantages/disadvantages of former elite players as opposed to teachers in coaching football.

Last night at some Under 14 rep trials, we expected about 17 kids turn up for 16 places. We had so many who registered at the last minute, I couldn't count them accurately - about fortyish. Only 10 turned up for the Under 13s.

The state TD, a former Australian player, who had to take the under 13s till their coach arrived as the coach was late, said very few coaches (any of the trained teachers reading this would have been able to cope) could've coped with 40 players. I did this until the under 13 coach arrived. Then the the state TD assisted and guided me. Like any trained teacher, I was very well prepared. Communication and organisation of kids is my profession. For shortfalls in football knowledge, I have the state TD, a former pro player, to approach.

However, being a trained teacher, I've had to cope with a lot worse at school. These kids at the Under 14 trials were all on their best behaviour too, and were very coachable and quick to follow instructions, very unlike most teaching scenarios. For the state TD, he was relieved. We had innumerable parents, about 100 plus , watching. For him, it could have been a disaster.

My position is, that a partnership of a good communicator can work well in tandem with a former player with great insight and experience about the game of football. A coach and his/her assistant with a different skill set can pool resources.

One guy who has posted in this forum and doesn't have a significant playing background, but is a highly qualified coach, with FFA Advanced Coaching qualifications, has been told by some significant movers and shakers he will never be able to coach at the top level in this country. This is the same as most other coaches without significant playing backgrounds. On paper he is an excellent communicator.

Paradoxically, one of the guys imparting this message, from the upper echelons of the FFA hierarchy, has no significant playing background himself. The same guy was not keen to have globally travelling and very skilled KNVB coaches, Schans and Derkson , revisiting Australia under FFA auspices either.

The top jobs in Australia are for former top players. Ironically, Verbeek and Holger, were not former top players. The same with Wenger, Mourinho, Benitez, Houllier, Brendan Rodgers (I think) and Sacchi.





Edited by Decentric: 23/2/2013 10:27:52 PM

In the new C Licence, they are pushing developing one's own philosophy hard. When push comes to shove, I've had trouble working out what mine is!

All I can think of is wanting a team to try and play like Barcelona.





Edited by Decentric: 22/2/2013 04:36:39 AM

One of the things that surprised me, even as a trained teacher with 28 years experience, and quite a lot of success in teaching literacy, numeracy and thinking, I learnt something at the C Licence that helped me when I was teaching Daily Fitness outside yesterday. The C licence discussed where one stood in relation to the sun. I realised that i was asking the kids to look at me for game instructions staring into the sun.](*,)

As one senior FFA coach educator, Norm Boardman, says at at most clinics he takes, "Use every training session as a learning opportunity."




Edited by Decentric: 22/2/2013 04:35:50 AM

Coaching courses only give you a foundation and c licence helps you with a philosophy, as you go on the b and a licence you start to develop your own philosophy, your own training sessions in line with this philosophy etc.
Again those there are alot of things that coaches can be good or bad at i.e. communication, man management, identifying technical errors in training and then in games, identifying tactical errors in training and in games and also coming up with quick solutions, talent identification.

Yes and no. A lot of the structure work that is contained in the NC and subsequently the licenses is very good from what i can see. However it is only providing a foundation for the end product.

I guess at the end of the day it is what will sort the good coaches from the great coaches. Those who have the ability to take the building blocks, place their own slant on it and adapt to in game scenarios. I think this is where former top level players with the qualifications will have the edge over those who have the qualifications without too much personal exposure to the elite side of the game

C licence is for senior coaches, c youth licence is for development. Coaches should be able to use this structure along with football conditioning to organise their senior sides in the style of play they want them to play, and also use this format to fix teams football problems.

I think you just need to be careful when talking about this sort of stuff to identify that you are speaking from a development based coaching ideal rather than, and please take no offence to what im saying, a senior coach/manager whose focus is on results. Not that there is anything wrong with that

Doesnt matter about the diagram, its the concept. The players wont see the Horst Wein diagrams. Anyway, the book was written quite a few years ago so the drawings might be outdated.

Craig Foster used to recommend Horst Wein, but a poster who visited a few times on here, a guy based in England known as Slowcoach elsewhere, a UEFA A Licence holder, thinks the diagrams are not very good in Wein's book. He thinks it is overrated.

Apart from him saying that, everybody else seems to think it is a very, very good book.

Is the Skill Game the equivalent to the Training Game used in the C Licence as the last stage in a session?

For SAP Sessions a good start is to have a look at Horst Wein's books and use them as your structure, also have some good effective questions to use for the small sided games. You can then add one of the 4 functional games skills in, as well as some tactical elements to the session (one of the 4 main moments) as well as your style of play. This should give you an idea of your session and then you split it into the warm up/skill introduction, skill training and skill game.

In the skill game you are observing to see if the technical/tactical elements you worked on are coming out.

The reason the FFA NC , has a three stage module is because FFA considers after the growth spurt, footballers need a more structured warm- up.

1. Warm Up or Beginning

Initially we'll look at the Warm up or beginning, which often combines stages 1 and 2 in the FFA NC forplayers after the growth spurt. This is the standard SAP module.

For this age group, there are the four Core Skills:

a. First touch (considered the most important).

b. 1v1 (defensive and offensive).

c. Running with the ball.

d. Striking the ball ( incorporating passing, shooting, free kicks).

In pre-season, as I understand it, these traing ground modules are developed around these skills. There are plenty in the FFA C Licence and SAP links I've sent via email to you guys.

In the warm up, if you can incorporate some isolated technique, seen in Andy Jackson's Four Four two performance, UEFA traing ground at the top of the 442 Performance page.

Coerver has go a few decent 1v1 drills, which are in 442 performance, although SAP uses a Coerver one that I hate.

A SAP coach in another part of Australia has sent me some good 1v1 exercises, which I hope to have on here soon.

Incorporate rondos 3v1, 4v2 and 5v3 or 2, that I sent from the C Licence to you guys via email.

I think it is good to use the five or six 4v4 KNVB basic games too in this

http://www.bettersoccermorefun.com/dwtext/knvbgmes.htm
I learnt a really good training ground drill from Norm Boardman, which Everton Academy also use. I just a cannot find a diagram of it to post on the internet though.



This part should take about 30 minutes.





2. Game Training.

If I went onto the C Licence stuff, we'd be here for weeks.

With 11v11 teams from ages 14 down to 11, I often use the keeper, defensive, midfield and defensive lines, against the attacking and midfield lines in 7v7. This is particularly good to coach the midfield triangles of the 1-4-3-3.

This is where it would be useful to see on the training ground the Worlds and Pictures and visual display units that really assist players to play in the shape you want, to address the most passing problem identified fromteh previus match yourteam played. Thisis an absolute strength of the KNVB, and a little less well-coached in the FFA NC.

The Game Training is the crux of a training session, but if you are playing 11 v11, the 7v7s work well.

There needs to be a;

Team task:

FFA like players to start playing quickly at this stage.



Then interventions will usually need to be made by paying attention to:

Player Actions

Cues.

The last two are where many of us are weakest, but some of the very young coaches around who have been in NTC programs are better at this. It is a weakness of mine. However, we will have a an A3 clipboard, laminated sheet for some of the most common match identified specific problems for the training pitch, available from this state FFA soon.

This should take about 40 minutes.



3. Training game

KNVB advocate 11 v 11 , but it is often impossible.

The coach stands back and observes to see if the objective has been achieved. There are few interventions.

This should take 20-30 minutes.











Edited by Decentric: 21/2/2013 12:04:52 AM

Edited by Decentric: 21/2/2013 12:07:53 AM

Edited by Decentric: 21/2/2013 12:14:11 AM

Edited by Decentric: 22/2/2013 04:41:15 AM

Ages 14 upwards
1. Warm up
2. Positioning Game ( KNVB 4v4)
3. Game Training (KNVB 7v7).
4. Training Game (KNVB 11v11).



Ages 14 and below.
1. Beginning (technique training)
2. Game Training
3. Training Game

Fair comment, Striker.

I'm still not sure what the current FFA Senior Licence entails, because I have't done it.

However, the C Licence goes into a massive amount of detail in identifying playing deficiencies. As you've previously suggested, coaches have different spatial awareness abilities to identify problems. Many of us prefer looking down from a stand.

I think in the SAP, there is more work done on the four Core Skills, and constructing playing sessions around them.

These are first touch, running with the ball, striking the ball and 1v1 ( offensively and defensively), the brackets are there because our national SAP writers went to the German Federation recently on a study tour. They persuaded our SAP curriculum writers to add the defensive element to 1 v 1.

There is a SAP coach who is a member of this forum. It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on the SAP training ground practice.




Edited by Decentric: 20/2/2013 10:29:43 PM

Structured training is obviously what is required but you shouldnt get too strung up on what that structure entails. I know the new curriculum calls for all drills to be easily converted to a game which is fine but firstly you need to have the ability to identify deficiencies on the field so that you can build a training session around that. No point targeting certan drills for the sake of it. In my experience there has to be clear purpose that players understand.

I'll have something up on here soon on a structured training session.

There is now a fair amount of material on this site.

I'm quite blown out about the response from adult players to the four phase training system.

Add it to the four Core Skills from SAP, and it provides a great structure.

If you live in Tasmania, the ACT, or Victoria, you should be able to access a SAP course. NSW are well behind ATM. I'm not sure about Queensland, SA and WA.

I ran a pretty successful session for my C LIcence homework, trialling stuff for my assessment, with a V League club senior team. They liked it so much, I'm going back, I think on a regular basis. We may run joint sessions with the Under 14 southern state rep team.

From the Community Football Program, I knew the kids liked the KNVB style training. However, I've been surprised at the response from very experienced, senior players.

Fortunately, I can combine the KNVB, with what I think is Clairefontaine very specific Guided Discovery questioning to make players think. Most of us are quite weak in this facet of coaching. Luckily, we have one of the National Curriculum SAP curriculum writers, on a panel with Han Berger, in this state, who is superb in this phase of coaching to mentor us.

Ron Smith, former FFA TD, was good in this area. We have players employed by state FFA who have been coached by him to pass on some of these cues.







Edited by Decentric: 18/2/2013 12:37:01 AM