One of the things that has occurred this year, is the differential between coaching a boys adolescent rep team, and doing weekly guest sessions at a premier women's team at a state league club. The boys have more skill, but the women, aged from 16 - 36, have so much better game sense and general football intelligence. You only suggest something once, or pose a question for the women to solve, which they often quickly find a solution for and it frequently transfers to instant knowledge!

One phenomenon that fascinates me, is that I saw a coach work last year with some of the male adolescents I coach now, imparting shoulder feints. The former players try to assure me they had never learnt them before. If I hadn't seen them train last year, I would have believed them!

Some of the adolescent male players will argue about doing things that are blatantly obvious to the senior female players. If you don't do training ground practice to reinforce things over and over, it doesn't seem to sink in.](*,) One state league senior coach, told me even as adults, some blokes just don't get some things that are so obvious.

In a session the other day, it seemed almost impossible for some male adolescents to do an exercise in two touches and move instantly after passing, to create a passing lane. A couple struggled to do it in two touches, after 45 minutes.](*,) The females picked it up immediately, and instantly took the first touch away from the opponent.

I had more previous experience with under 12s and below, but with a few coaching sessions of 15 year old women and above.

What have other people found who have coached a range of ages and both genders?

Edited by Decentric: 30/5/2013 08:59:13 AM

I've coached under 14/15 boys the last few years. And I can under stand what your saying. There is always a couple in the team who think that what they are doing is correct because they have been doing it all their lives. But also, some of them have just never been told or shown how do it "correctly" so it will take some time to change something they have been doing automatically for years.

Whenever I point out something that should be changed either on a personal level or as a team, I firstly make them aware of what they are doing "wrong" then I tell them how to improve/fix the problem. I find it very important to then explain to them why my way is the correct/better way to do it. They need to understand why they should change so that they can start to think for themselves when in a real game instead of a structured training drill. I think explaining "why" is something that a fair few coaches don't do, they simply tell the kids what to do, which doesn't help them to further their football knowledge and ability to adapt to different situations in a game.

And what you said about some senior Guys not getting the obvious. I guess that comes down to the way in which they were trained as a junior. Kids are not being trained to think for themselves and to adapt to different situations correctly. You can have club teams that stay as a unit from under 8 through to under 16. And every kid has their "own" position that they have played in for 8 years. They get very familiar with their teammates movements and how they should play within that unit. But once they move to a different team, they feel lost because they don't know how to react to situations they haven't found themselves in before. Even something as simple as moving a CM to RM they struggle to cope with the positional change.

I find that the girls definitely listen better, don't know if its just the individuals I coach but every team I have had the girls have been the easiest to coach, this could be why they remember better.

With females, a greater percentage seem to lack confidence compared to males. Some of our elite coaches believe that a player of 17 is past learning. I started karate at 16 and drumming at 19, and had to learn everything as an adult. The same can rationale can be extrapolated to football.

I've been surprised in the improvement in adult female footballers, even over the course of a session. They very quickly pick up formational and structural concepts. Many female players have better game sense than their male counterparts, although lacking their athletic and technical ability.

I think females may be easier to coach, but I am no expert on adult female player management. Thankfully, I take technical and tactical sessions in a club for head coaches who are.

One of the messages that came through the KNVB, that doesn't come through the FFA NC as much, is that a coach works on a player's technique and TIC for the duration of their career, no matter how old. Even if players haven't had access to correct coaching when young, they can still improve if they keep working on their game.







Edited by Decentric: 31/5/2013 05:29:53 PM

I've only coached senior men's teams.

They can be a frustrating bunch, due to being a young coach had a few issues getting some respect originally from some of the team as they were older than myself. The key to solving this was setting up a leadership team that supported me.

The biggest key to working with them I find is communication. What I found when I started coaching, if I'd run certain basic drill some of the more experienced player would be like "Why are we doing this? This is junior stuff." After being asked that I explained why, and then they ended up putting a lot more effort in, and helping the less experienced players. So now I try and explain what is going to happen and why at the start of a session.

Eg- "Tonight we're working on passing and moving because I'm not seeing enough at the game and we're remaining too static which enables our opponents to mark us out of games, and read us like a book. We'll be starting off with a warmup drill, some unopposed passing shape movement, passing shape movements with limited pressure. 3v3 SSG and then a scrimmage." Then give a bit of info on why we're doing each drill before each one, and my expectations.

Also find that you need to be completely honest when dropping players down to the reserves or the bench. After I decide on the squads I'll contact anyone that has been dropped and let them know why before I announce the squad. Just good man-management and normally gets that player to try and prove you wrong on the field.