Looking forward to reading further Greg. Sounds intereting for those of us who want to get into coaching.

Ps you can probably leave the keeper out of the formation


What do you think about the FourFourTwo blog By way of introduction?
As everybody knows we have a national curriculum (NC). But how do you implement the national curriculum into your club or representative system.  The people I talk to really don't understand how ...

Have your say.

Nice article Greg looking forward to more. I am also a non football person coaching young kiddies and am trying to learn as much as possible. The biggest issue I believe at club level is the competitiveness of it all. Most club coaches are result driven and it can really impede player development as a lot of games turn into hoof and chase.

Really looking forward to more from you Greg! Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences.

And that's the problem in a nutshell - the emperor has no clothes.

Do we really have a National Curriculum or a shell of an outline.

Can anyone tell me what a particular age group are doing at a particular stage of the season based on their previous competencies.

In education a curriculum tends to be more than just we'll do Maths in this way - it actually breaks the content out - precisely into manageable chunks.

No-one knows what 7 or 8 or 9 year olds should be doing - we all have an idea of the numbers on the field, etc the system even, but curriculum.

There isn't one - not yet. Telling us to use some of the 1500 drills from SS2 - that is garbage. Who has time for that. And players need stuff over and over - hardly requires 1500 drills - give em 3 and give em best practice for each shooting technique or drill e require.

Now when are we going to get a National Curriculum on Coaching?

And Greg you may be interested how my local club, Majura FC will start to use online coaching to assist player and parent knowledge at the younger age. This, perhaps, can add to the coaching of kids who might not watch the game they play on tv etc.

Simple video "drills" that teach ball mastery matched to the aims of the club and it's technical direction - which of course follows the FFA.

We'll see where it takes us!

Thank you for the comments. At the SSG level of the curriculum the games are supposed to be non point score or final. This is hard to accept as Australians as we are very competitive by nature. Over time if we are patient and coach players to be technically correct our "nursery grounds" will improve and players will flow.Results are not all that important until the 13 year and up age groups.Football 11v11 is an adults game. It is complex. Teach our young players the right way so they can play the 11v11 game more effectively.

While The amount & quality of info flowing through is sometimes good, coaches are not given enough help with the "how". So telling us that 433 is the mandated system, and leaving us to it will not work.

As far as SSF goes, there needs to be constant emphasis on the benefits & methods around it. Im also yet to see anything about how to transition young players from the mini game to the large format. Going from a SSF sized field to full size, with the attendant emphasis on positional play would need to be handled with care surely?

Key pieces of the puzzle are the association development officers, alone with their counterpart within each club. Withtout a focus point for info sharing, coaches will revert to their own methods, most of which are ordinary.

Great comments nearpost.Excellent analogy. The S2S website is a valauble tool, but as I found out the FFA S2S exercises are identical to the world site. Again no specific information here.If you have a plan but don't give coaches the tools to do the job don't expect it to get done. Also, don't fall into the trap of not correcting technique early on and just let them play. If you tolerate poor behaviour at home when your children are 3yrs old then try to correct it at 10 years old you will create problems for yourself. Same with football. Gently correct technique when young so bad habits are not formed.In future blogs we will cover all the age groups, give sample sessions and discuss, didactic methods, game sense and formation training. Latter on we will look function and phases of play in the older youth age groups for the 4-3-3. Keep the comments flowing.