I want to know which licenses/courses you have gained from.

What was the value of respective licences/courses you did?

What did you gain the most from, which course?

You say the lower level was more helpful for you?

I have a strong interest in the psychology of my players, the cohesion and building of a club culture and the use of tactics in line with a philosophy.




A former high level player has PMed me these questions.

I thought they were so good, I was hoping he would start a thread on it here. Many posters like to stay very anonymous. So I decided to cut and paste these questions to this section of the forum.

We have heaps of posters here who have done various coaching courses. It would be interesting to hear what they gained, if anything, from specific courses in the year they did them.

I did a FFA Youth Licence in 2007.

This was well before the overhaul initiated by Han Berger.

I think Krones did it shortly after.

At the time Grassroots and Junior Licences preceded it.

It was taken by David Abela. He was a good coach of coaches in terms of delivery and style. At the time I thought it was a very good course, because it enhanced my knowledge. There were a lot of former pro and current NPL senior players in that course. When I asked them, none of they learnt nothing of value and acquired no new knowledge.

In hindsight, the only thing I learnt that was of any value, compared to all the overhauled continental European style coaching I've done since, was how little most of us knew in terms of refereeing, positioning of the second defender.

Also, as males ( which I already adhered to) don't hug adult female players, or even teenage female players, as lots of the male coaches at the course loved doing.[-x

The worst thing the Youth Licence about it was that David kept telling us what we were doing on the training track was probably good, when It probably wasn't.

David kept talking about playing out from the back, but there was no explicit instruction in the classroom or out on the pitch about how to achieve it. This scenario would've probably been replicated Australia wide.




Edited by Decentric: 27/5/2015 08:44:43 AM

After the 2007 Youth Licence I did the KNVB Youth Certificate in Canberra at the AIS in 2008. Another infrequent member of this forum, Possession Football, also did this same course. We worked in groups together and thankfully he already knew a lot about football.


It simply blew my mind. :?

What was confronting, and similar to what we do in all the current FFA courses/seminars/workshops, is we were given topics in groups of of about 4 , with the instructors deciding at the last minute who would then present them on the pitch. I was in a nervous sweat it was my group for the first four days, but Possession Football was ver confident and led us well.=d>

It kept all of us on our toes. Now in FFA courses, a lot us are given different topics in groups and all must present them. It also gives coaches a chance to learn from other coahces and have them critiqued by FFA instructors.

I was way out my depth and comfort zone, but gained confidence to speak and ask questions in the latter stages of the KNVB course.#-o

Thankfully, Kelly Cross viewed some of it and offered nothing. He was daunted by the knowledge of the KNVB instructors too.

A current pro coach, often mooted for HAL jobs, was also there and he said he learnt heaps.

Another pro coach in the women's game hated Derkson. She told me she learnt nothing, but later admitted she learnt heaps and heaps from Schans to a bloke she knew a lot better.

Another assistant underage national FFA coach thought it was brilliant.

Basically, given my level of knowledge at the time, and probably most other course participants who all know infinitely more than me, it was a frightening welcome into the 21st century continental European style coaching. It was delivered all over the world by the KNVB, by extremely knowledgeable instructors, Arie Schans and Ad Derkson, amonst others. One can still do it in Holland.

The only trouble is unless a person from FFA has done it themselves, they won't recognise the value even though it was under the auspices of FFA under Rob Baan's tenure.

The local Football Fed Tas CEO wrote a letter so I could get time off work for the 8 day course. Afterwards with all that acquired knowledge, I was amazed at how dismissive a lot of local football people were of the KNVB training.

A few knew the intrinsic value though and I was offered a rep coaching job. The knowledge acquired enabled the team I coached to win a state championship with inferior cattle. That is against local rep coaches with 20 years plus experience, including a FFA staff coach. I felt like it was an unfair advantage having the KNVB training, when nobody else did.

I've never done a coaching course as good as the KNVB since, but a lot of the recent FFA coach education is closing the gap fast. That KNVB course is the criterion now to compare any other coaching courses.





Edited by Decentric: 27/5/2015 09:35:16 AM

Biscuitman wrote:

Fantastic course presented by Dean May and Tony Franken, so we had the benefit of the two best credentialed goalkeeping coaches in the country.

This new community goalkeeping coaching award course replaces the old certificate/licence/diploma courses and is about 16-18 hours. Two tutors (Neil Young and Dave Whalley) attended and will deliver the course locally in the future.

Was probably about 20% classroom and the rest practical. My main take away points were (similar to outfield coaching) - is it fun, safe and does it look like football? In other words, incorporate goalkeeper training as much as possible into general training but also develop practices that can be undertaken by 3-4 keepers which still have a competitive element to them (rather than isolated drills).

Covered coaching keepers from discovery stage through to seniors. Included some video analysis which showed how Mat Ryan really chases the game and engages with the back four (I couldn't help thinking that it would not have been possible to include this element of the course to the same extent if Mark Schwarzer was still the Socceroos keeper). Time spent on defending the space between the defence and the penalty area as well as just defending the goal.

Although we had some junior keepers come in for a couple of hours on the first day, most of the practical involved the participants so there were some sore bodies by the end (I went to bed at 8pm after the first day!)

I have come away from the course very enthused and will be videoing our State league 18s, reserves and first team this week, specifically focusing on the engagement between the back four and the keeper.

The next step is the advanced level 1 goalkeeping course which is 5 full days. Prerequisite for that is the three generic modules of the C licence which I do not have yet, so will be looking to complete those hopefully in August.

I would highly recommend to anyone thinking of getting this qualification that they attend this course the next time it is held in the eastern states as you will get Dean May and Tony Franken rather than a tutor.