https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/PedMenCoach/presentations

Scribd.com(which you have to sign up for, alas) also has some good stuff, if you type topic-related keywords in the search engine. One sample: https://www.scribd.com/document/118045582/Full-Switching-Play-Session

You'd have to go to an existing coach at an AL Academy, they don't really publish these types of details.

For Sydney FC google Kelly Cross, you will find plenty there.

For Melbourne City they get most of their IP from Manchester City, but not sure of the implementation.

I wasn't sure if this was the thread to ask but here goes.. does anyone have access to any A-league Academies team models? I'm interesting in developing my own knowledge. 

I watched one of their games on youtube. All their players look like they are on steroids or meth. Reminded me of West coast eagles in the ben cousins era

"Barrowcelona": The Non-League Team That Play Like Barcelona

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjJkv2ZsiJ4

Your all welcome.

I was surprised that this Topic has been going for 10 years!

Thanks Arthur, another interesting read.

Good article

i think stats are a new frontier. As ive said before used heavily in basketball and it also takes away heaps of Bias when evaluating players. Most football people think they are scouts waiting to happen and that they have a gut feel for every player. usually they are wrong. Only last week i was at an A-League game with a very highly respected youth coach. At the end he completely bagged a player that I thought had a great game. Because of my colleagues status in the local game I kept my mouth shut and presumed I misread the game. 2 days later team of the week was announced and the player made the squad. 

Xavi in his biography famously said only 4 pct of football people know what they are talking about...

Stats sort the wheat from the chaff. 

Interestingly I have read that Ozul - a player hated on by his own supporters actually has awesome weird stats that arent immediately visible to untrained eye. Eg most balls received in the forward 1/3 of the pitch....

food for thought - thanks for posting

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2e11ef24-4e4a-11ea-92ed-35f8fca55a87?shareToken=8de9388a7a55549c7e82e7c570c39177&fbclid=IwAR3FNiOkSFWraIdnhj1CYytWCxpTxeSdvDSdn2AC48GgzFaZ4ot8DbXTQ-A

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/sports/champions-league-ajax-madrid.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Sports

No worries D thought it was time to go back to the core.

Thanks for posting all these articles, Arthur.

https://medium.com/@sebluelion2/uruguays-diamond-from-a-coaching-perspective-dace7018831c

Uruguay’s diamond from a coaching perspective

Sébastien ChapuisAug 5, 2018

Uruguay has found a winning formula during the World Cup 2018, setting up in “4-diamond-2”. Used on occasion during its qualifying campaign, this system is the one on which La Celeste relied on to get the better of Russia (3–0) and Portugal (2–1) to reach the World Cup quarter-finals.This article means to suggest how such a game model can be implemented from a coaching and training point of view.Videos are used based on Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/sports/world-cup/soccer-youth-decline.html

Youth Soccer Participation Has Fallen Significantly in America

Over the past three years, the percentage of 6- to 12-year-olds playing soccer regularly has dropped nearly 14 percent, to 2.3 million players, according to a study by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.CreditNicole Craine for The New York Times

By Joe Drape

• July 14, 2018

CHICAGO — With its gables, turrets and iron railing, U.S. Soccer House — as the mansion housing the U.S. Soccer Federation is known — looks more like a fortress than the headquarters of a major sports organization. It is fitting: The federation is on the defensive.It is bad enough that the men’s national team failed to qualify for this summer’s World Cup, a fact the federation was reminded of daily as the tournament in Russia dazzled global audiences on its way to crowning a new champion Sunday.The real threat, however, to its mission to make soccer one of America’s pre-eminent sports is here at home, where youth players are abandoning the game in alarming numbers.Over the past three years, the percentage of 6- to 12-year-olds playing soccer regularly has dropped nearly 14 percent, to 2.3 million players, according to a study by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, which has analyzed youth athletic trends for 40 years. The number of children who touched a soccer ball even once during the year, in organized play or otherwise, also has fallen significantly.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/setheverett/2018/12/15/youth-soccer-facing-new-challenges-in-battle-for-kids-waning-attention/#3ffae73e322c

Dec 15, 2018, 08:09am

Youth Soccer Facing New Challenges In Battle For Kids' Waning Attention

Seth Everett Contributor
SportsMoneySports Broadcaster, Podcaster & SAGAFTRA Union Member   Kids participate in Stars Premier, the travel component of Super Soccer Stars, during summer of 2018.Super Soccer Stars   In today’s technology-driven age, kids have so many options presented to them that outdoor athletics such as soccer face new challenges. As a result, youth soccer enrollment has declined. Yet new programs are aiming to attract kids’ short attention spans. According to a recent study by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, the percentage of 6- to 12-year-olds playing soccer regularly has dropped nearly 14 percent, to 2.3 million youth players over the past three years. The Association has analyzed youth athletic trends for the past 40 years. “It’s lost more child participants than any other sport — about 600,000 of them,” Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, told the New York Times.

https://www.youthsporttrust.org/news/football-boosting-young-girls-mental-wellbeing-and-confidence

Home » News          

    Football boosting young girls' mental wellbeing and confidence  

           Girls’ mental health in schools is being helped through football, new research from children’s charity the Youth Sport Trust and The Football Association (FA) has found.                  

It has been revealed that girls’ confidence, motivation and life skills have been improved following participation in Game of Our Own - delivered by the Youth Sport Trust in collaboration with The FA.

“If you’ve had a bad day, the rest of the team will cheer you up and make you feel happy. It’s like a sanctuary. You won’t get judged for having a bad game and you’ll make friends.” These were the words from one of the girls at Forge Valley School, Sheffield, after participating in the programme.Game of Our Own is focused on introducing more girls to the game by teaching leadership skills, which can then be applied in girls’ own schools to engage their peers. It also supports schools and teachers to have a better understanding of barriers to participation and how to engage girls.40% of the girls who took part in a post programme survey said that their mental wellbeing had been improved by taking part. It also revealed that 90% of girls who had helped to lead and deliver the programme said their confidence had been improved generally – with more girls feeling that their confidence to play football had been boosted.

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/kensington-soccer-club-teacher-jim-hardy-20181122.html
 

Education

Lifting Kensington — through soccer

   by Kristen A. Graham, Posted: November 22, 2018    

     The athletic fields at Third and Dauphin are not lovely, set on patchy grass amid a stark Kensington landscape. But the things that have grown around them are remarkable, a testament to the strength of a community and one man's dogged belief in it.  The fields and the adjacent clubhouse that Philadelphia teacher Jim Hardy rents from a nearby church form the heart of the Kensington Soccer Club. In eight years, the organization has grown from a few volunteers overseeing a handful of pickup games to a community anchor with nearly 1,500 youths served annually in multiple leagues, providing year-round programming, educational activities, even jobs.

http://www.espn.com/soccer/club/barcelona/83/blog/post/3705925/barcelona-incorporate-data-analysis-into-their-cruyff-inspired-principles

Barcelona incorporate data analysis into their Cruyff-inspired principles

Nov 23, 2018

Sam Marsden Barcelona correspondent

BARCELONA, Spain -- Ernesto Valverde had a question for Javier Fernandez. Were Barcelona transitioning too quickly? Would they be able to create more space by slowing down and letting the opposition retreat first? Fernandez got to work. Eventually, he came up with an answer. It was relayed back via multiple visualisations. Valverde liked what he saw and put the information into practice. The coach passed the message on to his players, more or less, by drawing two lines on a tactics board. It had taken Fernandez weeks of analysis to come up with his response.So, what was the solution?"There was a range of time which was ideal to spend in each zone to allow defensive line backtracking -- too little or too much was counterproductive," Fernandez tells ESPN FC. "This also depends on many contextual factors, but the bottom line idea was to transition more smartly from one zone to another, spending the right amount of time and reading the spaces."Fernandez is Barca's head of sports analytics and one of a growing number of data scientists involved in football. His background is in computer science. He's worked building systems, infrastructure and mobile apps. He has a master's degree in artificial intelligence. Now, as the head of a team of six, he works for one of the world's biggest football teams, in his words, "trying to get closer to understanding the game better."On a weekly basis, he meets with the coaching staff at the Spanish club. Not just Valverde and his staff, but also coaches from the B team, the U19s and the women's team. He's there to help anyone."It's been a long process," Fernandez says of the ongoing information exchange with the coaching staff. "But now, after two years, our coaches have started to develop the algorithms verbally. For example [they say]: 'For me, high pressure is this number of players in this zone and this movement with velocity.'"Basically, they're understanding what they can do with data. It's better for us because we know what [adds] value for them and they practically provide the algorithm in words so we can go and start mapping the first base of knowledge regarding what you can do in data and then grow from there."Getting to the bottom of what Fernandez actually does with data -- even after speaking to him for 40 minutes -- is not simple. It's advanced work carried out by intelligent people. William Spearman, who performs a similar role for Liverpool, has a PhD from Harvard in high energy particle physics. Ravi Ramineni, Seattle Sounders' director of analytics, worked for Microsoft as a program manager for seven years before moving into football.It's safe to say, though, that what they're dealing with is more state of the art than the statistics most supporters are familiar with: possession, shots, crosses, winning streaks.In contrast to other sports, there's been a reluctance from parts of football to embrace this more nuanced data. An article in the Guardian last week, referring to new scouting methods, mocked that "you can place your faith in data analysis, but don't be surprised if you end up with a load of donkeys."Even xG (expected goals), a relatively simple metric, was criticised when it first emerged. Last season, though, it was introduced by the BBC's flagship football show Match of the Day as part of their post-match statistics. So while some may turn their noses up at the wider uptake of data analysis, the fact clubs like Barca are embracing it suggests it's here to stay.Fernandez has certainly not noticed any resistance at Camp Nou. His work has been warmly received by coaches at the club. One of the keys, he says, is in the presentation."If we can't fit the information we want to transmit on one page, we don't fully understand the concept yet," he explains. "We don't want four pages. For us, using video is also fundamental. We start from the video to get the data. You get the first feedback from the video. Then we do a process of data and try to get the answers. Finally, we go back to the video because it's an amazing communication tool."Through the video analysts, [the coaches] say 'We're very interested in this kind of marking' or 'We're interested in knowing the dynamics of this match, can you validate this,' or 'We're interested in knowing if we're spending too much time in certain zones because it has no impact.' We can validate those things."It's rarely to do with huge changes or individual players. That's not what we're trying to do. It's more general patterns of how we are playing, how the team is behaving. Are we following what we want to do? How do we face this opponent? Is the opponent pressing differently than we thought?"It feels significant that Barca are striving to make advances in this area. This is a club that has won five European Cups but perhaps more significantly have one of the most defined styles in the game, popularised by Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta. The use of analytics could suggest they're looking to get the best from the talent they have, which may not necessarily mean sticking to their roots.However, Fernandez is not so sure this is a case of Barca looking outside their own four walls for inspiration. His discourse includes phrases you'd typically hear from Valverde -- "Barca DNA," "the opposition also play" -- and some of the work he does focuses on validating the good things the team do (or finding ways to improve what they do). A large focal point, for example, is space creation. Through a 2017 study, he found that Lionel Messi creates more space by standing still or jogging than any other player on the Barca team does by running."Is it better to run more or to run better?" is a question he poses, perhaps rhetorically.In that sense, Fernandez argues that finding ways to quantify off-the-ball actions will prove important in terms of improving performances moving forward."There's this phrase from Cruyff that I like very much," he says. "It seems simple, but it hides some important things: It's been proven that players have the ball three minutes on average. So it matters more what you do with the remaining minutes when you don't have the ball. So, off-the-ball actions and off-the-ball performance is an area that has a huge opportunity to exploit."We really need to understand about spaces and off-the-ball movement. It's tricky to analyse, but it's possible. We've done some studies on space creation and it's interesting that with more or less basic knowledge you can start grasping stats about how players are behaving. You can start seeing how the team is moving to reach certain things that are interesting for a team, like moving the opponent to one side or the other."But one of the most important things [about data analysis] is that it's always related with context. If we're doing a buildup and we're having high pressure, it's not the same as a buildup with no pressure. So that changes that phase of the game and the things you want to analyse."It's about movement of players, it's about positioning, it's about controlling space, it's about the lines of formation of the different teams. It's how we move the ball around to create spaces and then if we are recognising those spaces and playing there. It's really trying to grasp those things that are really connected to a possession-like playing style which is very close to Barca's DNA."Barca are almost unique in that they're not a closed shop. They believe that the knowledge base they're building should be shared to help the sport improve collectively. That's why they have created the Barca Innovation Hub, which held a conference last week with speakers from some of Europe's biggest clubs sharing information, tools and experiences.So, what next? Can we expect Barcelona to run away with more La Liga titles and win a string of Champions Leagues because of their investment in data?

"I don't think that we should look at this as we want to be better than anyone and win the most points possible," Fernandez says. "What we want to do now is share with different clubs -- with every club in Spain, if possible -- and say that we have developed some basic algorithms. We would like to share this, discuss football, because we think right now our competitive advantage is our coaching staff, our players, our institution in general ... not really that extra percent you can add with data."If we try to grow behind closed doors, we won't grow as we want. That's why we want to lead that path of introducing data into football by communicating with clubs because those other clubs really understand football. They may have different models but they like football, they work in football and they want to understand more about football."So when we can develop these things and grow together, imagine the whole league growing together and making the sport more competitive. It's going to be better for our own team, for the league, for the Champions League, for everyone probably. Then it will impact the World Cup somehow and the sport really grows."

shielding the ball is most important skill to learn first, then dribbling, passing then shooting,
so in training 1 v1 in small area keeping the ball in the area, change partners every 30 seconds

I'll add that it gets frustrating for him because he can do the hard work of dribbling through the pack but all it takes is for a bigger kid to nudge him off balance or any kid from either side to stick a foot out in attempt to kick the ball and it brings all his work undone.

If you have seen those miniroos games they are basically just a mosh pit of 5 years olds.

I wasn't sure where to ask this question so I'll put it here.

This is my sons first year of football. He's of age in the under 6s.

When kicking around with a ball and him in the yard, we play abit of one on one and I have always tried to teach and show him to keep his body over the ball with smaller kicks to keep the ball closer to him and easier to control.

He has really picked this skill up well and it really stands out in a Saturday that he is focusing on keeping ball close to him, he seems to be able to control a ball through a crowd of kids in which the rest are just trying to kick the ball out of the pack.

But this is where the frustrating thing for him comes in, he is on the smaller and younger side of his age group, which in the crowded cluster that is miniroos doesn't work to his advantage, the kids that stand out and dominate are Te bigger and faster ones that once in the open can kick and chase further and faster than everyone else. I am of the opinion that as he gets older, grows and develops better motorskills and the games spread out over The pitch, the keeping of his body over the ball and in close control he has now will be an advantage but for him it's frustrating and I'm second guessing what I'm trying to teach.

So can someone tell me if what I am teaching him is correct and if not what should I change and if so how else can I help him develop?

Yes I realise he is 5 and I don't want to give off the impression of living through my kids or whatever else. I just am of the opinion that if he is gong to learn that as long as he is having fun doing it he learns properly and fundamentally.

Thanks for anyone that can offer up some advice.

http://www.afr.com/business/sport/darwins-theory-of-sporting-evolution-20170323-gv4yuj

Great read

The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

             
    http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10000-hour-rule-is-wrong-and-perpetuates-a-cruel-myth-2017-3?IR=T 

Monday, March 6, 2017

How Economics Explains Why Clubs Don’t Give Young Players A Chance

Each year, clubs at the highest levels of the game spend millions on their academy or youth system.  Each year, promising players train in these academies.  And, each year, they fail to get an opportunity to show what they are capable of.
It is an anomalous and fairly ridiculous situation that in many respects could only happen in football.  No other business would invest that much money and then fail to use what came through.  At least no business acting rationally would act that way.
The thing is that football clubs (as does any normal business, for the matter) act irrationally.  There is rarely any grand strategy in place and this is evidenced by how quickly confidence in a manager can deteriorate after a run of bad results, regardless of what that manager had achieved in the past.
For the past forty years, economists have been looking at ways to explain such irrationality.  The foundation of behavioural economics, this new branch in the science, was laid by two Israeli professors - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman – who set economics down the path of looking at what influences people’s behaviour to determine how they act and why they do so in such a manner (for more information on these two and their work, read Michael Lewis’ fantastic book The Undoing Project). 
In doing so they looked at a number of psychological factors that influence people’s decision and prevent them from acting in a rational or consistent manner.

It is such factors that have to be looked at in order to understand what stops clubs from trying to maximise the investment that they make in academies.  And there’s plenty worth looking into.
One in particular stands out.
Any project like a football academy has to be based on a long term vision.  That much is obvious.  Yet it contrasts with most managers’ focus on the present.  It is a vicious circle that clubs effectively bring on themselves by failing to stick to long term projects.
It is a behaviour that behavioural economists will be familiar with, having observed and documented it in what has become known as the present bias.   This is the tendency to over-value immediate rewards at the expense of long-term ambitions, regardless of the impact that it might have later on in life.
A classic example of this is when a person fails to save up any money, opting instead to spend it in order to fully live ‘the moment’.  Eventually a time will come when it is too late to start saving up and that individual has nothing on which to turn.
That is what clubs are doing with their academies.  The absence of a long term project forces everyone on the playing side to focus on the immediate outcome.  Managers, knowing that their job could be at risk with a series of bad results, will opt for his more experienced players on whom he can rely more heavily.
Young players are more likely to make mistakes.  Regardless of their talent they may not by physically ready or might be too slow to react; making critical mistakes in the process.  Those are the mistakes that in truth they need to make in order to develop and learn yet managers rarely have the luxury of allowing them that room to grow.  Managers need players who can deliver immediate results.
They are biased in favour of those players who can help them in the present.
This is costing clubs heavily.  It is a short term view for a number of reasons starting from the obvious that the performances of older players tend to decrease rapidly once they hit a particular age.  The outcome here is that the club would then have to look for another player to replace him, thus spending more money to do so.  
What’s worse is that such spend is the equivalent of throwing money away.  For while that older player might ensure immediate reliability, the value of such experienced players rarely appreciates.  Within a couple of years that player will have to be moved on and often only a fraction – if any – of the initial outlay is recovered.

This contrasts with the value of a young player that tends to appreciate notably as they gain experience, confidence and start to express their ability on a more consistent basis.  Financially, the development of a young player is easily more beneficial than going for established ones.
Still clubs opt not to do so.  Again this is hardly surprising for behavioural economists who have an explanation as to why this happens: they are falling prey to hyperbolic discounting.  Without going into the technicalities of what this term means, essentially it refers to the decision making process whereby the farther away a potential return is, the more it is discounted and less it is valued.
It is only when clubs get to a situation where they have nothing to lose by trying something different that they really start to shed such bias.  A typical case was that of Borussia Dortmund who, after going to the edge of bankruptcy in their bid to regain their status in German football, opted to put their faith in young players (and a young coach).  Their rewards were immediate and significant: two league titles and a Champions League final.
Judging by the players that they have bought over recent months, Borussia Dortmund have made sure not to fall in their old routine – or fall back on their bias – by signing promising young players.  It is a brave move but, if the rules of behavioural economics are anything to go by, it could also be the right one.

http://www.panamericanworld.com/es/articulo/club-social-parque-incubadora-de-estrellas-del-futbol

The children train in the Park Social Club. Photo: Ricardo Ceppi.
Posted by PanamericanWorld on November 04, 2015
The Social Club Park is a children's football room in Buenos Aires in which dozens of professionals have been formed such as Juan Román Riquelme, Fernando Gago, Juan Pablo Sorín and Fernando Redondo, Carlos Tévez and in which he also played a season Diego Armando Maradona.
"Argentina is capable of generating so many players because it has a history and because the provinces play a lot of football," says Ramon Maddoni, responsible for attracting talents from the Park, who for 18 years has an agreement with Boca Juniors to transfer him Players and stay with 5% of future sales. He previously held a similar agreement with Argentinos Juniors for 16 years.
Maddoni had tried that day 220 adolescents of 13 years who came from the provinces of Misiones (northeastern Argentina) and San Juan (west). "There used to be more 'potrero' (land football fields)," recalls Maddoni the times when children of all walks of life played on the street. "Today there are many 'games' that take them out of the routine of playing football, but equally new players come out," completes this 74-year-old expert from the banks surrounding the field in Villa Devoto that gives to the club Lionel Gancedo , An exfutbolista of the Park, the Osasuna and the Murcia. For four years the football club has been left without its headquarters in Villa del Parque until it completes its delayed remodeling.
"The player is born or made, but is perfected day by day," says Maddoni. That's what the club coaches are dedicated to. While seven-year-olds dodge cones with the ball, they kick into the goal and jump into a pitchfork hanging from a ball, the talent recruiter tells the basics of the Park: "Here we choose well and it's hard '(Works) well the technique and the fundamentals, that is to say, know how to jump to head, to handle both legs, to stand with their backs against the lines to look at the court. They also learn rhythm and aggressiveness. Here they bring the kids because they work all this, which is a 'boludez' (simplicity), but many wanted to imitate it and make it a year. This must be done from six to 13 years. If you 'start' at 13 on the big court, you already lost a lot of time. ", Explains Maddoni.
Other important players from the Park were Esteban Cambiasso, Fabricio Coloccini, Jonás Gutiérrez, Leonardo Pisculichi, Nicolás Pareja, Nicolás Gaitán, Emmanuel Insúa, Diego Cagna, Diego Placente, Santiago Solari and Ricky Álvarez. "No one is thrown out here, the boy is never told that he does not serve. But they leave because you do not 'quit' them. So we left Ricky Alvarez free, who went to Velez, "laments Maddoni. Instead, this recruiter anticipated little Tévez that he would be "one of the five best in the world."
The 160 children of the Park come from all over Buenos Aires to the Campo de Gancedo, in a middle-class neighborhood in the west of the city, to train once a week, three hours, and play the league on Saturdays. "What I lack are central defenders. They can not be small, nor can the central striker. If you see that the father is less than 1.80 (meters), it does not work. There are parents who break their balls because the son is left-handed and they want the son to play ten. Sorin cried because he wanted to score goals, but I put him in the defense, "recalls Maddoni.
Diego Perugini, exfutbolista of the fifth category of Argentina, is one of the trainers. 41, he first approached the club to bring his son Thiago, ten. "I played in my neighborhood in San Miguel, and someone told me why I did not bring it," Perugini recalls.
Ramón Vivas is seven years old: "I like to come because we do physical work". Like all children, he wants to play in the attack. But Ramon has emphasized in the defense: "I like because I take the sides." He has learned to kick with his left leg and with a permanent smile he wants to play in Boca.

http://www.thefa.com/get-involved/coach/the-boot-room/issue-23/how-to-coach-1v1

Practice design: How to coach 1v1?

ARGENTINA DOES EVERYTHING WE AUSTRALIA CALL WRONG IN PLAYER DEVELPOMENT AND YET....

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/3151738/club-social-parque-buenos-aires-next-messi/

http://fremonttribune.com/news/glory-money-fuel-argentina-youth-soccer-frenzy/youtube_2bd829af-2f47-5078-9b73-e76fc4f5a591.html

http://www.chron.com/news/education/article/The-next-Messi-may-be-hiding-at-this-youth-soccer-11019325.php

AND NO I DONT HAVE THE ANSWERS...

How Economics Explains Why Clubs Don’t Give Young Players A Chance

http://www.blueprintforfootball.com/2017/03/how-economics-explains-why-clubs-dont.html?m=1

https://medium.com/@Soccermatics/automatically-measuring-decision-making-on-the-pitch-c3e55e34eea#.qynpbpe7g

Automatically measuring decision-making on the pitch

Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

---

 

• All Notes
• Teaching & Schools
• Coaching & Practice

11.29.16 A ‘Cognitive Science Reading List’ for Coaches [Updated]

 

I’m down in Florida today doing a workshop on teaching for top soccer coaches as part of U.S. Soccer’s Academy Directors course. We’re going to be talking about feedback, Checking for Understanding , and learning design, but I’m also going to share my list of best books for coaches from the world of cognitive science as well.  Here’s what’s on it: Thinking Fast and Slow —Daniel Kahneman Soccer is a game played in part with the subconscious — or with the overlapping interactions of conscious and unconscious brain. Players are often forced to make decisions faster than conscious thought can occur, as Messi points out in this quote: “The best decisions aren’t made with your mind, but with your instinct. The more familiar with a situation you become, the quicker, the better your decisions will be.” Kahneman summarizes his own research and that of dozens of other cognitive scientists in mapping the roles of the two interacting systems of the human brain: “System 1” thinks fast. It’s instinctive and intuitive. It can react more quickly than conscious thought. But it is prone to error. And we cannot turn it off. You cannot see a word in a language you speak and choose not to read it. “System 2” thinks rationally and methodically. It can assess and analyze choices in a sophisticated and analytical way. But it is slow, and since this kind of thinking is hard work, our minds tend to avoid it. We are always trying to shut this system down to save energy. And if we load this system heavily, it can interfere with basic functions such as perception. Driving while talking on your cell phone is a good example of this. Even with your hands free, your likelihood of having an accident goes up exponentially if you are engaged in a conversation that requires you to think because you see and perceive less. Further, System 2 can also shape System 1 by providing constant exposure to experiences that encode behaviors until they become more instinctual. You see a situation over and over and learn to recognize and react to it; ultimately it shapes your instinctual responses. This is basically much of what we do in practice. Understanding the two systems and how they interact is incredibly useful for coaches in understanding how to shape the thinking (or instincts) of players.  In particular, it underscores a couple of points from the other books on my list — that decision-making starts with perception, and so systematic exposure to situations where players learn to perceive and recognize viable solutions is critical. This is why it’s necessary to build “knowledge.” You want to build problem-solving ability. The biggest single misperception in education today is that problem solving is something you can develop without background knowledge. You essentially recognize a situation visually faster than you can consciously think. Then you associate this cue with knowledge of viable choices stored in long-term memory. As Kahneman cites from a quote Herbert Simon, “Intuition is nothing more than and nothing less than recognition.” The book is also helpful in thinking about creativity, which is unexpectedly governed by the fast associations of System 1. “Creativity,” Kahneman writes, “is associative memory that works especially well.” Why Don’t Students Like School? —Daniel Willingham There are (at least) two key principles that are useful for coaches described in this book. One is the brain’s preference for incremental challenge. The second is the critical role of background knowledge. Incremental Challenge: A great training session—a great learning session—starts with a skill players can execute and adds challenge and complexity gradually. When it follows this structure, it is engaging to the human brain. Gradual mastery of increasing challenge feels both challenging and gratifying. Lack of challenge is boring, but so is too much challenge.  Sometimes we think that the bigger the challenge, the more learning players do, but this is actually not the case. You build mastery in layers, which means training sessions should layer in new information and complexity gradually. Background Knowledge: According to Willingham, the science suggests that there is no such thing as problem solving in the abstract. Problem solving is a series of connections between an experience and similar or even dis-similar situations we know something about.  A “creative” run into space does not usually arrive out of thin air but is an adaptation of a principle learned or applied in the past. Peak —Anders Ericsson Ericsson is the dean of “deliberate practice”: the study of what conditions differentiate environments in which people learn rapidly from those in which they do not. Some key factors:

• Deliberate practice pushes participants to the edge of their comfort zone. Often just beyond it. It is, Ericsson argues, hard to sustain. (Interestingly in this point, Ericsson might be said to differ slightly from Willingham; the former argues for a bit of discomfort in practice; the latter for the pleasantness of incremental growth. I suspect the answer is a healthy and strategic balance of the two based on a careful reading of your players.)

• The goal of a practice session has to be very specific and concrete, and improvement is fastest when you focus on one small, defined aspect of the skill at a time. “We’re working on…” (as in, “we’re working on changing the point of attack”) is insufficient if you want to improve. “We’re improving the speed of our transitions when changing the point of attack” is better. And even this more specific goal would get subdivided during the training session. First, we’d work on the pace of passes, and then perhaps focus on ensuring that they were driven hard but on the ground to expedite handling speed if necessary. After that, we’d work on body position when receiving a ball while changing point of attack. Then, we’d work on deciding whether to skip a player and play 2 to 3 to 5 instead of 2 to 3 to 4 to 5, say.

• Deliberate practice requires locked-in, full mental engagement.

• Deliberate practice requires feedback, and a culture of response to the feedback.

• Success starts with “mental representations”… the first step is perception and one of the things practice should do is present players with constant iterations of important scenarios so they learn to read them quickly, intuitively, instinctively—i.e. with Kahenman’s “System 1.”

Anyway, those are my top three picks. When I have more time, I’ll add summaries of my next three favorites: [As you can see I am updating my list with further summaries of books below… I’ve started with Make it Stick] Make it Stick —Brown, Roediger, McDaniel– This is among most directly applicable books on cognitive science for coaches—several readers noted how much they valued it. It reflects in particular on the role of frequent, low-stakes assessment in learning. Research consistently finds that quizzing yourself—or being quizzed by a peer—is much more productive for learning than more passive studying techniques like re-reading a chapter, say. Lots of further research has found that this is powerful in a classroom setting. Lots of small, frequent tests instill learning better than larger, more infrequent tests that are implicitly higher stakes. A less frequently discussed finding is the power of interleaved practice in driving ideas into memory and mastery. When the task you are assessed on is predictable—knowing you’re going to be asked ten questions about the Civil War, say—you learn slightly less than if you don’t know what topic was coming—questions on the Civil War mixed in unpredictable with questions on the Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. This is relevant for coaches because we often practice skills in a predictable pattern. This is beneficial for initial learning of a skill—receiving a ball and turning 25 times in a row builds skill and a zen-like depth of insight about the subtleties of technique. But if we want players to use their turning skills in a game, we would want to perhaps try some interleaved practice (e.g., I receive the ball and have to respond to cues—verbal or visual, say—telling me in some cases to turn, and in some cases to play backwards towards the passer). Obviously at some point I would also want to practice in a more game-like setting, but this concept—blocked practice for initial mastery; interleaved practice to prepare for recall—is extremely useful to coaches in designing pathways to help players master skills. The idea of frequent, low-stakes testing is also useful for coaches. To me, any situation in which you must respond to a question is a form of assessment, so Cold Call is a useful tool in that regard. I might pause a training exercise and ask my players: “Ok, Emily. Is Danielle under pressure? So what are her choices, Erica? And Jasmine, what is the best option and why?”  In other words, I use a sort of verbal quizzing to cause players to analyze game situations as they occur in practice. The key though is Cold Call— calling on players without waiting for them to volunteer allows me to move fast—at game-like processing speeds, and to hold everyone accountable for being tuned-in all the time. This ensures that they must always be thinking and that they master the tactical knowledge of the game by constantly applying it. The Sports Gene —David Epstein Why Knowledge Matters/The Knowledge Deficit— E.D Hirsch Switch– Chip and Dan Heath “Practice with a Purpose”–Deans for Impact