FA Editor Jamie Bradbury has taken his next steps along the coaching pathway and is now working towards the UEFA B coaching licence.
Day nine allowed the candidates to coach their own sessions...
We knew that after yesterday’s epic run of ten candidate sessions, today would be a little less demanding as we wrapped up the second block-week on the course.
There were six 25-minute practices to get through, while there was also some more work needed on the course theory packs, but we started the day off by reviewing what we had learned as a group from the candidate sessions so far.
I noted in my book a number of points that were raised, and while many of them have cropped up throughout the course, it’s always good to go over them and get them ingrained in your mind.
The points were;
- When coaching, make sure re-creations are accurate and realistic
- When observing a session, don’t just watch the ball, watch around the ball and away from the ball as you’ll need to fix faults across the pitch
- Make your interventions snappy, don’t go in and babble, get across the key info and get out
- Coach the detail, the fine points. So not just ‘pass to that player’ but say where to pass, i.e. in front, drop it short, etc.
- Make sure you understand the topic and what the main specific themes are
- Manage opposition. If the opposition aren’t allowing your team to work on the topic, manipulate the session so they can
- Make practices realistic
- Keep structure simple, so work with 4-4-2 instead of 4-2-3-1, for example
- Show what you want the players to do, rather than just tell them.
There are lots of other things you need to think about, but these were some of the key points that I will be taking on board for when I do my next sessions.
After a theory lesson from our course packs on psychology with Richard Carter (tutor), we were out on the pitches to continue with the candidate sessions, and we had four to do before lunchtime.
They were;
- Phase of Play: Defending from crosses (Billy)
- Phase of Play: Coach a team to use long passes when attacking (Dan)
- Phase of Play: Pressing, dropping deep (Charlie)
- Functional Practice: Coach a striker to play with his back to goal around the penalty area (Joe)
- Lunch
- Small-Sided Game: When to pass forward and when not to pass forward (Dennis)
- Functional Practice: Winger to attack and dribble past full-back (Ibbe).
The practices were good fun and showed progress from the previous sessions, but I won’t go into too much detail over my performances in them. All I will say is that I did roll back the years a little and earned some new nicknames; Big Andy, Crouchy, Lionel. The last one was Blair, not Messi.
So that brought the week to a close, all that remained was to review our progress and consider the question: Where are we now? And that didn’t mean geographically, but where we are on our UEFA B pathway. How far have we come since we first turned up to the Soccerdome back in February.
Personally, I feel I have learned a great deal about how to structure and coach more technical practices, ones that affect more than just one or two players, but the whole group. I know I’m still a way off getting to where I want to be, but with more experience back at my club and getting more familiar with the finer technical details of topics, I’m confident I can reach my goal. Whether that’s in September or further down the line, that remains to be seen.
Our final chat of the week was about an interim action plan and some things to consider; identify strengths and weakness, understand where we can improve as coaches, and also make sure work in the course packs is up to date. Without all that extra work away from the 17 course dates, we’ll not be able to complete the course.
So with a month before we meet up again, for the goalkeeping sessions, I’ll try to get some more assignments ticked off and, if possible, a few more hours on the training pitch. That’s what it’s all about.
Keep checking TheFA.com for more from the UEFA B course. If you have any questions you can follow Jamie on Twitter @jamiebradbury.
To find out more about local coaching courses, visit your County FA website, or for national courses click here.
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