Last year, I was
fortunate to be accepted onto the UEFA B course in my county FA. This
(after the piloted version the year before) was the first time it had been run since
the changes to the course had been made. Having now completed the course, I
feel I am in a good place to give an overview of what the course now entails
and what I have taken out of it.
It is very important to
recognise that these are my own reflections, charting my own journey on the
course. I'm sure that other candidates on the course will have made other
reflections and taken different things from the course to those that I did.
The course itself
Having completed the FA
Youth Award (read my blog on that here) April last year,
my next aim was to be accepted onto the UEFA B course, which I knew was going
to be rolled out across County FA's in the coming season.
I had previously visited
a UEFA B assessment day, in 2015, as I sought to see what the standard was like
and what I might come to expect when I eventually enrolled on the course. This
was the first of the set days for the assessment on the course. I arrived in
the morning to find a lot of nervous faces. Speaking to several people, they
did not feel exactly ready and were dreading potentially being one of the first
to be assessed.
In total that day there
were six or seven sessions, all different topics with different standards
across them. However, you could see the limitations placed on the coaches during
the day. While it's a good experience to coach under the lens of several highly
qualified tutors and your peers, the scenarios can never be truly realistic.
The coaches were nervous not just for being watched but because they were
coaching in a completely different environment to the one that they work in. It
was clear to me that the course needed to be adapted to support the needs of
the coaches and challenge them in a healthier way. The result was a newly
launched UEFA B that combined the strong points of the previous course with new
ways of learning and developing.
The FA Level 3/UEFA B
course 2017/18 took place over four 'blocks' consisting of nine days in total.
Across those nine days were several workshops each day, which included group
tasks, analysis, session planning, presentations and practical delivery by both
tutors and candidates!
I think it is fair to
say, the standard of the delivery from candidates grew across the duration of
the course. There were lots of good ideas that the tutors fine tuned and turned
that creativity into effective sessions that were game realistic too. That
brings me to one of my first key parts of what I took from the course; the
planning process.
I am someone who across
my coaching journey has tried to place more and more time into my planning and
evaluating of sessions (and now more so, match days). For your UEFA B project,
you need to evidence your planning around eighteen match days, or twelve if you
have completed the FA Youth Award. I thought I was in a pretty good place
regarding this, but I soon realised that the process and way I plan was going
to need to improve. Quite often, we can be guilty of starting our planning with
a practice in mind, but I began to saw the benefits of stripping it right back
and becoming more detail in my planning.
One of the tutors gave
us a great way to approach it, in stages almost. These stages were; the theme, the topic, your philosophy, the formation, the starting point, the design (ie. phase of play), the technical detail and then design the practice itself. That framework gave
me a platform to work on every time I planned something, starting with the
important details, how that impacted my playing philosophy and how it could
help my players. I was also able to use this in conjunction with video analysis
(which I will come to, and is displayed in my project as well), to support the
needs of the team, units and individuals. This also helped us to consider how
me and the other coach could work together which leads me to another key area
of the course, blended practice.
Blended practice was
introduced to us as "all things to all players". This got us as
coaches thinking about how we manage sessions, and the outcomes of it. The
tutors demonstrated this to us through practical delivery, in which they worked
at the same time trying to achieve outcomes for their team within the session,
but with the aim of also increase the challenge for the opposition in achieving
theirs. At different points in the practice, they acted as the lead coach for
the session while the other acted as an 'assistant'. We were also asked to
deliver sessions like this in pairs, where we could see how we can achieve more
within one session. For example, if you are leading a session with your team
working out of possession on 'pressing in the final third' the other coach may
work with the team in possession to play out from the back, thus making it more
challenging for the lead coach's group and making the session relevant to the
other players who are not being directly coached by that person.
Within blended practice,
we also looked at how constraints based coaching can aid player development. A
key focus being the three Rs to constrain players; Restrict, Relate and Reward.
These different mechanisms can be implemented into our planning process in order
to help challenge players further and guide them towards the learning outcomes
of the practice. This should not be done on the whim however, think about how
these different constraints can really be applied to your players to help
them!
I was fortunate to have
a really good coach working alongside me with my group this season, but the
workshops on blended practice gave me some real food for thought. As with
everything, we need to add more detail to what we are doing; plan our
interventions, decide who will work with which team, what the objectives will
be to enable the session to be as challenging as possible. In games, could one of us focus on the team in possession and the other out of possession? This would have
allowed us to be more effective in what we were trying to achieve, alongside
some of the good work we were already doing.
Another workshop that I
really took a lot from (as I did all of the workshops) was units within
units and linking units. I have previously paid attention to
'traditional' units; defence, midfield and attack, trying to link them in with
the principles of play, following what I had learnt on the FA Youth Award. What
we were challenged to do on the UEFA B is link those units, understand how the
roles and responsibilities relate to other positions and also consider units
within units.
This also reminded me of
something I witnessed when I visited AFC Ajax a couple of years, where Sonny
Silooy mentioned a player needing to be able to understand and experience
playing in positions around where they might consider themselves strongest. For
example, for their development a right back may need to experience playing in
different position on the right side, such as right midfield and right of a
midfield three, a unit within itself you might say!
This is something I
tried to take on board and implement into the learning for the players and to
help improve their performance. In one game, I concentrated on the area around
the right back, focusing on the #2 (right back), #5 (right centre back), #4
(right centre midfielder) and #7 (right winger) and how we support that player
to not be isolated one versus one or overloaded. Within the units, we had
a primary player being the #2, who needed to be able to defend
effectively, and the secondary players being the other players
within the unit who needed to provide support. Considering these factors has
allowed me to improve my own technical and tactical detail, and the level of
information I can provide to my players.
In situ learning
This is probably one of
the biggest changes to the UEFA B in the eyes of many. As mentioned, the UEFA B
experience before we often defined by the outcome of the final assessment at
the end of the course whereas the in situ visits reflect the more holistic
approach to the course, based upon the competencies of the coach.
These visits are a great
opportunity for your tutor to see you in your environment. With there being
twenty four candidates, we were split into three groups with three different
tutors, so that they could come and visit us on three occasions. I am very
grateful for this part of the course because I know how much time the tutors
are giving up in order to make this work, but I hope they think it is worth it
because I know I do!
I was fortunate in the
sense that for my FA Youth Award assessment, the very same tutor had visited me
(albeit with a different group). It had been an unusual experience having a
microphone attached to me while I coached but it prepared me for the in situ
visits and when I delivered on the course itself.
Not only is it a good
chance to see a coach delivering in a realistic environment but it's a good way
to make sure they practice what they preach! It's not simply about your ability
to coach, but your ability to translate what you believe in into a reality. If
something in your session, or the way you set up your team is not consistent
with your playing or coaching philosophy, you will be questioned. If you can
justify it great, but you can not blag your way past this one!
In my two in situs for
my training sessions, I was able to showcase what I was trying to do but also
get quality feedback for what I can do a lot better. I was able to start to
consider more pictures, the 'what ifs' but also my coaching style and how I can
increase the intensity and competitiveness within my practices - which will
then translate to performances in matches.
The in situ on a match
day was a new experience for me, where we looked at different aspects. One was
the type of information I give (positive/negative, feedback, instruction/command, questioning etc) but also WHO I give it to. Predictably,
the person who received the most information from me during the half that we
concentrated on this aspect was the full back on my side of the pitch! I always
try to take a step back, be as objective as possible and be considered in the information
I give during a game but it just shows there is a lot more I can improve
on.
To me (having seen both
sides of it), this approach to coach development is a far more effective and
enjoyable one. It is not simply being observed and then given bog standard
feedback after. You are tested before, during and after the session. Mine was
filmed with audio of me on the microphone. After getting used to the sound of
my own voice, this is a great reflection tool where you can really question
yourself and how you do things.
My project (my journey)
As my presentation of my
project was split into five sections, that is how I will break it down in this
part of the blog! We presented on block four of the course, and it was great to
see everyone's work with their clubs and the different ways they do things.
There is a lot we can learn from each other, another key element of this
course. We were told we would get twenty minutes to present (with a further ten
minutes for questions). I stretched this to the limit as my presentation,
including a four minute video, lasted 28 minutes so a reflection for me might
be to be more concise and use my time effectively!
Who we are
It is fitting that this
is the first section I come to as I think previously this was an area that I
had previously under appreciated. In the past year or so, I have become
increasingly interested in how we can create an 'identity'.
Equally, it is also
important to understand the club you are working for, and what their aims are.
This is the starting point that can allow you to consider how you will coach,
how you will play, what the profile of a player at the club should be and
finally, how you can support them.
At my club, there was a
clear remit to create a pathway for players to be able to progress from the
under eighteens, through the development squad and into the first team. How I
wanted to help that process in my role as the manager of the under eighteens
was more down to me and what I believed was the best way to develop the players.
This was good for me to allow me to learn more about myself and commit to words
in my project what I believed in.
How we coach
This is a tricky thing
to articulate for a lot of people I feel, including myself. I decided to start
with my values, mainly in life and how this translates into my coaching. I have
a firm belief that 'not every player becomes a footballer, but every single one
of them becomes a member of society'. I want to be able to develop the person
as well as the player! We wanted to make players accountable and take
responsibility so we tried to do this in different ways (player feedback to
inform learning, players decide how they set up for set pieces, player-led warm
up - prepare the right way) and I think I can continue to think of more ways in
which players begin to be more proactive to help themselves and the team.
Additionally, I
considered how I plan sessions and what practices I use to help enable
learning. I am very big on relating my practices as closely to the game as
possible. Even if it is working on patterns, I want them to replicate whatever
it is I am trying to achieve when we play on the weekend. That is where I will
use formats such as whole-part-whole, with phases of play or functional
practices within that structure.
Finally, I also wanted
to formalise how we use video analysis to inform our training sessions and
preparations for games (as well as supporting the players individually). Within
my project I detailed an example of how we used footage from a previous game to
consider what we had done well, and what we could do better in the future
within that topic area. In this example, it was about how we attack across the
width of the pitch, which also fits into our playing philosophy of having a
player inside each of the five 'channels' of the pitch. When we were able to do
this in greater detail, I felt we saw the benefits and effects of our work as a
coaching team.
How we play
For this part of my
presentation I showed a four minute video, from clips of the team this season,
to try and demonstrate the way we attempted to play this season. My own playing
beliefs are something I am fairly confident about, but I know that I will be
constantly tweaking. For example, where previously I may have asked my team to
press high in the opposition's defensive third, on reflection it suited our
team and the individuals within it to set up a mid-press.
Other tweaks we made
during the season were with the system we used. We began the season with a
1-4-3-3, but having struggled with our build up play from the back we changed
to a 1-3-4-3. Once we felt we had progressed in that area we moved back to the
1-4-3-3. Later in the season, when we felt the defence needed more protection
we altered the shape of the midfield to two holding midfielders.
An area I feel I could
have done better in was working on transitions (attack to defence + defence to
attack). My idea initially when creating the 'How we play' section of my
project was to have transition embedded into our in possession and out of
possession principles. However, if I am to stress how important these moments
in the game are, and I truly believe they are the most important moments, then
I think I need to make that more explicit. I attempted to remedy this during
the season by creating position specific player cards for the players, to help
them understands their roles and responsibilities in possession, out of
possession and during transitions.
The future player
To link with 'how we
coach' something I wanted to do to make players more accountable was make them
more involved in their player profiling, which makes up part of this project.
On a weekend when we did not have a game we got the players to come in and
create the profiles, starting with selecting key areas of their game based on
their position and themselves as a player. Then they gave themselves scores out
of three (1 - striving to keep up, 2 - managing, 3 - forging ahead) for those
attributes. Myself and the other coach looked at these, considered if we agreed
or disagreed with these and then used them to help inform our training
sessions. I also put these into radars (using the four corner model colour
scheme) to give the players and ourselves a visual of
where that player is and identify which areas of the four corner model they may
need support in most.
On reflection, I felt we
could have reviewed this more. Doing so more regularly could have had more
impact and given the players themselves more reflection time too. We did this
informally, at training sessions, games and social activities but by
formalising the process too it might strengthen the messages we are trying to
give the players. We were somewhat hamstrung come the end of the season as we
had several games in a short amount of time for a few weeks which meant we
lacked the time to do this during this period. Therefore, in the future I want
to plan better for these situations as time is a precious commodity when you
coach at this level!
How we support
The four previous
sections all culminate with this one I feel. Everything you do should build
towards how you are supporting the player and the team. I focused on four key
areas that we tried to support the players through in this section; video
analysis, social activities, training sessions and matchdays.
We were fortunate to
have a volunteer, a student from the university I was also studying at, keen to
gain experience filming and putting together clips for analysis. We would
borrow a camera from the university for each game and ask permission to film
the games (and happily share the footage with the opposition). As well as
supporting players, I also feel it is important to support those who are giving
up their time for free. In this case, I sold this as an opportunity to develop
skills in a pressure-free environment, and that I am always someone who can
give my opinion or advice at any time. At the end of the year, this person got
a year internship with a Premier League football club as a recruitment
analyst!
Our players bought into
looking back at the footage, I think even at a basic level it was a bonus for
anyone to simply watch the game and even if they aren't consciously reflecting
on their performance, they may take something from it. We would also put
together shorter highlights, and bring clips to training sessions as an aid for
practices or to demonstrate something that went wrong or that we did well. This
is something that I will continue doing in my coaching, and try to invest even
more time to help give everything I do justification, which can make the way I
support players more effective. We also had a team meeting on a couple of
occasions in which we reviewed footage in preparation for the game that day.
Getting sixteen and seventeen year olds to come in even earlier is a tricky one
however!
We were also conscious
of trying to strengthen the relationships between players and get to know them
better away from football. You can learn a lot about people with the use of
social activities, such as team building and competitions, which can aid how
you tailor your coaching towards them in training and on matchdays. You can
also develop them in the 'social corner' in a way which you may not always be
able to do in a standard training session, so this was a good use of our time
and I was able to understand my players greater through informal moments like
this.
In my project document, you will find twenty four sessions and twelve games (as I had previously completed the FA Youth Award). They cover all of those within the timespan of the UEFA B course, which fit nicely in with my own work. I hope that people will see a genuine development in my planning and reflections from the beginning to the last game. Due to the weather, we had a lot of training sessions between two of the games and then a very tough cycle in which we had a lot of games and very few training sessions! I certainly learnt a lot from both experiences. When we had the period of just training, I saw the benefit of having more time to work with players on a certain area, and how I can break down a topic over multiple sessions. Equally, I realised how I may need to prioritise certain things and manage my players over a busy schedule as a lot of my players regularly featured for the development squad and first team.
How do I know I am being effective?
This was a question posed to us towards the end of our course, on an extra support evening we had available to us if we had any questions or issues. It really resonated with me. What am I measuring myself again? Did I have a specific target at the start of the season, should I? What is success to me, and the club?
My thoughts are that through understanding the 'who we are' part and putting that first I can created a measure for myself. What is the club's playing and coaching philosophy? Do they have one? At my club last season I had a blank canvas to work with, which helped me learn a lot about myself and gave me a lot of freedom.
Ultimately, in this instance it was about the pathway to the first team as I mentioned earlier. In the development squad, we had 147 appearances and in importantly in the first team, we had 101. I consider that to be a good number for sixteen and seventeen year olds playing first team football!
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I'd like to thank the tutors of my course for what was a fantastic and thoroughly enjoyable course. We were constantly challenged to better ourselves and they provided us with fantastic support on the course and in our in situs. Also the other candidates on the course, were a real pleasure to learn alongside, I learnt just as much from working within them in pairs and groups on different tasks.
If you would like to see my project, which is 162 pages long with nearly 45,000 words (!) or my presentation, I would be more than happy to send this out to coaches. As I said at the beginning of the blog, this was my journey and I did things on the basis of knowing my players and trying to meet their needs. Please comment below with your name, email and where/who you coach with (just because I am nosey!) or you can email me at louiesilvani@hotmail.co.uk. If you have any questions about the course or my project, do not hesitate to ask below or via email.