The ugly zone

Quite often, especially when starting out, coaches often want their session to look as if they are going to plan. There is a certain worry that if the session doesn't look like the players are 'performing', parents, spectators, even fellow coaches may become suspicious. 

This arguably comes from an insecurity that I have been, far too often, guilty of myself. As I have discussed on my UEFA B blog article on the previous versions of the course it was about getting everything correct in that one off assessment rather than how you were challenging the players, or adapting to their needs. I think this further added to a culture that the session must look perfect otherwise it will be frowned upon.

Fortunately this year, I had a tutor who was challenging me to work differently. A question I was constantly asked was 'do the players understand the consequences when they make mistakes?'. Too often the players would give possession away, or concede a sloppy goal and it would be followed by a shrug of the shoulders. Why were they not that bothered?

At this point it would be easy to point to the attitudes and the motivations of the players. I've seen it before, coaches absolving themselves of the blame. But here I was, being questioned as to why this might be happening on my watch?

It also helped that there was a similar theme on our matchdays with this group of players. We would be in control of a game, playing excellent football - but if something went against us it would swing the game in the favour of the opposition. For what was a talented group, this was frustrating to watch on a consistent basis knowing they they had the ability to not let this happen. 

Do we ever practice 1 v 6 practices?!

I promised to myself to introduce more competition in training. Everything had to have a purpose, there had to be a consequence. Players should drive themselves to be on the winning team and if they weren't, they had to learn how to handle defeat to make themselves stronger for next time. 

In general, I just wanted the sessions themselves to be uglier too. My practices have often been very appealing on the eye, lots of nice passing and dribbling but the learning objective was too easily achieved. If we were working on pressing the defending team would have an overload - but what use is that? In terms of the challenge of the session and more importantly, the realism and relevance to the game. What use is a session that players achieve things first time? I had to stress players out and take them into the ugly zone. 

Creating an environment in which players feel able to express themselves and play without fear of mistakes is paramount - so what I mean by taking them out of their comfort zone is by stretching and challenging them technically, tactically, psychologically and socially as an individual. If you can combine those two things so that players realise that while things are tough they can still come up with creative solutions, I think you could be onto a winner!

It's a work in progress for me - I am constantly asking myself if the players are truly being challenged. I am constantly trying to think of ways to change the spaces, the numbers, the tasks to create an environment where players have to actually solve problems and deal with adversity. 

Sure, a 'nice' session can be a confidence booster when required. Giving players lots of opportunities to have success, particularly at a young age, can have its benefits but if they have everything their way, what are they learning? 

I'm really keen to hear coaches' thoughts on this and what mechanisms they use to make sessions 'uglier' for your players? Or if you disagree, tell me why! 

The new FA Level 3 (UEFA B) coaching in football - my journey

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. 

What did we learn about England?

It is fair to say that England national team's performance at the World Cup went way beyond what most of the public expected of them before the tournament began. 

A first semi final for our men's senior side in twenty eight years, coming so close to a first final since 1966 (if you didn't know, we won it that year), capped off a tournament that can only be reflected on positively. 

Now the dust has begun to settle after a small heartbreak and a defeat in the third place play off, I thought now was an opportune time to reflect on what we have learned about this side, the manager and the wider implications this will have for the future of English football. 

The 'England DNA' bearing fruit 

Over the past two years I have made videos to highlight the impact of the England DNA on our national teams. It was becoming more and more evident that there is a visible difference in the way that England teams approach tournaments and more broadly, the way they play the game. 

England's senior women side have also made great strides

We had unprecedented success last summer with the Women's senior side reaching the European Championship semi finals, the U20, U19 and U17 sides winning major tournaments and the U21s themselves reaching a semi final. This was as clear a message as can be that England can have high aspirations for the future, with the level of player coming through the ranks and the cohesion of the sides. 

This tournament could be identified as an important acid test to understand whether the new approach could truly take England beyond what we have come to expect. At previous tournaments expectations have been built up and crushed with dull, drab and sometimes disastrous performances. Eight years ago we were given a serious reality check when a young Germany side swept us aside when we had been one of the pre-tournament favourites (Capello's self-destruction in that six month period is possibly a blog for another time). 

This tournament was different though. Gareth Southgate had slowly phased out some of the higher profile (Rooney, Hart - even Cahill consigned to being just a squad member) and not like Steve McClaren did with David Beckham only to go crawling back to him in a time of desperate need.

We attacked the tournament with a youthful side, full of character and energy. We try to play games on the front foot even if we did fall short against some of the better teams and individuals we found ourselves against. But it wasn't half refreshing to see an England team perform above expectations and more importantly, like a TEAM. It is not that lack ago that we had world class footballers who for whatever reason (there are many) they just could not function effectively together. 

Staying on trend

As is stated in the England DNA: "England teams will play with tactical flexibility, based on the profile of the players available and the requirements of the match or competition". Southgate made his intentions to play with three central defenders clear as soon as qualification finished. It was later revealed he and Steve Holland (assistant) decided this was to be the way forward for the team at the World Cup having been to watch the Confederations Cup. 

Playing with three central defenders is becoming a more common theme in modern football again so while this was hardly an act of genius by the coaching team, it was necessary when it would have been easy to stick to the tried and trusted four at the back. Not only did having an extra central defender help us to look more solid out of possession, it also improved our build up play out from the goalkeeper, something we have struggled with in the past. Having a central player with the quality and bravery of John Stones on the ball obviously helps, but this was a wise move. 

This ability to recognise the current trends and use it to our advantage I think showed a flexibility that we had not seen from an England senior team before. We have often lagged far behind when these trends move on, as they tend to do but this time we were largely on the right side of this. 

What was also interesting was our shape in midfield, making it a 1-3-5-2. Again Southgate made clear the intentions pre-tournament to play with a single holding midfielder with two more attack-minded midfielders outside of that player. In fact after the first friendly against Nigeria, Southgate described those outside midfielders and the two forwards as a 'front four'. This was a brave move, but it suited our players and we saw our team attack with pace and freedom. 

It is easy to say this in hindsight but I do wonder whether there was ever a back up plan of a 1-3-4-3, with two defensive midfielders and supporting forwards for a lone striker. Against Croatia in particular when we lost the control and momentum in the game I do feel we could have brought Dier on alongside Henderson (before he was forced off with injury later on of course) to give us more security. 

This would also have given us more balance defensively and potentially more options in the transition from defence to attack, as we ended up conceding possession quite easily. More flexibility in game could have been required as per the DNA. However, I would argue this is me being picky and that fact we can have these discussions about a World Cup semi final performance is still a huge positive.

Meticulous Southgate

“We had talked long and hard about owning the process of a shootout."

Watching England win a penalty shoot out was an incredible moment I will treasure for a long time! In the aftermath, what seemed a miracle quickly became clear that it was very much a victory for appropriate planning! From practising in training to the water bottle with writing on it handed to Jordan Pickford, this was an example of the level of detail that went into this tournament by Gareth Southgate and the England staff.

Will we continue to see the waistcoat?

During the tournament, I read an article about how players were now fist-bumping instead of doing hand-shakes to help prevent illness!

I enjoyed this analysis of the Harry Maguire goal against Sweden, in the quarter finals. Much has been made of the Alan Russell's influence on set pieces already and the praise is fair. In a tournament where set pieces were key to team's successes England were able to take advantage of this. 

Previously England have relied on high quality players to swing the ball in and we have hoped for the best. David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard etc all had wonderful delivery but often we didn't take advantage of this. In this tournament, nothing was left to chance. Arguably though, we became too reliant on set pieces!

Restoring a relationship

I have already alluded to the general low expectations of the fans and media but something that had also set in over the past few years was apathy.

I was there for Southgate's first game in charge of England. A pretty drab 2-0 win over Malta, goals from Daniel Sturridge and Dele Alli in the first half. It was a pretty painful watch (Wayne Rooney being outrun by a Malta midfielder was a particular low point) - but what was most clear was a lack of atmosphere and enthusiasm amongst the crowd. 

What will now be most interesting is how the fans treat the upcoming fixtures. The first game since the World Cup is a UEFA Nations League tie against Spain and this will be the first opportunity for England fans to show their support and excitement after a positive tournament. It can inspire people across the country.

We have players not only now with experience at the top level now but also characters that fans can seemingly embrace and relate to. We have a team from a wide range of backgrounds and it has been great to see Southgate embrace this and point to the strength that a diverse England team can bring. This article by Musa Okwonga gives a great perspective on the benefits England's performance can bring away from the pitch.

Southgate the man to take England forward? 

Pre-tournament, Martin  Glenn claimed that even if we struggled in the group stages of the World Cup that Gareth Southgate's job was safe. Fact is, had we failed to get out of the group he would surely have resigned, or been under pressure to anyway. 

We did not struggle though, winning the first two group games for certainly the first time in my lifetime and having the opportunity to rest players in the third game. 

Southgate was given a four year contract, seeing him past Euro 2020 which is now unimaginable that he will not lead us into that tournament, in which seven of the games are at Wembley. The "it's coming home" bandwagon is most certainly less than two years away.

Whether it is through the UEFA nations league or qualifying, expectations will be a lot higher to deliver qualification in style. We bored our way to qualification for the most part for this World Cup, playing two defensive midfielders (Jake Livermore one of those) in a 1-4-2-3-1 and squeezing our way past smaller opposition. With a rising interest in the national team that won't be taken as lightly as it was previously, when expectations were lower. 

However, I think there is an intrigue into how the manager can take us forward having made great strides in such a short amount of time. He certainly deserves that chance at least. 

The Future is Bright - if there is opportunity 

There is certainly reason to be optimistic when you know that Pickford, Stones, Trippier, Alli, Lingard, Sterling, Kane, Loftus-Cheek, Rashford have all got several tournaments left in them. The slightly older players at this tournament are probably the ones which were identified as areas we needed strengthening in. 

Jordan Henderson performed admirably but where is the playmaker who can control games and take us to the next level coming from?

Our young players have excelled in youth international
tournaments in the past two years

Ashley Young played beyond my expectations but we really lacked a balance on the left side (no outfield left footed players in the first eleven). 

Kyle Walker did extremely well in an unusual position for him but we still require another defender with the quality of John Stones to push us forwards. 

Fortunately, we have an unprecedented level of talent coming through the system. The English academy system is producing some of the best talent in Europe, maybe the world. 

Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho, Ryan Sessegnon, Mason Mount, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Trevor Chalobah, Rhian Brewster and Jonathan Panzo just to name a few. There are more, many more but the key issue now is the next stage of their development once they come through their respective academies. 

Players have to be given the opportunity to develop, the higher the level the better. Hence why we have seen players begin to leave England early seeking opportunities, mainly in the Bundesliga. The German clubs are recognising the level of player English teams are producing. 

Hopefully, the English clubs will begin to realise this too! 

I'd be very interested to know your thoughts on what is required for England to take the next steps and be a force to be reckoned with consistently! 

"Every player has their own talent": Inside Vitesse Arnhem

Between 17-19 May, I attended a coach education tour of Vitesse Arnhem's youth academy. This was run by Murray Jones of Football Tours and Events, which you can find out more about here. The below blog is my summary of the three days...

Vitesse Arnhem are (proudly) one of the oldest existing clubs in Holland. Founded in 1892, the club celebrated their 125th year of existence by winning their first ever trophy. Last May they beat AZ Alkmaar to lift the Dutch cup, goals from Ricky van Wolfswinkel (remember him) sealing a two nil victory.

Vitesse have more recently been in the spotlight for their 'close working relationship' with Chelsea, as their owner Alexander Chigirinsky is close friends with Roman Abramovich. Whilst this has helped bring in young talents, the owner has also placed a close emphasis on the youth academy with a budget on a comparable level to category one clubs in England.

Over the three days were fortunate to have a great level of access not only to their facilities, training sessions and games but important staff members such as Bart van Rooijen and Richard van Der Lee (both co-ordinators within the academy). As a club, they are very proud that they are one of five clubs awarded 'International Certification' by the KNVB (Dutch Football Association). The other four clubs being Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord and AZ Alkmaar, so they are in good company!

Facilities

View of the 1st team training pitches

The Papendal Olympic training centre lays home to Vitesse's academy and senior training ground. Whereas when I visited Ajax's de Toekomst everything was very close together, Papendal is a very open and scenic place. It's very pleasant to walk around and has a very relaxing nature. There are many pitches, some specific to the first team (with positional play lines much like Ajax had) and also an astro pitch in front of the shiny newly built main building, financed by the owner. Every age group through to the senior side can be seen walking through the building, which generates for a great environment in which the young players know the senior players well. Mason Mount, loan star from Chelsea, is one player who was highlighted and praised for their interaction with the academy players.

Gelredome (minus pitch)

The Gelredrome stadium, leased by Vitesse as they no longer own due to previous financial difficulties, holds a capacity 34,000 people. This is more than enough space for a club like Vitesse, whose fan base is much smaller and average gates of around 14,000 fans. It is a very interesting ground however. On arrival, t is instantly clear that it is not owned by Vitesse, with as many pictures of popstars on walls as there are footballers! The ground is particularly interesting for two reasons, it's retractable roof and convertible pitch. When we had a stadium tour the roof was on and the pitch was retracted (see picture), which made it feel very un-football like! As the roof is so heavy, the corners are filled by concrete which you could imagine takes away from the atmosphere.

Vision

The youth academy's vision places an importance on the individual player. Developing the individual to make the most of their talent is number one on the agenda. However, they can not develop or win alone, meaning players must learn to work together and work as a team. This will also enable them to learn to play in the framework that Vitesse set for the coaches to teach the players.

"Players will make their debut in the first team, not the team!"

Essentially, it is more about the individual than about the team. As they move through the age groups, it is still about the needs of the individual player. Although the teams play in competitive leagues, if a player needs to be challenge further, they will move them up a team even if that could negatively affect results (for either side). A good example of this was a fixture we watched between Vitesse and PSV, who had won the league already, at  under 15s level. Vitesse needed just a point to finish in the top three of the top division, but had several under 14s players in the side. The game was still competitive, both teams really going for the win and ultimately PSV won 2-1, but their players would have learnt a lot against a good side.

The main target of the academy is that the first team squad will be filled by 40% of players trained by the academy. Furthermore, 50% of those players will make up the starting eleven. As it stands they have many players in the squad, but not the starting eleven, hence the second of those targets. These targets are set not just because they want to develop talent but also so that they can sell talent. The club often lose players to Ajax, PSV etc at youth level but if they can hold onto their best talents until senior level they will bring in more money when they sell them. So in part, much like Ajax openly admitted when I visited them, it is a business model.

Interestingly, they cite the connection with Chelsea as a means to help their young players. If a young player with potential is not ready yet for a first team place, rather than sign a player (on a multiple year contract) they can loan a player for a season. That way, the academy product has another year to develop which they can evaluate without a player blocking their path come the next season. This was an angle I had not previously considered!

At the core of their vision is developing a passion for the game. The players who make it through the age groups will be the one that have the most passion and love for football. For that reason they aim to make football a fun game to play (again, parallels with Ajax's ideals). In addition to this, they can then develop creative players, who play with initiative. "Every player has their own talent".  

The Vitesse academy look for several qualities in the profile of a player; Proactive, Quick learning, Athletic skills, Winner's mentality, Technical ability and, last but not least, their own character. The club look for potential and not necessarily performance. To them, it would be very easy to look at current performance but they feel it is important to take the tougher route and attempt to find players who with time will grow into better players, using the qualities mentioned. Furthermore, as people they are looking for curious individuals, who are respectful and again, have their own character.

In terms of Talent ID, Vitesse work with ten grassroots clubs in the region. These partnerships are not financial but the clubs they work with get benefits such as coach education and tickets to games. The obvious benefits for Vitesse themselves is the opportunity to build a network to help them identify potential talent. This is something I feel is sorely lacking in the English game. It is something that would come at minimal cost to clubs but create a network of people to help find the right players for a club. Equally, it can strengthen the grassroots game with coach education to help make the level of player coming through stronger.  Looking more broadly, across the county, Vitesse have 20 national scouts. This gives them the opportunity to recruit in areas such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam where there may be missed talents in more densely population regions.

"Are you ready for the game of the future?"

At Vitesse, they stress that football is always changing. To stay ahead of the game, they must keep thinking forwards and being innovative. In order to keep progressing, they must keep adapting and looking at others and themselves. 

Vitesse want to "play dominant, attractive and dynamic football with players who can translate this in all circumstances in practice". 

We had many excellent presentations in the media room!

They do however have guiding principles for how they want to develop players and the style in which they want to play for. They start off simple eat the younger ages with less topics/areas but as they get older they are exposed to more detail and depth around the Vitesse way of playing. These fall under, very simply; Defending, Attacking, Transition from Defending to Attacking and Transition from Attacking to Defending. 

We were fortunate to have a presentation from the U19s head coach, Ben van Dael. Ben had a wealth of experience, working at VV Venlo for 15 years (spending time as assistant coach of the first team and also as the interim head coach) and had also been manager at Fortuna Sittard just a couple of years ago. He gave us a great presentation after a training session about what they had worked on and it's relevance to their upcoming game (which had unfortunately been cancelled). One thing he said that really stood out to me however was "it's not all about systems, it's about spaces". Vitesse play with a 1-4-3-3 formation, but that in itself is very flexible to meet the needs of the individuals and the demands of the game. 

Freedom and fight

Ajax U14 v Vitesse U14

As we witnessed training sessions across the age groups there were many different types of sessions, covering different topics under those four areas stated. What was apparent to us, which Bart (van Rooijen) confirmed to us, is that the coaches have freedom to decide what they coach the group during the course of the season. This "lack of structure", if you can call it that, was a point of discussion amongst many attending alongside myself. Their thinking is that the coaches know the players the best. They are the ones that see them in training, and especially see how they play in fixtures in a competitive environment. The coaches just need to make sure that over the course of the year they cover the guiding 'principles' for that relevant age group. There is not a syllabus, so to speak, which is what those I attended with (including myself) are used to. 

Another similarity that lies with Ajax is that the coaches are there to 'help' and allow the players to do a lot for themselves. Each player has a talent and Vitesse are looking for the coaches to connect with the players, be positive and not get too emotional about mistakes - as it is important to remember the players are children. When players are struggling, they want to develop a player's character to 'fight' and keep going. This is evident when we witnessed Vitesse U14s v Ajax U14s, a fitting conclusion to the tour. Both sides showed a lot of talent, but despite having very little to play for (in terms of the league table) Vitesse's battling spirit prevailed, winning the game two nil. This gave a really clear image of what Vitesse Arnhem were about. They try to play football in an attractive manner, using a positional game but equally they display a hunger and desire to win the game. The players understand what it means to play for the club.

The three days or so that I spent there most certainly weren't enough, and I would love to visit again and learn more about how they implement their vision and principles of play into the teams and players across the age groups. I look forward to seeing how Vitesse, a club certainly on the rise, continue to develop their players and how they continue to utilise the relationship they have with Chelsea!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comment section below. Thanks again to Murray Jones, who organised the whole trip and a top person too! 

Michael Carrick - a wasted talent?

Hearing that Michael Carrick would be retiring at the end of this season and taking up a coaching role at Manchester United was a sad moment for me.

Not just because he was a player who I often tried to model my own game on as a youngster, but because it made me reflect on an ultimately wasted talent.

Not necessarily at club level, where Sir Alex Ferguson saw beyond the criticism he had in his early days, when the pressure was on to find a replacement for Roy Keane. Ferguson recognised the qualities Carrick brought and had shown as a young player at West Ham and Tottenham. Carrick won pretty much everything there is to win at club level. 

It was on the international stage where he was sorely underused - particularly in the big tournaments. Carrick earned 34 caps in total. Nothing to be ashamed of, of course, but when you see that the likes of James Milner, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Phil Neville, Gareth Barry and others have earned more caps it irks me slightly.

Carrick in his prime is the player that England sorely need now and in hindsight, clearly needed during the era of the 'golden generation'. 

I suppose it seems strange that I might say that when England had midfielders such as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes (all regularly compared against each other). Sure, there was talent in the centre of park, where you could also consider David Beckham could play but what England really lacked was someone that could control the tempo of a game and be unnerved under pressure.

It was often question whether Gerrard and Lampard could, or should, play together in midfield. The evidence from their performances together in an England shirt suggests no but I wonder how they would have fared with a holding midfielder in Carrick behind them? 

England managers at one staged, particularly Sven, seemed wedded to 4-4-2 which meant shoehorning a player like Paul Scholes in at left midfield, or giving Gerrard or Lampard defensive responsibilities in the midfield unit. It was only when Michael Owen got injured at the World cup, and the other alternatives were Peter Crouch and Theo Walcott, did Sven decide to switch to a 4-5-1. 

Carrick was pretty unfortunate in this case too. Having performed excellently in his first and last game in an international tournament, he was dropped for Owen Hargreaves (who himself was playing very well, to be fair). Just when it seemed it had fallen into place it was snatched away from him. Here is a video where he is highlighted by pundits as man of the match in the game against Ecuador. 

Gary Lineker asks at the end of the video 'why has it taken so long for him to get a chance' and yet that was the last we would see of Michael Carrick at an international tournament! 

From 2006 onwards for several years, Carrick was one of the most consistent, high performing midfielders in Europe, let alone of the English players. It beggars belief as to how he was so vastly underrated by English managers.

Going into the 2010 World Cup, some of the concern was whether Gareth Barry would be fit in time, regarded as a key player. Fabio Capello response to Barry's lack of fitness was to change his whole game plan, ending up Lampard and Gerrard in a 4-4-2, once again. Carrick, meanwhile, spent the whole tournament on the bench. He was 28, at the peak of his powers you would argue! 

Roy Hodgson also appeared to neglect him, although he did make it clear that by then Carrick had made it clear he no longer wanted to join up with the squad only to be overlooked again. 

Looking at the current England squad; we don't really have an outstanding midfielder in that mould. Eric Dier is a good footballer, who can fill in at centre back or centre midfielder but I would not consider him to have the passing ability to play as a holding midfielder on his own. He benefits from having Mousa Dembele or Christian Eriksen around him where he can distribute the ball to them. England lack a player with the level of passing ability Carrick possessed, and that is a real issue considering the way the FA want England team's to try and play in this day and age.

My other concern is where the next 'Carrick' is going to come from? Do we place emphasis on this type of player in England? 

Don't get me wrong - the academies in England are clearly producing some seriously talented footballers. Whether they get the opportunity is another question of course, but the success of the England youth teams last summer points to a high standard coming through. But what I am hoping we can produce in the near future are players who can control the tempo of a game from deeper positions, players who can play under pressure to create space for other players. 

We have a lot of talented attacking footballers, and have many young players (Sterling, Kane, Rashford, Alli) in the current England squad but what we are really waiting for is a midfielder with the reading of the game, the vision and the composure Carrick demonstrated at his peak for Manchester United. 

It is nice to see that he is taking his first steps into coaching. If done in the right way, taking the necessary steps, he could provide a great insight for young footballers. He had a brain like few other English players and it will be very interesting to see the impact he may have at United next season. 

That said, I still can't help but feel that despite the success he had in his club career, he was a truly wasted talent in an England shirt.