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COACHING IN THE USA -- PART II
Are Traditional Coaching Methods Appropriate for Soccer?

By Rod Thorpe

We know that to be good at something, you have to do it many times; there is just no chance in a once-a-week sessionfor significant improvement. Ask all the great soccer players and the vast majority will say they used to practice on their own, or with friends in playful, but purposeful games and activities. It follows that the key issue for the coach is to engender ‘intrinsic motivation’ by providing lots of good fun games and practices that the players can take away and do alone or with a few friends – why not set homework?

Of course the criticism is made, that if we do not get the youngsters practicing the techniques, they will not have the skills to exploit the tactics, and so we see sessions with youngsters passing the ball back and forth, dribbling around cones, shooting at targets; isolating the technique. There is nothing particularly wrong with this, unless they stand in queues waiting their turn, but one has to ask if it is fully challenging the perception, decision making and response links. Equally, if this formal drill is at the expense of a fun game and the children see it as a chore – the coach is already building up a resistance to practice.

Perhaps more surprisingly, people studying the development of these techniques are beginning to realize that a reason the technique does not transfer into the game is that the perception, decision making and response are ‘coupled’ in a more complex way than we thought, and it would seem wise to practice technique in as realistic a situation as possible.Rather than reduce the drill to the simplest form, once the concept of the technique is gained (the general idea of what to do) keep as much of the game in the drill. Of course, if you are unsure, why not play a modified game in which the particular technique is used?

Interestingly, we keep returning to the value of games, not 11 v11, but all forms of games. I have become convinced over the years that for the beginner coach of children in games like soccer, the key is to gain the confidence to organize a group, check they are safe and provide them with a range of proven games, selected by more experienced coaches. Once the children are playing, stand back and watch carefully; first for safety, second for involvement and then start to note how individuals are working and what they might need. Once this is done, then make the biggest decision a coach ever has to make – shall I stop the activity, can I really do something useful, or (if in doubt) leave them playing? The advantage of several small-sided games going on is that the beginner coach might feel confident to stop one game and help, perhaps, the less able for whom the help is obviously needed. It may be that the talented youngster knows more than the beginner coach; why stop them if they are in purposeful practice?

Over 30 years ago, a number of people at Loughborough University in England, were looking seriously at Games Teaching – noting that traditional methods of teaching games were not motivating children; the talented went unchallenged, the less able found it embarrassing – technical teaching was often aimed at the average child and was always very teacher/coach-determined. The whole tactical understanding was neglected, and players were told where to stand, and what to do. The most common comment during the lesson was ‘When are we going to have a game?’. In 1982, two of the staff at the center of the initiative, David Bunker and myself, presented a model for teaching games, which became known as ‘Teaching Games for Understanding’, which was further developed, with a little help from myself, in Australia as ‘Games Sense’. Simply put the player always enters a game – the game is a well thought-out game, suitable for the players’ level of development. (The younger the child, usually the smaller-sided the game; but remember: even the senior player enjoys 3v2s, etc.) This is not just about giving them any game – each game has clear outcomes – it might be designed, say, with two goals, near the corners at each end, to encourage players to ‘spread the play’ to ‘utilize width’. It could be played in a smaller than usual area to ‘challenge close control’.

The model follows the following pattern:

• Game Form – carefully selected
• Game Appreciation – check they really understand the purpose
• Tactical Awareness – thinking about what we might have to do to achieve purpose, based predominantly on understanding space and time.
• Decision Making – What to do and How to do it at any given situation in the game (this may be personally determined {a fast player may push the ball by a player and sprint, a skilled dribbler might commit the player to the tackle and check back}, etc.)
• Skill Execution – always individually assessed, how well did the players do their chosen skill?
• Performance – this is the outcome of the previous elements – recognizing the interconnections.

It is important to mention the coaching style that tends to be used in this approach. There is little doubt that the predominant approach is questioning; perhaps most coaches would lean toward ‘Guided Discovery’– asking questions that lead to a particular determined answer – the coach leads players to discover the answer they determined. In some situations the more open ‘Problem Solving’style can be

interesting, this is setting the situation and seeing what occurs – do not determine the answer.

For those who use questioning, two thoughts:

• The tendency is to ask for a verbal response, the same more articulate players always give the answer – have you ever tried asking the question and then saying “Don’t tell me – go back to your game and show me”?
• Do you realize that the games set the questions and can challenge technical, tactical, mental and social aspects? Can you design games that you merely set up and let the players learn without you?

It may be great learning, but would players, parents and other coaches accept this as good coaching? We are back at the start of the article – people fail to recognize that the great coach is one who maximizes personal improvement – I think we need to change people’s perceptions.