At our Carshalton football training, we realise as coaches we have many roles. This is the same for every football coach and during your sessions, your role is to manage, organise and coach your team as well as being a mentor, friend, role model, facilitator & delegator.

The hardest task for a manager is to get your players thinking and performing like footballers.

We have worked with hundreds of players!! Here are some great ideas for you to try with your team.

1)Team Talks
Facilitate the players team talk but allow the players to have their say and action the points. This will encourage confidence, deeper thinking and understanding of the game as well as other key qualities such as leadership, team work and communication. All important qualities for a team's success.

2) Catering for different types of learners.
As coaches we understand all our players are different and have different ways of processing the information given to them by their managers and coaches. Like ourselves we all have a specific way that suits us best when processing new information. These 3 learning styles are:

Visual learners: (Seeing)
•Using white boards to show and demonstrate movement patterns in the play.
•Setting out of cones to model a players position for your squad to see
(4-4-2) (4-5-1) (4-3-3)
•Try using a range of cone colours and bibs in practices to model different tactics, zonal areas, skills and games.

Auditory learners: (Hearing)
•Talking and delivering verbal information to players (studies have shown this is typically the least effective - however this tends to be the type of methods we see managers using most!)
• Partner talks, get your players talking to each other and using these skills positively while interacting with one another. These types of team building tasks will also help build team rapport and a collaborative team ethos!
•Get down to your players level and engage with them using different types of vocal tone when speaking to reinforce important information and team areas of development. Good use of expression and body language can also be a good way to reinforce your key areas for your players!

Kinesthetic Learners: (Doing)
• When re-creating a training situation, get your players to act this out, either by replaying the scenario or by throwing and catching the ball as you explain the transitions of play.
• Model team structure with the throw and catch - for example modelling your attacking principles of width and depth. Players can throw the ball from player to player to spread the ball across the pitch. Good ideas for embedding good practice!
• Simple coaching - "See it do it"
tell your players they must play only what they see in this training session.
Players will be able to tell you key outcomes if you ask the right questions.
(When can I dribble?) - when players drop off and I have space.
(What if I can see the goal?) - player may have a goal scoring opportunity.
(Why do you want to use short and long passing?) - to draw out players and switch the play to penetrate the space behind the defending side.

3) Story telling your coaching
This is such an important skill for coaches and managers with younger footballers! Story telling games and our coaching is really effective. This is taking games such as "stuck in the mud" and transforming it into a game that will have your players engaged, having fun and learning and applying new fundamental skills!

Story telling makes the game fun and accessible for all your younger players. We use these all the time at our academy, so why not give this a try!

• Ice monster - tell your players there will be an ice monster and he/she has the power to freeze all the runners!! If you are tagged by the Ice monster your instantly turn to ice. Ice takes 10 seconds to freeze before you begin moving / team members can save you by going through your legs or under your arms. remembering to switch the ice monsters every 60 - 90 seconds as you play.

But how can we get these fundamental outcomes to our players every week?

Like all simple tag games you can make them more challenging with simple progressions:
- Reducing the size of the area
- Adding extra taggers
- Players carrying a ball
- Players dribbling a ball
- Group tag, players working together

Here are some more ideas to try:

• Aliens and Astronauts
• El Macho and Minions
• Autobots and Decepticons
• Foxes and Farmers
• Cops and Robbers

Why not try your own too! See what your players are talking about on match days and at training and create new and exciting games for your players (this could be a computer game, a new toy, recent movie or film! Whatever gets your players excited.

Why are these type of games important for our footballers?
These type of tag games have great outcomes for your players such as

• Disguising your movement patterns
• Team work to evade other players
• Dodging and weaving skills
• Speed and acceleration skills
• Decision making skills
• Problem solving

These are all really important skills for footballers in the modern game and ones that we use regularly at Carshalton.

Thank you for reading,
Happy training!