For all coaches, understanding the game in various component parts is always helpful.

In many of the most successful coach education programs, those component parts are understood to be...

• Technique

• Tactics

• Physical

• Psychology

This is known in the UK as the ’four- corner model’ and an economical training session is one where these components are not developed in isolation, but rather coincidentally.

Technique, such as dribbling and shooting etc. become skills when applied in the game. You can practice a skill apart from the other components and the pressure of time, space and opposition. However, that technique becomes a skill when it is put to use.

Tactics are an aspect of the game that coaches too often want to address without considering if their players are technically equipped to execute them.

It is positive to think of tactics as decisions. The complexity of any activity influences the number of potential decisions and their sophistication. Understood as decisions, developing tactics can become a training theme for coaches of all ages.