Soccer Coach Weekly Issue 97

In a webinar run by fellow Green Star Media publication Elite Soccer, the former Aston Villa head coach Dean Smith said: "Football's a simple game, sometimes made difficult by coaches".

He was referring to his view that we can occasionally lose sight of the fact that our success in the game boils down to what we can achieve in both penalty boxes.

The same can be said of how we plan and set up our training sessions.

Our consulting coach Carl Wild has written this week about the gains that can be made by keeping things simple.

And while players sometimes need challenging, he notes that an overly complicated practice will take an extended period of time to set up and explain, reducing the key element of training, particularly at grassroots - ball-rolling time.

Carl has also designed three such practices that are easy to lay out and understand.

We have put a focus this week on the tireless role of box-to-box midfielders, and the key part they play both in breaking up attacks and then starting them.

This includes two related practices which focus on winning the ball in midfield, one designed by the Rangers head coach Michael Beale.

Finally, our Q&A this week is with Faith Jasper, a youth coach based in Canada who began formulating her coaching philosophy in her teens.

Since then, she has refined it and boiled down her ethos to one statement: "Making good players, but better humans".

You can hear her full discussion with Scott Mowberry, from the Soccer Coaching Podcast, by clicking the link on page 10.