At the United Soccer Coaches Digital Convention yesterday I was in the presentation by Dan Abrahams on performance of your team with well being in mind. He explored three environmental approaches and combines them to help you establish a healthy and safe coaching environment for players of all ages and levels.
He put the question: “What does coaching look like?” To answer this the coach must look at the three P’s Participation, Progression and Performance. So we need to engage players to get them to play, progress their development and bring all that out on match day.
He says psycho-social drives these important ingredients of your coaching. Every player deserves to go through the three P’s “What can I do to help these players?”
Try to consider the internal that drives the external of your players. This creates a motivational climate and answers the question “What are we doing in our coaching and why”. Who are the players in front of you and what experiences have they had to make them what they are.
As a coach we need to engage in reflective practice that drives our coaching. He recommends spending 10 minutes a week researching simple techniques to help you with player relationships.
I caught up with Dan, when we were allowed to travel, in Baltimore in 2020 and he explained psycho-social to me and what as coaches we need to do.
Dave Clarke talks to sport psychologist Dan Abrahams discussing how to motivate players, social/psychological, winning/losing, working with parents and much, much more MORE
It is a very difficult time to be coaching our players around the world. So to help you I have created the Coaching Classroom where you can download lessons to give to your players online. Here I have focused on Compactness and Penetration MORE
I was out walking on the local golf course where I live this week and in the distance I saw a child running from what seemed miles away at top speed. As the child got closer I realised that it was someone dribbling a ball. Of course on the fairways it was like being at Wembley on a well cared for football pitch! It was great to see a child enjoying dribbling a ball, chipping over the bunkers and swerving around the patches of heather that catch out an unwary golfer. MORE
I'm usually high up in the sky on my way to the United Soccer Coaches convention in America at this time of the year – last year I was at the convention in Baltimore and there was loads of coaching education on offer. Yet it is still exciting to be entering the United Soccer Coaches Digital Convention 2021 on my computer in the home office. MORE
Turning with the ball has always been a skill that draws names from the great players through the ages – think of the Cruff turn or Zidane spin turn. It used to make me wonder how players like Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, Zinedine Zidane or Johan Cruyff could turn their opponents inside out, game after game – I now know it needs practice and from a young age. MORE
One of the ways to improve your team in 2021 is to get them communicating on the pitch. Players do this by verbal and non verbal actions, like pointing where they want a ball to be passed or calling for the ball when overlapping from behind like a fullback running outside a winger. MORE
I launched my podcast this time last year, totally oblivious to the problems that were developing in the world. But as ever there is no difference to how I feel about coaching and once again by the time it gets to New Year's Day I find I'm itching to get back out on the pitch! So I read books, listen to some podcasts and generally boost my coaching knowledge sitting in the house. MORE