Articles by Coach Frank
Reader, Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the FIFA Knowledge Exchange in Auckland, New Zealand. Throughout the event, some really high-quality and inspiring content was shared by a range of technical experts with extensive experience around the world in leadership, talent identification and player development. One of the highlights of the week was seeing insights from a member of the FIFA team who had previously been a leader in a top English academy. He shared a fantastic case…
Reader, While I was completing my UEFA A & UEFA B licenses in England a few years ago, I was very fortunate to be mentored by some highly effective and impactful coach developers such as Ben Bartlett, Geoff Noonan, Kalam Mooniaruck, Allan Gillett and Ted Dale. The process of testing session designs, learning from mistakes, exploring communication styles, and being critiqued can be tough at times, but what I noted in these coach developers was the detail they observed and how they delivered…
Reader, In recent weeks, I have made the move from coach to parent on the sideline. As summer came to a close in our part of the world, my five-year-old son suddenly decided he wanted to play football. Now that he has worked out the game has two goals and direction (that took a couple of weeks!), he is really starting to enjoy it, getting more involved. Throughout the first couple of weeks, he stood back a bit, watched the older kids, hung around the goal and occasionally did a knee slide…
Reader, As a Director of Coaching at a football club, writing this week’s newsletter is conflicting. My role is to lead programmes for youth to senior football which provides a great experience for players from U13 – U23, to challenge them, support their football development and most importantly ensure they stay in love with the game. I am confident that we do that as a club but at times, I do feel the nature of modern football environments can be overly demanding and repetitive. In…
Reader, This week I delivered two workshops to a group of coaches working with players of all ages. The workshop was shaped around the how of coaching. How we should work with and understand developing players, how we communicate with children, how we role model and lead and how we deliver on the grass. In order to get the coaches thinking about their role, I asked them: Take two minutes and think about the best coach or teacher that you had, why you connected with them and how they made you…
Reader, This week, I delivered a workshop to a group of coaches and leaders across sport. The workshop focussed on challenges around pressure, developing a winning mentality, traits of “serial winning coaches” and dealing with the expectation of winning. I’ve never met a player who doesn’t love to win. We play sports for so many reasons, from camaraderie and friendship, personal challenge, health and wellness, and of course to compete and win. But when it comes to coaching in a youth…
Reader, I count myself exceptionally lucky to have worked with top players around the world, some of whom, have gone on to a professional career. The satisfaction in seeing a young player transition to a contract, first-team honours, or gain a national team selection is immense. For those coaches who experience this, my take is that we were fortunate to be there and support the player, but it’s always the player who gets themselves there in the end. The term “pathway” is probably overused in…
Reader, Recently, my oldest son (who is only 5 years old) has suddenly shown a real interest in football and has decided he wants to sign up for a team. I have never been in a rush to get him into an organised sport, as I am keen for him to sample a variety of sports, experience different types of movement, and just have fun being a kid. But given that I may now add an U6 team to my coaching experience this year, it’s got me thinking about the golden age of skill development and laying the…
Reader, Over the last two years, I have been working towards my OFC Professional Diploma and it’s been an awesome experience. The course itself lasted around a year covering topics such as leading self, leading others, leading culture and the business of football. Beyond the course, there are a huge number of tasks, reports and assignments to complete along the way. Prior to the Pro License course I was lucky enough to undertake a leadership course with High Performance Sport New Zealand,…
Reader, I am currently preparing for a series of introductory level workshops, aimed at coaches of all abilities in a club context who will go through a form of ‘induction evening’ to map out coach expectations, and discuss communication, behaviour and other fundamentals of coaching. Preparing for these workshops got me thinking about the best question to begin with to engage a wide range of coaching abilities and experience, from first-time volunteers through to experienced and advanced…
Coaching kids soccer can be challenging, in order to help the majority of coaches (and therefore, the majority of players), we need to arm volunteer coaches with everything they need to get started putting on great sessions for 6-12 year old players. So we put together an introduction to soccer coaching course which we believe is missing from the world of coach education. We know that the majority of coaches out there are volunteers – first time coaches, who may not have a background in…
Reader, “If I have to make a tackle, then I have already made a mistake” – Paolo Maldini I might be showing my age by quoting the legendary Italian centre-back, Paolo Maldini, but in my mind, he is on the all-time list of great defenders. Whilst we all love to watch players on the ball, dribbling, driving and running with the ball, one of my favourite parts of coaching is defending. When developing defenders, we must praise and reinforce defensive behaviours in young players who show…