James Vaughan
James Vaughan is a Co-founder of Player Development Project and currently based in Stockholm where he is coaching at AIK and working towards his PhD in Creativity & Motivation in Football.
Articles by James Vaughan
How can play impact performance? PDP Lead Researcher & International Futsal player, James Vaughan examines how important play is when it comes to finding solutions in a high performance setting. Last month New Zealand played against the Solomon Islands in the FIFA Futsal World Cup qualifiers in Fiji. Tied at the top of the table this game was the tournament decider, the game that determined Oceania’s representative for the upcoming World Cup in Colombia. Four years of preparation and sacrifice on the line during 40…
PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan recently attended a seminar by Joan Vila Bosch – Head of Methodology at FC Barcelona. Speaking in Christchurch, New Zealand – Joan described how and why FC Barcelona are breaking down the coaching language of war surrounding football. Moving away from what he called ‘the language of war’, Joan’s department is using scientific principles to define FC Barcelona’s game and crucially the language they use. Joan explained: “As people we are defined by our words” The language of football transmits the ideas, beliefs and values…
Zlatan Ibrahimovich is one of the great characters and creative players of modern football. PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan examines some of the reasons why. Watch this… Zlatan is the best example of affordances in action. Ibrahimovic sees and plays passes that very few players can because he sees the opportunity to move in ways that most people can’t. This allows Zlatan to make passes and score goals that no one else can. He is one of the most unpredictable, innovative and therefore creative players of…
Talent: a dangerous word for players and a highly infectious idea for coaches. This article by PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan explores the possibility that talent is a ‘meme’. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme to explain an infectious idea that spreads from person to person: the cultural equivalent of a gene. Incorporating theories from motor learning and psychology, this article discusses talent as a meme and highlights its potential influence as a socio-cultural constraint – inhibiting the development of skill and creativity….
Building on the expert insight of University of Queensland’s Professor of Sport Psychology & Coaching Cliff Mallett, this update drills into the Key Characteristics of The Worlds Best Coaches. Like any decent update this post aims to provide a deeper user experience, particularly focusing on the process of knowing ourselves: Or in other words the process of hacking, updating and refining our operating system. At some point we all need to update our software, but its often niggly and almost always annoying. In the long run it (normally) makes life…
Is the FIFA saga corrupting our coaching? This blog is adapted from PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan’s article in Issue #8 of PDP Magazine. With the FIFA saga rumbling on, the team at PDP hope this post can shed some light on the game’s current corruption and the influence it’s having on our coaching. The FIFA saga is not a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away. It is here and now. Our game is being used and abused for financial gain, but what…
The Pschology of Coaching Are you a scientist or more of an artist? Is coaching an art or science? These were questions asked of UQ’s coaching and sports psychology research group last week and this post explores the possibility that science and accounting are hijacking football and slowly killing the art of coaching. The simple answer to the art vs. science question is that coaching is an ever-changing mixture of both, but after a little digging some additional and pretty fundamental questions emerge. Precisely, what…
What characteristics do the world’s best coaches have in common? PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan shares insight from a study at the University of Queensland on the key attributes required to be the most effective coach. Last Friday, I was lucky enough to attend a presentation by Associate professor Cliff Mallett at the University of Queensland. Cliff is actually my academic supervisor, and a bit of a gun. On UQ’s website they describe Cliffs work saying: “This staff member is a UQ Expert in the…
Forged by a history of social injustice, the beautiful game is inseparable from the rebellious spirit and deceptive artistry of its people. In this article, James Vaughan explores the development of the beautiful game by highlighting the fundamental role of culture. Football is not the beautiful game; the beautiful game is only one form of football – a form devised within a particular movement culture and shaped by a unique combination of socio-cultural constraints and movement opportunities. In Brazil, poverty, unstructured street play, samba and…
Critically acclaimed and widely accepted as the most effective performance enhancing mental skill by high-performance athletes, CEOs, actors, public speakers and authors, ‘visualisation’ is often undeveloped and largely under-used in player development settings, as well as other educational environments. But why is this the case? PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan discusses. Similarly, while ‘vision’ is regarded as the cornerstone of organisational, leadership, or long-term development structures, minimal emphasis is placed on players’ vision for their own future. American author Stephen Covey sees vision as an…
I have quit jobs, moved countries and become – to use my friend’s words – an ‘intellectual hobo’ in search of these seven words. Those seven words have consumed my life for 18 months. They are seven words that I believe hold the key to understanding creativity in football players. ‘Who we are is how we play’ These seven words are the conclusion to my thesis; 35,661 words deftly reinterpreted by my ‘old man’ as: ‘You can take the boy out of Liverpool,…
Throughout his tenure as head coach of FC Barcelona, Pep Guardiola prioritised one message above all others, a message that built a dynasty, defined a generation and changed a game. PDP Lead Researcher James Vaughan discusses the value of a style of play and how Pep Guardiola has influenced a generation of coaches and players. The message was simple: ‘The target is not to win titles; the target is to achieve a unique style of play.’ The simplicity and eloquence of this message are as profound…