El Clasico is the most anticipated regular football fixture on the planet. Player Development Project Lead Researcher, James Vaughan was fortunate enough to experience the rivalry himself in early 2017. The legendary Barcelona vs. Real Madrid fixture got James thinking about the history of his adopted home in Catalonia and the way it has shaped FC Barcelona. In this two part article, we follow James’ match-day experience and find out how Catalan and Barcelona history and social construct interlink. I emerge from the metro in Badal…
The Blog
In the second part of this ethnographic insight on El Clasico, the biggest match in world football, PDP Lead Researcher James Vaughan continues with his observations from his experience watching a masterpiece inside Camp Nou… My friend and I part ways as we reach the Camp Nou and I walk the well-travelled path through access 18, in gate 39 and up to level 3. As I climb up and out into the open-air stadium I see the green grass and the colossal circular stands, and my heart…
What are team values and how do they influence culture? In the first of a two part feature, International Coach Developer and expert in culture in sport, John Alder discusses the balance of team culture and how often this is an element in team sport where control cannot be exerted and we have to look beyond slogans on walls and team meetings in order to greater understand team dynamics. *John contributed to this article in his personal capacity. The views expressed are his own…
Josh Cullen is a young West Ham player on the rise. PDP Editor, Dave Wright spoke at length with Josh about his long journey through the West Ham Academy, the value of honesty and the challenge of being pushed outside of his comfort zone. Josh Cullen was born in Hackney in 1996. For the first few years of his life, he lived in Bow, East London – a stone’s throw away from the future home of West Ham United, the Queen Elizabeth Stadium. At…
Jon de Souza was appointed Academy Manager at Colchester United in July 2016, after a coaching career that has taken him from club he joined as a schoolboy, Luton Town, to a coach education role at the Football Association and Brentford FC. PDP spoke to Jon about his career, and discussed the importance of coaching the individual. Jon de Souza began his footballing journey at Luton Town, signing for the Hatters as an under-14 player. Despite their fairly lowly status, Luton Town are a…
Are you running ‘static’ sessions? Regular PDP contributor and founder of TOVO International, Todd Beane explains the dangers of static sessions and gives some practical advice for coaches to move towards ‘solution’ based sessions. There are voices from locker rooms of false wisdom suggesting that to train we must we must suffer through some rite of painful passage. It is a very macho and misguided notion of how we must make “suck it up” to stack up. It also tends to justify horribly boring training…
Systems tend to dominate organisational thinking in the modern age. So how do these systems potentially harm player development and participation? Co-founder of myfastestmile & regular PDP contributor, Mark Upton discusses the dangers of a ‘mechanistic’ approach to sport and the risk we run when working to a one-size-fits-all approach. Amongst a long and enjoyable conversation with a colleague involved in rugby last week, there was a somewhat sobering moment. He intimated his love for the game, evident since early childhood, had eroded to the…
PE Teacher & blogger, Sporticus examines the subject of participation in youth sport, sharing a story about an inspiring young man who took his role of team reserve in the best possible way. But what damage can our own ego and a results driven focus do to young players? Whilst coaching my school football team today a reserve from the opposition side caught my eye. He was a tall lad, who clearly hadn’t grown accustomed to his new height. A bundle of raw energy, he…
Possession has become a huge trend in football coaching. But are we educating our young players to retain the ball well enough? Is our practice design representative of the game? PDP Technical Advisor, Dan Wright discusses how we can help our players master 1v1s and cites Renato Sanches & Alexis Sanchez as examples of players excelling in this area. Most coaches practice 1v1’s but are we doing it right and more importantly are we meeting the demands of the game? Recently I analysed two players,…
What does it take to be a champion? Founder of Changing the Game Project, John O’Sullivan shares his article on the work ethic and mindset of arguably the NBA’s most effective player & relentless worker, Steph Curry. All-American. World-champion. Greatest shooter on the planet. Most Valuable Player…twice. Yes, I am talking about Steph Curry, the all-world guard for the Golden State Warriors. These are the things we all say about him – we all know about him – when the lights are shining brightly….
What is the cognitive process of elite athletes working at their peak? In this article, researcher Dr. Laurie Rauch discusses the various levels of thought, conscious and subconscious, behind human movement in sport. An athlete’s movement on the sports field is largely an automatic process that is coordinated subconsciously. The only voluntary part of movement is its intended goal (Rauch et al. 2013); the movement itself essentially consists of a chain of reflexes (Evarts 1980), (Lacquaniti et al. 2012). Indeed, thinking or reasoning about…
Adrian Bradbury is the founder and academy director of Football for Good, Uganda’s only full-time residential elite youth football academy and scholarship program. He has over 10 years’ experience in international coaching, education, and community advocacy and development. In this article, Adrian explores the unique obstacles impacting young footballers in East Africa, and explains that we all have ‘outset obstacles’ to overcome in our coaching. Aubameyang, Mahrez, Mane, Salah and Wanyama are just a few of Africa’s growing list of global household names, rightly…
The environment surrounding the player must be understood to ensure we help players achieve their potential. PDP Lead Researcher and PhD candidate, James Vaughan discusses the holistic view of player development that the PDP team has been working on as a result of over two years of conversations, interviews, research and experience. Ruben Jongkind is the former Head of Talent Development at Ajax and now works for Cruyff Football. He and Johan Cruyff worked together to implement ‘Plan Cruyff’ at Ajax between 2011 and 2013….
Dan Kemp is an up-and-coming attacking talent currently plying his trade at the highly regarded West Ham Academy under the guidance of Terry Westley and Liam Manning. Starting his journey at the Chelsea Academy as an U9 before moving to East London as a scholar, Kemp, now 18, now represents the West Ham U23s in Premier League 2 and has already trained with the first team. PDP Editor, Dave Wright spoke to Dan about his journey, what kind of coaches he responds to and the…
Claudio Ranieri’s dismissal as Leicester Manager this season has been one of the most controversial decisions in recent sporting history. Assistant Editor Jon Hoggard challenges the current football system and its tendency to place extrinsic motivators at the forefront of both clubs’ and players’ agendas. Who’d be a manager? The sacking of Claudio Ranieri just nine months after he led Leicester City to the Premier League title is one of the most gut-wrenching stories of the season. Clubs sacking league-winning managers isn’t that uncommon…
We associate Albert Einstein with physics, but he was also a great teacher. Coach & analyst, Sam Polak discusses what we can learn from Einstein’s approach to learning, creating environments and how we can encourage the development of composed decision-makers. There isn’t a lot that physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson and former American President, Teddy Roosevelt have in common. However, both individuals understood that they could go further in their field by not limiting their studies to just their chosen discipline. Teddy Roosevelt read books…
What are the benefits of learners exploring their environment and self-correcting? How can a coach guide this discovery? Founder of TOVO Academy in Barcelona, Todd Beane shares his excellent blog on the idea of discovery learning. I have six children and thus have personally funded a human laboratory in learning and chaos. Those of you with more than two children will understand this blog. I say more than two because once we have three or more children as a couple we are in a…
How important is adaptability and context in your coaching approach? UEFA A licensed coach, Dan Wright discusses the idea of creating a flexible framework for players to explore and how coaching is never black or white. Coaches like principles when teaching the game, they are a quick and straightforward way to transfer your understanding of the game to your players, but are they dangerous? A few weeks ago, I posted a tweet which discussed a scenario around the passing options of a fullback in a…