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Skill Acquisition

How our players acquire skills through formal practice and informal play.

PDP Video Session Plans are adaptable sessions designed by academy coach, Dave Wright. All sessions show key focus points, set up, and progressions so you can use them in your next practice.

Spanish football is constantly seen as a model for success in player development. Regular PDP Contributor & Founder of TOVO Institute, Todd Beane examines what elements of Spanish culture and football contribute to their consistent success in developing top players. Why Spain? “The ball is an essential part of the game.” – Johan Cruijff Take this quiz. Why does Spain produce such skillful footballers? A. They watch quality football every weekend.B. Club loyalty is a family tradition.C. Children are comfortable on the ball.D. All of…

How does a coach help a player maximise their return on training? Todd Beane, Founder of TOVO Institute & regular PDP contributor discusses the value in prioritising learning and maximising training time to get the most out of every session. Wouldn’t you want to maximize the return on the investment of your time and energy? As a teacher, wouldn’t you want to know that you are using every hour afforded to you to maximize learning? As a coach, wouldn’t you want your training to bring about…

PDP Video Session Plans are adaptable sessions designed by academy coach, Dave Wright. All sessions show key focus points, set up, and progressions so you can use them in your next practice.

The Player Development Project advocates game based coaching and a constraints approach. Football is often over-complicated by coaches and it’s easy to forget how much can be taught within small-sided games where players have to deal with the three key elements of the game – attacking, defending and transition. Academy Coach, Dave Wright has used this session with players from aged 7 through to 17. In this blog post, Dave takes you step by step through this possession vs. progression practice, from the organisation to the different…

PDP Video Session Plans are adaptable sessions designed by academy coach, Dave Wright. All sessions show key focus points, set up, and progressions so you can use them in your next practice.

PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan examines the simplicity vs. complexity debate using one of the great quotes from Johan Cruyff and asks if we have misinterpreted its true meaning. “Football is simple, but the hardest thing is to play simple football.” Consider how this famous quote influences your training session design when the emphasis is placed here: “Football is simple, but the hardest thing is to play simple football.” Or here: “Football is simple, but the hardest thing is to play simple football.” I think this…

PDP Video Session Plans are adaptable sessions designed by academy coach, Dave Wright. All sessions show key focus points, set up, and progressions so you can use them in your next practice.

PDP Video Session Plans are adaptable sessions designed by academy coach, Dave Wright. All sessions show key focus points, set up, and progressions so you can use them in your next practice.

Daniel Kirschenbaum, Arnold Ordman, Andrew Ordman, and Robert Holtzbauer The Big Idea This study is not of this decade or even of the 21st Century (1982).  But no matter because it is a classic example of the early days of psychological research into what is called self-regulation theory.  The big idea is to figure out how and in what ways and under what conditions we can guide our own behaviors.   This study concerns self-monitoring, and especially what is called differential self-monitoring.  Its potential lesson is still relevant to modern sports skill acquisition and development….

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