Duarte Araújo, Christina Fonseca, Keith Davids, Júlio Garganta, Anna Volossovitch, Regina Brandão, and Ruy Krebs The Big Idea Essentially, this publication is a position paper. The topic of the paper is the development of sport expertise. The more conventional understanding of the interactions between an individual and a specific performance environment is to seek explanations for such expertise based mostly on what is going on “inside” the player (referred to as “organismic asymmetry”). The less conventional understanding—and the position taken in this paper—is that too…
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.
Is your environment a place of learning? Todd Beane, Founder of TOVO Institute & Co-Founder of Cruyff Football shares his views around how to go about making your club or program a genuine learning environment for developing players. I have had the opportunity to visit many football clubs over the years. Upon arrival, it does not take long to determine what type of club I am visiting. Type 1: Image Centre Type 2: Learning Centre Image Centres Some clubs pay great attention to appearances. These types…
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.
Pedro Passos and Keith Davids The Big Idea These authors, Passos and Davids, call their paper an “opinion piece.” Not so. It is an intelligent discussion of ecological dynamics played out in the learning of team sports through the interactive nature of the sport performance. Such interactions include those within the team and between the team and the opposing players. This dynamic continuously unfolds as players from both teams interact with constraints such as rules and boundaries, attempts at coordinating attacks and defenses and counter…
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.
Talent: Nature vs. nurture, is it relevant? Top PDP contributor and coaching innovator, Todd Beane discusses the preconceptions around talent and the role of the coach observing and assessing performance before adding value through a considered program of training. Was Leo Messi born a star? Is talent innate or acquired? While we may find the nature vs. nurture debate interesting it is completely irrelevant to us as coaches. A player will show up for training on day one and that is where we begin. Our…
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.
P.R. Ford and A.M. Williams The Big Idea The American golfer Arnold Palmer (1929-2016) once said “It’s a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.” Risking over-simplification, Palmer’s witty observation is a fair one-sentence summary of this discussion on what research tells the coach about developing elite soccer players. Risking over-complication, the deeper question isn’t how much one practices, but how much one practices the right kind of practice. The authors of this paper urge coaches and players who strive to be in…
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.
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.
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.
Learning and hunger for knowledge is an essential ingredient to good coaching and personal development. Founder of Football For Good Academy in Uganda, Adrian Bradbury discusses the value in always learning, talent development and the challenges of football in East Africa. Full disclosure, I’m a Canadian (a country sitting uncomfortably in 100th position in the FIFA rankings), who didn’t play high-level football, but instead ‘clutched and grabbed’ my way through a very modest university basketball career. Imagine Rick Carlisle, without the height or ability. So, the irony is not lost…
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.
Head Coach of Auckland City FC in New Zealand’s National League, Jose Manuel Figueira discusses the core principles around his methodology. Jose outlines ideas as to how you can create high quality practices that are demanding for your players and ensure a positive learning environment. Recently I have gone through a major development in terms of my coaching philosophy and also in the way I plan, develop and deliver my coaching sessions. With all the fantastic resources accessible to us and the community of forward…