The 5-Minute Football Coach #10

Iniesta practice, Specialisation, Courage

Here are your 3 highlights for this week, enjoy!

Practice of the week

A really nice practice ‘inspired by Andres Iniesta’ about quick passing and movement, with good progressions.

I really like this kind of small-sided 3v3 games: they bring up very high energy in players,  nowhere to hide! Our team plays 9-a-side but we are going to a couple of 6-a-side tournaments soon, so that could be a good preparation.

Topic of the week

How much, and how soon, should young football players specialise? Later and less than most think, according to the FA:

St. George's Park @StGeorgesPark

No one knows which position footballers aged 5-11 will go on to play in 🤷‍♂️ There are benefits to giving players in the Foundation Phase experience of different positions - our latest #EnglandDNA guide explains why ⚽👇 https://t.co/urZwGI6q3C

In our team we rotated players through all positions at both U9 and U10, and to be fair that was probably too much for some players (typically the less developed ones). Now at U11 we play our stronger players in 3-4 different positions, with others in 2. This seems to work better as we can pick what works best for each player and for the team as a whole.

Thought of the week

What values do you try and develop in your players? Courage is a pretty good one.

Keepitonthedeck @Keepitonthedeck

Who are the players that effect the game when it's not going to plan? ⬇ Brain Game Outfield TRAINING SESSION PLANS focused on decision making with learning outcomes. Available to download ⬇ keepitonthedeck.com/downloads/keep…

And what about desire and hunger?

Have a great week!

Fabrice