100% passing accuracy

At the risk of this blog becoming a Barcelona love in, I couldn't let last weeks incredible achievement from Xavi go without a mention - Playing for Spain against Columbia - 76 passes attempted - 76 on target -100% passing accuracy - unbelievable

Passing Accuracy - A world cup perspective

The Spanish approach to Football is well documented - possession is King - if you have the ball you can't concede but you can score. I thought the following stats from this years world cup illustrate the significance of passing accuracy within such a philosophy.

Figures in brackets are the Number of passes the % figures represent the success rate of each of the types of passes

Attribute	Spain	Holland	Germany	England
Short passes Under 15m	81% (948)	70% (718)	70% (712)	74% (493)
Medium Passes 15m -30m	85% (2627)	80% (2030)	80% (2094)	80% (1248)
Long passes Over 30m	64% (631)	51% (618)	55% (551)	51% (435)
Passing accuracy	81% (4206)	72% (3366)	74% (3357)	73% (2176)

As can be seen from the above the Spanish walk the talk regarding their philosophy.

This is further emphasised when each players passing stats are evaluated

Puyol 88%

Busquets 88%

Fabregas 85%

Pique 85%

Capdevilla 82%

Ramos 81%

Alonso 81%

Xavi 81%

Iniesta 76%

Pedro 74%

Villa 68%

Torres 48%

As can be seen from the above the front players operating in the final third understandably have the lower accuracy levels and conversely the defenders have the higher accuracy levels - seems to change the perspective regarding the big bruisers who can win it and clear their lines - incidentally England were 2nd in the clearence tables during this years world cup

Opposed or unopposed - Myelination

For all those who have been through their coaching qualifications, you will be only to aware of the discrimination between technique and skill based drills - unopposed or opposed.

The simple rationale being we have to know what to do before we can apply it in a competitive environment. Hence the technique/unopposed emphasis should be the initial part of the coaching process i.e. explaining how to do something. However the majority of my coaching observations seem to highlight coaches repeatedly doing the same unopposed drills. From my observations repeated exposure to unopposed drills will create players who are fantastic at unopposed drills e.g. Do a lot of SAQ and you will become excellent at SAQ but weak in an opposed environment - namely a game. It is also easy, self gratifying and ensures the coach stays the fountain of knowledge rather than the enabler of mastery and of course repeated exposure to drills that have a tendency to be boring and easy will ultimately become detrimental to development, thus coaching becomes destructive rather than constructive

Football is waking up to the concept of Myelination -if you don't know what it is - here is a brief explanation of how it applies to world of Football coaching

Definition

Myelin is a dielectric (electrically insulating) material that forms a layer, the myelin sheath, usually around only the axon of a neuron. It is essential for the proper functioning of the nervous system

What that means in Football

Myelin is an insulation that forms around the neural pathways - the thicker the insulation the faster and more precise the brain signals. Thus performing a delicate football skill is a consequence of continued practice - i.e. the more you practice a particular skill the thicker the myelin becomes - hence repetition is the root of mastery BUT only the right repetition fuels the act of myelination. A simple example would be the guys who are brilliant at Ball juggling - they are incredible at feats of juggling but not the driving force we would expect in a game situation because they master juggling rather than the game of football

Daniel Coyle has written a book entitled "the talent code" the book goes into great detail regarding sport, mastery and myelination. The Football perspective is however slightly different. A golfer has few variables to deal with when playing a shot i.e. lie. distance, weather and obstacles, hence golfers practices will be dominated by unopposed practice whereas football has multi-direction, moving ball, distance, opposition positions, moving team mates etc, etc

Hence we can only achieve meaningful attainment of mastery by repeated exposure to the conditioned drills that replicate the environment to which they will be applied i.e. TEACH THE GAME NOT THE DRILL

So do unopposed drills have any value - YES when introducing a concept but if you stay in this stage for too long player development will be hindered rather than enhanced. Ask yourself how many of Lance Armstrongs 7 Tour De France wins do you think he attributes to his time spent on stabilisers - thats the equivalent of unopposed drills - how often do think Lionel Messi attributes his wonderful skills to the time he spent amongst the dribbling cones on the training ground

Philosophy First, last and always

The goal of all Academy football is the creation of first team players, hence Academy Football should be the purest expression of Football - where else in the world of professional football does the way you play carry greater significance than the result of the game

The challenge for us all - how do we best develop the players at our disposal:

What do we coach

How do we coach

When do we coach

etc etc:

All the above are driven by the good intent of the coaching staff but without an under pinning playing philosophy how can player development be consistent and fully effective. Perhaps the best example of this approach in its clearest representation is the current Barcelona squad - of the 14 players who took the field in the recent 5-0 drubbing of Real madrid - 10 of them were from their own Academy -all of whom have been schooled in the Barca playing philosophy for 10 years or more

The Barca example is of course the exception - where academy and first team are totally aligned. My own club is now in a position where our academy philosophy dictates our training routines. Below is an example of how we are currently translating this approach -the example below relates to the current practices at our Newport Advanced Development Centre - u12-u16 age groups

Academy Philosophy/Style of play

Possession based attacking Football - hence we are trying to develop players who excel within such a style of play

Strategies to achieve our philosophy

1. Pocket play - no explanation required

2. When pressed - play 1 touch the way you are facing - see the video link below for a simple illustration of this - this enables passes to players who are marked

3. When receiving in space - you dictate the tempo

4. If we are to be possession based, we have to win it back - Quickly

5. Our first preference is to play the ball on the floor

Please watch this link of the Barca v Real game - A great example of all of the above being applied in a game

A session inspired by Lionel Messi

Under 11's - dribbling skills - Monday 1st October - 12 children

Great session tonight, Over the past week I have watched Barcelona on a number of occassions, particularly Lionel Messi, display football of a higher level. Most noticeable is Messi's ability to cause havoc in defences.Interestingly he does it all without any of the conventional Ronaldinho/Ronaldo style tricks, he does it all with dramatic and very fast changes of direction.

Consequently the session centred on the players ability to beat defenders by dramatic changes of direction. The kids loved it, the nature of the drills enabled meaningful and discreet interventions, amazing how breaking down this most profound and basic skill engendered rapid improvement and much deeper understanding. All the drills were contained within games, in some cases there was minimal queing. In this case the queing a maximum of 2 people facilitated the necessary rest periods, due to the high anaerobic content of the individual efforts

The key to the success was ensuring the learning was a natural outcome of the drill rather than an instructed, pre-meditated prescription of specified moves. All the players achieved success, it also aided my analysis of the players development needs, At the start of the session some of the children could not beat a player head on, with discreet intervention it was relatively easy to facilitate success

The kids evaluation at the end of the session suggested we also addressed , closing players down, taking your first touch on the run, The importance of speed and when to dribble and when to pass - More than happy with that

What went well?

Inter Centre tournament - Friday 21st Sept - Under 10's + Under 11's

Traditionally these have been the usual 8 v 8 inter Development Centre games - However we decidied to try a different approach for this session. The pitches were arranged with 8 x 4 v 4 games - including the goal game, The line game - the 4 goal game and the cone goal game.

Instead of playing the respective centres against each other we decided to mix the players up and thus enable our coaches to evaluate the abilities of the players on display, not who was winning or which centre they represented.

To further supplement this parents were given sheets to record how many touches a selected player (not their son) managed in each of the games

The evening proved to be an immense success - a summary of the findings is shown below:
The positives:
1. Number of touches per player off the scale
2. Player social development excellent - took them no time to integrate with other palyers they didn't know
3. Player problem solving - more dynamic - sustained exposure to specific problems e.g 3 v 4 enables more experimentation and thus more success and refined problem solving
4. This approach enables coaches to concentrate on player evaluation , not on team performance - Personally I thought this element was a revelation, I found myself completely absorbed by the talents and the potential talents on display . As we were looking for outstanding players I spent very little time evaluating errors or poor performance - can't believe how much I learnt about the new intake at our new centre
5. Greater integration from the coaches
6. The approach is player focused
7. Kids loved it - everyone scored at least 1 goal - not bad with 60+ kids
8. Game Structure - created a positive environment
9. Parent observations
10. All coaching interventions were re-inforcements of positive actions - no negative feedback, this has to be good for player development

Areas for improvement
1. Identify the team sheets before we arrive at the venue
2. Get the kids at the venue 15 mins earlier e.g. 45 mins before kick off -more time to get the kids ready
3. 1 of the vulnerabilities of the approach is that it does not encourage an expansive game - play is dominated by short passing and dribbling - Thus the balance between 4v4 and 8v8 is a necessity
4. Make the parental contribution more systemised

Overall
I thoroughly enjoyed the evening great watching football in its purest form, we will use 1 of the 2 games per 6 week block in this form and the other for conventional 8v8 format

I don't get this?

under 11 - 17 children - 17th September 2007

The purpose of this session was recieving to pass or shoot. General overview of the session was very positive, 6 individual interventions during the session, immensely influenced by the Skillful neglect approach. The kids now demonstrate much deeper understanding when answering the questions. The drills were predominantly 4 v 4 based games with lots of opportunity to pass or shoot.

However when explaining 1 of the new drills 1 of the kids shouted, I don't get this? Interestingly he quite often shouts this prior to a new drill starting. This has enlightened me in a number of ways:

1. I've resorted to instructing the kids rather than showing a picture and letting them experience the drill before starting it i.e. I'm only helping the kids who favour auditory learning thus not helping the visual or the kinistetic learners - Ill rectify this next session

2. The lad who frequently shouts I don't get this is a Kinistetic learner i.e. He needs to experience the session before he can understand what is expeected of him

I'm sure he's not the only 1 but he's the 1 who is prepared to tell me - more learning for me

warm ups?

September 10th - Under 13's - 16 children

A good session, utilising the 4 v 4 + 4 approach. The session centred on the players ability to undertake fast transitions from defence to attack. Session quality high, understanding of subject matter , high when tested during and after the session.

Since the course in July I have given much consideration to the content from the Sports Scientisit elements of the course - particularly the SAQ. I have chosen to adddress these issues with all ball based exercises. During this session our warm up comprised of numerous decision making exercises concluding in an aerobic ball based exercise.

The other realisation from this type of approach has been that the text book prescription of an ldeal session is a linear progression from warm up to end. I now approach the warm up as the time to prepare the body and the mind - so lots of gentle aerobic work coupled with high dexterity decision based drills- Hence many of my warm ups are not directly related to the session.

Old habits die hard?

Under 11's - transition from defence to attack

A good session tonight, The format of the sessions have become more centred on the 4 corners of player development, with considerably more emphasis on enabling decisions via the design of drills, even within the warm up every opportunity is utilised to exercise a players decision making options.

Our warm ups have more emphasis on preparing the player to train, rather than the traditional mantra of ensuring a linear progression throughout the session

Very noticable tonight some of the players had delayed responses when possession changed - Post session the group have been asked to work on this singular component when training with their club teams

I felt tonight at certain stages of the session I was looking for what went wrong rather than encouraging what went well. This seems to have been fuelled by a level of frustration caused by the delayed transition responses. Good lessons learnt tonight - I'll work on this in the next session

On the plus side the questioning methods are now fully accepted by the players, they now take that as the norm, we rarely get the throw away cliched answers such as "PASSING" etc

Went to se Barcelona beat Inter last week - what a team - great to watch always entertaining

Under 9's - Systematic errors?

Session - Possession and spacial awareness

The first session of the season for our newly formed under 9's. A simple session that comprised a skills based warm up, some 2 v 2 progressions followed by a possesion game and concluding with a small sided game

Observations
During 1 of the drills - 7 v 3 possession, 4 passes or a 1/2 to score a goal - . A systematic problem occurred hence feedback needed to be at a group level rather than at an individual level. The problem was centred on players in possession only utilising short passing , thus causing the team in possesion to compress the playing area, this made it easy for the defenders to win the ball back.

When the ball went of play we used the dead time to ask a group question - Do the team in possession want to make the pitch big or small -BIG was the unified response - WHY - more time and space for the man on the ball and the defence have to turn and chase the ball, the children knew the answer but what followed were repeats of the same problem. so despite knowing the answer they were unable to implement the solution

Our response was to introduce a conditioned drill that caused transfer of play from 1 side of the pitch to the other.

Enjoyable session, with deeper insights to the player development process

Session 4 - Skillful neglect?

Session 4 - receiving to pass - 15 players under 12 age group

Warm up
Used the warm up games to concentrate on the basics of raising the body temperature plus also added a number of simple games that were designed to activate the players decision making processes - worked a treat. Also included the group questioning methods to set the scene and to test understanding. The kids have adapted to this approach, very noticable the quality of the answers to the questions are significantly higher

Session
The session comprised a series of progressive small sided games that centred on passing and movement - Great session, tempo excellent, kids loved it

Skillful neglect
All our groups have now accepted this approach - we wait and see if the error is self correcting if not we make a note of it then discreetly discuss it with the player without anyone knowing, Tonight there were 5 interventions (all related to slowing the attacks down by having too many touches) all delivered discreetly - very interesting to see the reactions of the children - far more receptive, always delivered via questions with heavy positive spin

We have organised sessions for our parents to illustrate the blue dot exercise and to show how sideline coaching shuts down the learning system

Session 3 - Under 12's July 23rd

Session - receiveing to pass or shoot

Intervention - Beginning to get the hang of the intervention -used the skillful neglect approach, amazing how many mistakes are self correcting. Intervened discreetly with 5 players yesterday, all for systematic problems, Including using dribbling as the only method to progress the ball, weight of the pass, Off the ball movement and speed of release when playing in a congested area of the pitch.

All interventions were delivered in discreet 1 on 1 situations, mainly by the use of questions rather than instructions,much better way of establishing understanding and aiding learning

Qusetioning
I've started to use questions as the principle medium of communication to the players -they are beginning to get to grips with the small group system, too early to say but initially appears to have a significant impact on understanding

Session 2 Under 10's

Session 2 - Tuesday 17th July - Under 11's

Session - possession
Used some of the warm up drills from the course - also used the switching drill - where 2 players have to switch positions to receive the ball in the box - worked very well - kids loved it

Intervention
Worked well tonight - 0 interventions, didn't stop any of the drills, however gave dicreet individual feedback to 4 individuals during the session. Definite evidence of the kids understanding and actioning the points raised. It becomes easier to communicate the specifics , also able to test understanding by backing the point up with questions

Questioning
Started the session with small group questions relating to what makes a team good at possession - also asked the question what is possession. When each group gave an answer to the question I asked them to demonstrate what they meant - wrked really well. Feel confident understanding is fuller and deeper as a consequence - I asked the kids what is different about my coaching - "You are asking lots more questions" - seems about right to me. It's beginning to get easier

Coach and parents
We are running a session for all our coaches and any interested parents. We will subject them to the blue dot exercise, the 4 corners, how the brain learns, the questioning and the low intervention systems - Looking forward to it - we should get 20 - 30 people there

First Session

Evaluation of the first session

Tried a number of new things during the session, including questioning and the suggested player development based intervention:

Session - Possession

Drills - Used a number of the drills from the course, including the fitness based warm up drills - concluded with some of our old favorites. Early drills took a bit of adapting to but in general session tempo went well and standard was high

Interventions - Only stopped a drill once during a 2 hour session - concentrated on giving discreet individual feedback - worked incredibly well - Also used it as a method to address behaviour issues - worked very well

Testing Understanding - Used questioning throughout the session - repeatedly split the group into sub groups of 3 or 4 players, 30 secs to answer a question, then challenged the answers - can't believe how much of an impact this had - Far more powerful way of getting to grips with levels of understanding - Kids found it, fun, challenging and a bit strange. Very difficult to train my mind to centre on open questions only.

Overall good session - lots of learning points

8 lessons learnt

8 lessons from the course

1. Intervention
Learn how to manage mistakes, use the breaks to intervene - Do individual feedback discreetly

2. Questioning
The most powerful weapon at the coaches disposal for testing and re-enforcing understanding - Open questions. break into small groups and practice the art of questioning wherever possible

3. Match the energy
Start off by matching the players energy then modify your own energy levels to match the levels you want from the players

4. The Blue Dot
Remember all the messages from the blue dot exercise - every time players or other coaches are confronted with new uncomfortable approaches resistance will be their survival technique - be prepared to compromise

5. 10.000 HOURS
It takes 10,000 hours of practice to get to be world class

6. The 4 Corners
Learning is enabled best by developing the 4 corners - Technical, Physical, Psychological and Social

7. Drill Design
Design the coaching drills to enable player learning - maximise touches, how does the drill encourage expressionism and creativity

8. 3 for them 1 for you
Use the simple principle of 3 sessions for the players and use the 4th session to experiment and development your own approach