“PASS THE BALL!”

“FALL BACK… HELP THE DEFENCE!!”

“STAY TIGHT!!!”

Sound familiar? There’s probably a LOT of us coaches (and parents) who are guilty of this during training and matches, but it’s never too late to change. Research indicates that the more people try to remember what they’ve been told, the more rigid their performance gets and the more likely they are to fail when put under pressure.

That’s why understanding how young footballers learn is a critical element of coaching success. Effective learning involves observing, listening, thinking, visualizing, discussing and experimenting. Good coaching requires us to get all of these ingredients together in the right proportion and correct sequence.

 

Continuously barking orders down the touchline and having a go at players in training or matches are instances when we are attempting to force learning rather than nudge and guide the process. It seldom works and, worse still, can result in developing players who rely on someone else to tell them what to do. The best coaches understand that they cannot make learning happen no matter how much they talk, demonstrate, correct and yell. Oftentimes in coaching, less is more with regards to learning. It’s not about being heard all the time. Rather, good coaching demands that the educator merely enables a student to arrive at a solution simply by asking the right questions at the right time – as the legendary Jose Mourinho would say, through a process of ‘guided discovery’.

John Allpress and Guy Claxton liken coaching to the process of making mayonnaise:

“Not many people can make mayonnaise these days. If you do, you will know there is one cardinal rule. You put the egg yolks and a bit of mustard in a bowl, and then you add one drop of oil, and beat it like hell. When that drop is worked in, you add another drop, and beat again. Only after you have added many drops one by one can you start to add the oil faster. If you don’t follow this rule, your mayonnaise curdles.”

Bloody brilliant, don’t you think? What a fabulous metaphor to describe the sometimes painfully slow process of coaching, especially at the grassroots level!

Children need time. And patience. And caring. Lots of it. We need to allow them to observe how it’s done, try out stuff, make mistakes and gradually master skills. An information overload or putting too much pressure is like throwing in a load of oil to the mayo mix before it’s ready. The result – a confused mind and curdled mayo. During matches, instead of playing intuitively, the kids will be trying to remember our instructions, forget what they already know and, of course, end up disappointing us coaches and parents.

Experienced and creative coaches know that learning is 90% about what’s happening in the player’s mind. We’re in charge of only the remaining 10%. The children are responsible for their successes and mistakes. For our part as coaches and parents, it is about creating the optimum conditions for our kids to learn and developing intelligent, technical footballers who can think for themselves.

Key point for us: The best coaches know when to say nothing.