It’s now ten years since the FA unveiled their ‘England DNA’ vision at St George’s Park. The plan was to develop the next generation of England stars, who would be schooled in positive possession-based football, starting with the goalkeeper, be technically adept and psychologically resilient.
The First Hurdle
The first hurdle was coming up with an agreed methodology on how to coach the requisite skills in young footballers. The FA’s coaching consultation included input both domestically and overseas, with six European and three South American associations feeding back their take on elite player development. The final coaching blueprint featured a series of ‘core principles’ that every training session should be built upon. At the top of the list was the need to:
Deliver realistic game-related practices
Use games whenever possible in training
Develop practices that enables the players to make lots of decisions
But where do these ‘core principles’ come from and how do they translate into developing skilful players?
UEFA C Licence Technical Guide
It may be useful to tackle this in reverse order by setting out what being skilful in football actually means. According to the UEFA C Licence Technical Guide: “Skill involves solving game problems, using techniques in the right place at the right time to gain an advantage.” In other words, technique is the ability to execute certain mechanical actions, e.g. control a ball; while skill is the ability to apply these techniques in match conditions. The FA graphic below illustrates this, together with some examples of what it might look like in an actual coaching session:
We can see from this practice spectrum that the ‘core principles’ sit firmly to the right of the graph. In terms of the origin, research going back decades has shown that a key performance attribute that separates highly skilled footballers from their less gifted counterparts is the ability to anticipate and make effective decisions under pressure. This is commonly referred to as ‘game intelligence’. Therefore, it follows that practice should have the same underlying structure as competition – which brings us back to the right side of the practice spectrum. The shift to smaller formats of the game, 3 v 3, 4 v 4, as well as the growing influence of futsal, are undoubtedly all part of the same evolution
Given this body of evidence, it seems persuasive that the ‘core principles’ should trump any other coaching philosophy. So what does that mean for unopposed practices and those young players queuing up for another cone drill? As usual, the solution probably involves applying some common sense. So, when it comes to developing more skilful players, particularly younger ones, and you only have an hour or so a week with them, the emphasis should firmly be on the ‘core principles’.
Thank you - Diolch yn fawr
You can find the Steven Ventura here:
