Coaching Concepts and Practice Design Principles

Freedom to play refers to an environment where players are free to make their own decisions no matter the spatial or temporal implications.

Freedom to play embodies the following playing principles:

• Maximizing player enjoyment through prioritizing game play
• Players controlling & owning their decision
• Focus on player progress
• Encouraging players to try new things and make mistakes as a foundation for progression & learning
• Limiting lengthy coach-led explicit feedback

Freedom to play is a player-centered approach with the player's enjoyment & progress of central importance. If we want to develop variable and adaptable problem solvers, we have to allow players to play their game & take chances, embrace risk, make mistakes & learn from it; this is freedom to play!

Freedom to play ensures players are more likely to be enjoying themselves. Knowing this, they are more likely to stay and be retained in the sport.

We must ensure our practices incorporate and allow for the perceptual system to fire to build a player's perceptual "attunement". Activity without opposition (isolated practice) does not truly represent the game and doesn't allow perception & action to be coupled together.

Our practices must be as realistic as possible (see Representative Design) by being variable and dynamic as possible (see Repetition without Repetition). With time, this educates a player's attention with them learning which sources of information to act upon and when to act.

McNeill, Fry,Wright, Tan, & Rossi, (2008) identified that many teachers / sport coaches do not generate higher level questions that unlock critical thinking. In fact, only 6.7% of questions were open-ended and generated divergent and critical thinking about the game.

As coaches, the questions we generate and ask to players & our team are so valuable to learning. As Mark O’Sullivan (2018) says in his blog footblogball.wordpress.com, “If you are stepping into the learning process, then you better know how to add value.”

Questions play a HUGE role in shaping this value.

Based on Barbara Woods' (1998) there are four types of coaching styles:

• Command Style - Direct instruction, coach dictates what needs to be done
• Q&A / Reciprocal Style - Athlete takes some responsibility for their own development - scaffolded along by the coach
• Problem Solving Style - Athletes solves problems set by the coach
• Guided Discovery - Athlete has freedom to explore various options

There is no absolutely "Best" way to coach your team. That said, the Q&A and Problem Solving styles allow you to expand a player's understanding about the game. We encourage you to think critically about the questions you use.

A player-centered approach involves the coach giving up control and allowing players to take responsibility for team decisions while skillfully scaffolding players and the team in the right direction.

There are a number of researched benefits to a player-centered approach (De Souza, Adriano & Oslin, Judy, 2008):

• Increased player engagement
• Increased communication
• Increased competence
• Increased motivation

De Souza, Adriano & Oslin, Judy. (2008). A Player-Centered Approach to Coaching. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance. 79. 1-60. 10.1080/07303084.2008.10598195.

Every coach's main concern should be to ensure players return home in the same way they came. Therefore, a Do-No-Harm coaching approach is paramount. Knowing that as coaches we have a duty of care for our players - we need to operate with a "Do-No-Harm" principle.

If in doubt, there is no doubt. Player safety is the most important coaching area. All coaching decisions needs to respect this principle. Before, during and after a session or game we must be aware to guarantee player safety.

As the IF-THEN statement alludes to above, if we coach our players to avoid difficult things and don't encourage risk, they likely won't find greatness. Risk and reward are intrinsically linked.

If we want to develop variable and adaptable problem solvers, we have to allow players to play their game & take chances, embrace risk, make mistakes & learn from it.

We should encourage our team to embrace variable, adaptable, cooperative and high-percentage problem solving to advance the ball down the field. It shouldn't be about minimizing risk and BOOTING THE BALL down the field every-time!

Below is a list of what we consider to be the "Coaching Best Practices" for any age group.

A Coach Facilitator

Coaches must think critically with their players as a central focal point; a player-centered focus. Towards this, the coach is a learning facilitator. A session's goal, it's practice design and higher level learning key-questions for players is paramount for a thoughtful and effective coach.

Anticipate & Begin with the End in Mind

Think about the goal of each session. What do you want the players to walk away with? How will activity be structured? What will be the anticipated key-errors? How will you address these? What questions will you pose to generate discussion and deep thought?

Questions Are Key!!!

FUN FACT!! Around 75% of all teacher / coach generated questions are low-order questions while being on the lower scale of Bloom’s taxonomy (McNeil et al., 2008).

A coach's questions should be open-ended without being answered with a simple "yes" or "no". Coaches using questions with WHERE, WHEN, WHY, HOW, and WHO unlock understanding of the game while assessing a player's learning and comprehension.

Timing is Everything - Maximize Participation!

Use structured activity for at least 50-55 minutes of an hour long practice. Coaches should minimize interventions while maximizing learning and play time. This speaks to the importance of a coach's interventions being both short and effective.

Game - Activity - Game or GAG methodology is a game & player centered approach to structuring your practices. It is used & recommended by FIFA, CSA and BC Soccer.

GAG methodology brings the game back as the central focus of the training session and keeps the player at the centre of their development. GAG Methodology consists of:

1. The Warm-Up - Gradual increase in intensity while focusing on Agility, Balance, Coordination & Speed (ABCs)
2. Game (Initial) - This is a modified game that can have the constraints such as multiple goals, target players, end zones or can be two games of 3v3. The role of the coach is to stimulate the players while observing and introducing the objective of the session.
3. Activity - This is a high volume activity that looks to really work on the session's theme. It must be game like and include opposition. The role of the coach is now to correct the players, using coaching points that relate to the objectives of the session.
4. Game (End) - The prior theme continues into the end game. The goal is to see if the players can transfer & implement what has been learned in the prior activity session. The role of the coach is to allow the players to play while ensuring that they adhere to the objectives of the session. Limited coaching should take place in the final game.

Representative design is ensuring that the game's events, patterns and perceptual information sources are present in our practices. If this is done, skills & behaviours are more likely to transfer from practice into the games which ultimately boosts performance. Representative elements include:

• Goals
• Size of field
• Number of players
• Intensity & tempo of play
• Field boundaries / lines & condition
• Direction of play
• Game rules (ie throw-ins, offside, etc )
• Patterns of play

Practice activity that is realistic and representative of the game itself are more likely to best-prepare players for the demands of competition.

Need video up on YouTube so I can embed it here.

Task simplification’s goal is to simplifying the practice environment while scaffolding the players towards perceptual attunement of the environment to enhance decision-making skills.

We can simplify a task in a number of ways:

• Add a team-mate or remove an opponent (numerical advantage)
• Make the playing area bigger / smaller
• Increasing or decreasing the size of a goal or number of goals
• Introduce a smaller or larger ball
• Introduce a rule or restriction

A coach must maintain as many game-like features & information sources in their environment to attune players to affordances or opportunities for action.

Small-sided conditioned games (SSCG) provide a number of benefits. SSCG provide players with:

• Higher player engagement
• More touches on the ball
• More tactical decision-making
• More visual exploratory behaviour (VEB)
• More FUN!