Monday 8^th October

Brazilian Soccer Schools

Year 5/6

Session 5

Having reflected upon last weeks session and highlighting factors such as individualism within the group, I have decided to devise a warm up drill that is very co-operative and very much so a group task. The effectiveness of group tasks relate to intergroup dynamics. Alderfer (1983) suggests that three dynamic affecting this are cognition, leadership and behavior. I provide leadership but I must gain the behavior and cognition form the players; two areas I feel are important to work on and get right. Cognition is a very broad term and important in skill acquisition, it denotes both conscious and unconscious thought processes (Nutten et al 1981). Prior to the warm up I decided to indicate to the whole group that I will not succumb to individualism amongst the group; it can be defined, as stated by Moberg and Piedmont (2003), as any behavior which deviates away from social norms, however in contrast Gannon (2001) states individualism as an extent to which a person will take without considering or being influenced by group norms. This gives two lights to individualism, the first suggests that the individuals are purposely disruptive because they do not want to cooperate and the second suggests they are individuals as they are not influenced by group behavior. Individualists find it hard to perform group tasks, therefore we do not want this to happen within our collective (Earley 1993). I feel it is essential for young players to socialize as a team rather than becoming individualist and as a coach I am dedicated to do so with each and every one of the players in my group, this coincides with Sabock’s (1973) research into qualities of a coach. The warm up I have devised involves several cones surrounding a central cone; each player has a cone of their own and begins on the cone until my instruction. The players will perform a variety of dynamic movements and stretches during the warm up, as they continue to move around the drill in the same manner. Little and Williams (2006) found that static stretching does not appear detrimental to high speed performance, however dynamic stretching was found to be the most effective for soccer players as preparation. The direction in which the players will move around the circle is as follows in the diagram below.

The players really enjoyed this active warm up and I feel that it allows the players to concentrate on the task without the need for disruptive conversations amongst themselves. Active warm ups are also more beneficial in helping to improve muscular power (Racinais, Blonc, Hue 2005). I found this warm up allowed me to give the players clear instruction and communicate with each other to perform the task well. “Teams that are characterise with high levels of communication also have high levels of performance effectiveness.” (Hardy, Burke and Crace 2005). I had each player shouting “in” when they were moving in towards the middle and “out” when they were moving to the outside. They really enjoyed the vocal aspect of this and it helped them to focus on the task in a co-operative manner; as intended.

I began the core work statically with each player posted on their cone. I wanted to do this at the beginning of the core work to gain the intensity from the players that I wished. In this format it allowed me to gain a visual on each player and monitor their work rates. If I felt a player was dropping to a comfortable intensity then I just called their name to get an increase. Many studies show that young athletes participate for many reason’s, skill development and fun are just two of them (Frederick, Ryan 1993). Taking note of this it seems obvious that these are two areas I must cover in my sessions to keep players motivated. Vallerand (1983) stated that by providing positive verbal feedback, players gain a higher sense of competence and also intrinsic motivation; this is another way I feel I can increase motivation and that leads to work rate. According to Fitts and Posner (1967) the acquisition of psychomotor skills occurs in 3 stages, cognitive, associative and autonomous; if we can get players to work at a harder rate than maybe they can cope with then eventually they will adapt to this intensity and become more proficient from it.; I feel the more you practice or increase work rate then more likely it will become that the players will progress through the stages of learning. However there are many theories on skill one of which proposed by Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1980) they suggest that we go through five developmental stages instead of 3. Which ever theory is correct we do not know, but what we can begin to understand as coaches that there is a definite progression. I feel in order to gain the best from my players I need to use all the information on skill acquisition I can as it is all relevant; by doing this we are able understand how skill can be acquired and develop drills that coincide with research.

Today’s main session objective was to begin combating the individualism that has protruded in previous sessions, and in terms of this I feel the session went well. I created drills that required the players to work as a team in order for the drills to work effectively. I feel by continuing to devise drills like this it helps to actively promote team work and unity. Carron et al (2002) established a link between task cohesiveness and team success; they found that the more cohesive a group then the more likely they will be to succeed.

Alderfer,C. P (1983). An Intergroup Perspective on Group Dynamics. Yale Univ New Haven Ct School of Organization And Management. [online] [Accessed 30^th Dec 2007, 15:10hrs]

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA135582

Carron, A.V, Bray, S.R, Eys, M.A (2002). Team Cohesion and Team Success in Sport. Journal of Sports Sciences, Volume 20, Issue 2, pages 119 – 126. [online] [Accessed 30^th Dec 2007, 15:55hrs] http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713776579~db=all

Dreyfus, S.E, Dreyfus, H.L (1980). A Five-Stage Model of the Mental Activities Involved in Directed Skill Acquisition. California Univ Berkeley Operations Research Center. [online] [Accessed 30^th Dec 2007, 15:25hrs]

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA084551

Earley, P.C (1993). East Meets West Meets Mideast: Further Explorations of Collectivistic and Individualistic Work Groups. The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 36, No. 2, (pp. 319-348) [online] [Accessed 30^th Dec 2007, 16:05hrs]

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0001-4273(199304)36%3A2%3C319%3AEMWMMF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

Fitts, P.M, Posner, M.I (1967). Human Performance. Brooks/Cole

Frederick, C.M, Ryan, R,M (1993). Differences in Motivation for Sport and Exercise and Their Relations with Participation and Mental Health. Journal of Sport Behavior, Vol. 16 [online] [Accessed 30^th Dec 2007, 16:40hrs] http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5002195225

Gannon, M.J (2001) Working Across Cultures: Applications and Exercise. Sage

Hardy, Burke and Crace (2005) cited in: Murphy, S.M (2005). The Sport Psych Handbook. Human Kinetics

Little, T, Williams, A.G (2006). Effects of differential stretching protocols during warm-ups on high speed motor capacities in professional soccer players. Journal of strength and conditioning research, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 203-7 [online] [Accessed 30^th Dec 2007, 15:35hrs]

http://e-space.openrepository.com/e-space/handle/2173/3519

Moberg, D.O, Piedmont, R.L (2001). Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion. BRILL

Nuttin, J, Ydewalle, G, Lens, W, Atkinson, J.W (1981). Cognition in Human Motivation and Learning. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Racinais, S, Blonc, S, Hue, O (2005). Effects of Active Warm-up and Diurnal Increase in Temperature on Muscular Power. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 37(12):2134-2139 [online] [Accessed 30^th Dec 2007, 15:15hrs]

http://www.acsm-msse.org/pt/re/msse/abstract.00005768-200512000-00018.htm;jsessionid=H35dylLXTScd9H2V1qnrhL25sHhV7TGSGMhLGQf6B53JJg7CjJr5!901085598!181195628!8091!-1

Sabock, R.J (1973) The Coach. Saunders

Vallerand, R.J (1983). The Effect of Differential Amounts of Positive Verbal Feedback on the Intrinsic Motivation of Male Hockey Players. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Vol 5, Iss. 1 [online] [Accessed 30^th Dec 2007, 16:45hrs] https://www.humankinetics.com/JSEP/viewarticle.cfm?aid=8171

Monday 1st October

Brazilian Soccer Schools

Year 5/ Year 6

Session 4

In this weeks session there were two factors I really wanted to focus on, mainly the paired work but also the juggling work. We are progressing at a good rate with our juggling, however the players can still work hard at home and spend around an hour a day practising. Murphy (1995) refers to the coach as being “responsible for developing players’ sport specific skills”; and also states that a coach must sufficiently motive their players, it requires a maximal effort in order gain the most from training. If we get this work rate from our players I feel we will eventually be able to receive the ball from any angle, at any height and with any part of the foot and bring it under control. When performing the juggling task I ensured that the player had their knees slightly bent and on there toes in order to receive the ball with each touch under control (Davids 2002). The way we coach at BSS is very skill based, therefore as a coach I try my best to understand how skill is acquired in young people. After reading research by Sun et al (2001) I found that adopting a bottom-up approach toward skill work with younger children is best as there sessions generally involve a low skill level to begin with which involves more procedural knowledge. There are however more traditional views of skill acquisition suggesting that there are three stages of learning. This was suggested by Fitts (1964) when he defined the three stages as the cognitive, the associative and the autonomous. Cognitive being the novice through to the autonomous being the expert. I want to create a learning environment within our sessions that stimulates players to progress through the stages of learning by utilising our core drills and drill progressions. An autonomous performer performs skills with little or no conscious thought or attention (Fitts and Posner 1967). I want my players to reach this level of skilfulness, however not every person will reach this level of performance. But as a coach, I can only help direct my players, a lot comes down to the players themselves and I feel a little is down to genetics, such as speed or height, but I feel players that work hard on developing skill can do so. I feel we can achieve this if I can help to instil a strong locus of causality within the players in my group. By doing this they will become intrinsically motivated to work hard at our drills away from our sessions (Deci, Ryan 1985). McClelland (1951) proposed that “there are at least two kinds of achievement motivation, one which appears to be orientated around avoiding failure and the other around the more positive goal of attaining success” (p.206) I want to steer my players towards the direction of attaining success rather than avoiding failure. If we have this strive for success amongst our group it can only stimulate players.

After performing various juggling combinations, we then moved onto the paired work spending 20 minutes on varied activities. I broke this section down to three sub-sections spending 10 minutes on paired juggling and 10 minutes passing. I stressed to the players that in this section it needs co-operation with one another. Surridge and Murphy (1999) stated that in order to share materials in drills players must be co-operative in order to learn. I have had trouble in the past with players passing the ball either too hard or poorly to one another. Players then argue between each other. I want this to become eradicated so I will continue to do paired work and stress the fact we must be co-operative. In order to achieve goals we must cooperate with one another to further our learning. In order to get the best out of cooperative learning we must overcome individualism (Johnson 1994). Goodger (1986) suggests that sport groups can be weakened by individualism and although our training is very so much individual skill based, at times we are required to work in pairs or small groups to achieve a group goal. Therefore individualism cannot be accepted when we are doing group work. This is an issue within our group as there are certain characters that divert attention away from the group and upon themselves. I need to do my best to work on this and encourage a team based environment. This was particularly present in this week’s session therefore an underlying objective in next weeks session will be to encourage team work and team cohesion.

Bibliography

Davids, K. (2002). Interceptive Actions in Sport: Information and Sport. Routledge

Deci, E.L. Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self determination in human behaviour. Taylor and Francis

Fitts (1964) Cited in: Zimmerman, B.J (1997) Phases in Self-Regulation: Shifting from Process Goals to Outcome Goals. Anastasia Kitsantas; Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 89 [online] [Accessed 17th Dec 2007, 20:55] http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=HnjfbzKh4JHfpkNFpysyVspyhTRQMn8CnyLwvk5D7m0W2dz5Gb71!1145343898?docId=96447858

Fitts, P.M, Posner, M.I (1967). Human Performance. Brooks/Cole Pub.Co

Goodger, J (1986). Ritual Solidarity and Sport. Acta Sociologica, Vol. 29, No. 3, 219-224 [online] [Accessed 16^th Dec 2007, 20:53hrs] http://asj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/29/3/219

Johnson, D.W (1994). The New Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom and School. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1250 N. Pitt Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. [online] [Accessed 16^th Dec 2007, 20:15hrs] http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED369146&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED369146

McClelland, D.C (1951). Measuring Motivation in Phantasy: The achievement motive. In H Guetzkow (Ed.) Groups, Leadership and men, pp. 191-205. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press. Cited in: Elliot, A.J, Harackiewicz, J.M (1996). Approach and Avoidance Achievement Goals and Intrinsic Motivation: A Mediational Analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 70, No. 3, 461-475 [online] [Accessed 16^th Dec 2007, 20:15hrs] http://www.psych.rochester.edu/research/apav/publications/documents/1996_ElliotHarackiewicz_ApproachandAvoidanceAchievementGoalsandIntrinsicMotivation.pdf

Murphy, S.M. (1995). Sport Psychology Interventions. Human Kinetics

Sun, R, Merrill, E, Peterson, T (2001). From implicit skills to explicit knowledge: a bottom-up model of skill learning. Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2, Pages 203-244 [online] [Accessed 16^th Dec 2007, 16:45hrs]

http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15516709cog2502_2

Surridge, G, Murphy, B. (1999). Sport Readiness. Good Year Books

Monday 24^th September

Brazilian Soccer Schools

Year 5/ Year 6

Session 3

I began this week’s session with a longer talk at the start than usual, there were particular little issues that I wanted to control in order to gain a higher intensity form the players. Lippitt (1999) suggests that leadership helps maintain control and focus. I felt it was essential to establish leadership from the start thus the reason for my talk highlighting issues, giving direction and also maintaining attention of the players to emphasise my authority from the beginning. After reading publications by Lyle, I have also predominantly tried to utilise a humanistic style of coaching which is defined by Lyle as

“…. a person centred philosophy or ideology which emphasis the empowerment of the individual towards achieving personal goals within a facilitative interpersonal relationship.” (Lyle, 2002)

Tham, Werner (2005) suggests it is important as an educator to build a rapport with students. I will adopt this ideology and utilise it as a coach and player relationship. I agree building a rapport is important as it allows the coach to speak on a personal level as well as a professional level to the players. A coach-player rapport also helps reduce resistance in terms of behavioural issues (Murphy, Valdez 2005). I will begin to implement these factors prior mentioned into my sessions as the week’s progress and hopefully gain a good response from the players.

I was pleased with the overall work ethic with players this week, specifically in the core work and the juggling. These are two areas that we must continue to progress with in order to improve our individual skills. VanLehn (1996) suggests that the initial stages of skill acquisition involve collecting and interacting pieces of knowledge, whilst the final stages with practise help increase speed and accuracy. In addition to this Wade (1997) states that skill involves judgement, and as a coach we must help players to make the correct selection from a number of action options. Therefore I must implement drills that will help bring the correct decision from inside of the players. I feel we are making great progress with our juggling however if players work harder at home we will be able to improve beyond limits. Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1980) portray five stages of development in acquiring skill novice, competence, proficiency, expertise and mastery in order to progress through these stages Capana et al (2005) suggest that practising a skill over and over will allow the intensity of the skill to be increased as the duration of the skill being performed will become shorter, allowing players to repeat more moves in a shorter amount of time. In BSS we stress to our players that repetition is the key to becoming more skilful. We have a player in our soccer schools that is a testament to this methodology, he recently achieved 4785 juggles with the ball taking him over an hour to complete, being only 9 I think this is incredible.

After my 1 v 1 drill going wrong last week, I decided to make it as simple and basic as possible in order to reach the coaching objectives I intended to. I had two players, a defender and an attacker, the defender players the ball into the attacker and then close’s the attacker down. The attacker bursts into the ball with speed and takes the ball on the move and then it becomes a 1 v 1 situation. By setting this drill up it removed the need for me to coach the pass. Bonaccarso (2001) suggests 1 v 1’s are a “real game” situation as you often come up against a man that you may have to beat or defend against; Vickers (2007) studied perception, cognition and decision training and suggested that 1 v 1 situations in soccer are important especially in set pieces, this is a key area for us to work on. I feel the players are moving in the right direction in this area and I feel it will help our players to flourish with their individual skills and use them under pressure. When we become proficient in 1 v 1 then we can move onto 2 v 2, 3 v 3 and so on.

Bonaccarso, S. (2001) Coaching Soccer 10 to 15 Year Olds: Planning Technical and Tactical Training. Reedswain Inc

Capanna, R, Oneto, M, Ferrera, G. (2004). Total Soccer Coaching: Combining Physical, Technical and Tactical Training. Reedswain Inc

Dreyfus, S.E, Dreyfus, H.L (1980). A Five-Stage Model of the Mental Activities Involved in Directed Skill Acquisition. No Obvious Publisher [online] [Accessed 12^th Dec 2007, 19:15hrs]

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA084551

Lippitt, M. (1999). Lessons in leadership. Training & Development, 53 (3),18-42

Lyle, J (2002). Sports Coaching Concepts: A Framework for Coaches' Behaviour. UK: Routledge.

Murphy, M, Valdez C (2005). Ravaging Resistance: A Model for Building Rapport in a Collaborative Learning Classroom. Radical Pedegogy [online] [Accessed 11^th Dec 2007, 16:45hrs]

http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue7_1/murphy-valdez.html

Tham, C.M, Werner, J.M (2005). Designing and Evaluating E-Learning in Higher Education: A Review and Recommendations. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies; vol. 11: pp. 15 - 25. [online] [Accessed 11^th Dec 2007, 16:45hrs]

http://jlo.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/2/15

VanLehn, K (1996). Cognitive Skill Acquisition. Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 47: 513-539 [online] [Accessed 13^th Dec 2007, 14:15hrs]

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.47.1.513

Vickers, J.N (2007). Perception, Cognition and Decision Training: The Quiet Eye Action. Human Kinetics.

Wade, A. (1997). Principles of Effective Coaching. Reedswain Inc

Monday 10^th September

Brazilian Soccer Schools

Year 5/ Year 6

Session 2

The object of this session was to concentrate on another “move to beat players” move using core moves to build up to the full move. I planned this move to be enjoyable to learn as research from Bengoechea et al (2004) found that the acquisition of skill is made easier for young people when they find it fun and enjoyable to learn. The move was the “roll over Emerson chop” a move that Christiano Ronaldo uses very frequently. The ball is rolled across the front of the body using the sole of the weak foot and then chopped across the body behind the standing leg with the inside of the stronger foot. The “Emerson chop” is used frequently in our sessions and the majority of players can perform it. However the combination I want them to work towards is slightly more complex but much more effective in beating your man.

I began the session with an introduction talking to the players about how I felt the previous session went and areas a feel we could improve upon from the last session. Reflection on prior coaching sessions at the beginning of a session is essential in order to progress. It allows the coach to highlight issues they were happy and also unhappy with, plus gain a good level of communication from the start (Hargreaves 1990). I felt the best way I can do this is through adopting a humanistic style of coaching throughout my sessions (Lyle 2002), Hemery (1988) also suggests this person centered method of coaching is a good way of building coach-athlete relationships. I also gave the players an insight to areas we would be covering and used the game play, which is generally their favourite, as a reward for hard work. The harder they work the longer they receive in game play. I feel by using this method during the session I can gain a slight increase in intensity just by saying “I feel we can work harder here, remember the harder we work the more time we get in game play.” Stratton (2004) states that by having an incentive to work hard it increases work rate and maintains good behaviour. In addition to this Mageau and Vallerand (2003) suggest that a coach’s behaviour can nurture athletes and develop players both intrinsic motivation and self determined extrinsic motivation. An aim of mine coaching this group is to develop intrinsic motivation amongst the players as it is an important mental factor in working hard away from our sessions which is fundamental to our work at BSS.

I wanted to create a 1 v 1 drill that focussed on the run of the forward player in which they would ark their run; Bloomfield et al (2007) observed that strikers endure a lot of swerving runs throughout a match which supports Komelink’s (2000) findings. He stated that it is the best practice for a forward player to arch his run when closing down defenders; I designed a drill that I felt was adequate, however when it came down to organising and performing the drill it became difficult. I think I under estimated the difficulty of the drill and instead of coaching the run of the forward I ended up coaching the pass at each section of the drill. This drill was enjoyed by the players however I didn’t reach the objectives I wanted to through it. I feel by doing some similar passing drills we will be able to re-visit the 1v1 drill and gain great benefits from it. I wanted to create a situation that allowed us to pass the ball to a new player each time and move out of space into a new space, as Daniel (2004) stated this is the most effective way of penetration of a defence; in addition to this Holt et al (2006) found that tactical development was directly transferred from small sided drills into full game play, this being another reason for the 1v1 drills.

Bibliography

Bengoechea, E.G, Strean, W.B, Williams, D.J (2004). Understanding and promoting fun in youth sport: coaches' perspectives. Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, Volume 9, Issue 2, pages 197 – 214 [online] [Accessed 11^th Dec 2007, 16:50hrs] http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713997385?words=part%7cwhole%7cskill&hash=1176422433

Bloomfield, J, Polman, R, O’Donoghue, P (2007). Physical demands of different positions in FA Premier League soccer. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 6, 63 - 70 [online] [Accessed 11^th Dec 2007, 15:45hrs]

http://jssm.org/vol6/n1/8/v6n1-8pdf.pdf

Daniel, J (2004). The complete Guide to Coaching Soccer Systems and Tactics, Reedswain Inc

Hargreaves, A (1990). Skills and Strategies for Coaching Soccer. Human Kinetics

Hemery, D (1988) The Pursuit of Sporting Excellence: A Study of Sport's Highest Achievers. Human Kinetics

Holt, J, Ward, P, Wallhead, T (2006). The transfer of learning from play practices to game play in young adult soccer players. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, Volume 11, Number 2, pp. 101-118(18) [online] [Accessed 11^th Dec 2007, 16:45hrs] http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cpes/2006/00000011/00000002/art00001

Kormelink H (2000). Dutch Soccer Drills: 180 Practice Drills for Developing Creative, Attacking Soccer. Reedswain Inc

Lyle, J (2002). Sports Coaching Concepts: A Framework Coaches’ Behaviour. Routledge

Mageau, G, Vallerand, R (2003). The coach-athlete relationship: a motivational model. Journal of Sports Sciences, Volume 21, Number 11, pp. 883-904(22) [online] [Accessed 11^th Dec 2007, 18:25hrs] http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/rjsp/2003/00000021/00000011/art00002

Stratton, G (2004). Youth Soccer: From Science to Performance. Routledge

Monday 3^rd September

Brazilian Soccer Schools

Year 5/ Year 6

Session 1

The National Soccer Coaches of America (2004) state that Leadership is fundamental to the success of any team and is vital in helping the coach create a positive training environment. They also state that leadership can emerge in many ways and creating a desired culture within the team is vital. I have taken this advice onboard and want to start doing this straight away. Smith and Cushion (2006) studied behaviours of youth team coaches and found that praise and encouragement were effective methods of motivating players, I agree and as I am new coaching this group I will adopt these thoughts in order to keep players motivated. As today was the first time I had taken full control of this group I adopted a fairly autocratic coaching style (Weinberg 2003). This was in order to maintain control of the group and take over the current culture that was set by my head coach. By adopting the autocratic coaching style I feel I will able to eradicate problems early on and then as I begin to create my own culture with the group I will be able to switch my style to a democratic coaching style. The previous coach had a democratic culture that worked well as each player pushed themselves hard and felt if they weren’t working hard enough they were letting themselves, the group and also the coach down. I would like to eventually create a culture in which players do not need to be told to work hard, nor should I have to discipline. I want the players to bring this upon themselves in such a manner that they are self disciplined enough to do the right thing as stated by John Wooden (2003). I was pleased with the way that the players responded to my session today, it must be hard for players as well as the coach to adjust to each other after only one session. The main objective of tonight’s session was to take the “Rivelino elastic” and strip it down to simplify the movement pattern. We then took the move and put all of the parts together to perform the move in one movement. The “Rivelino elastic” is the skill that Ronaldinho uses on a frequent basis. You basically push the ball to the outside of the body with the little toe and bring it back across the body with the inside of the foot. It is quite a complex move to grasp, but a move I will spend a lot of time on developing with this group as I would like it to become a natural part of the player’s game.

We began the session with an active warm up (Bishop 2003) which involved static stretching as a means of flexibility training (Bandy, Irion 1994) and also dynamic stretches that are sport specific to the movements we will endure during the session, it is more beneficial due to the dynamic nature of football (LaRoche, Connolly 2006). We then moved onto 5 minutes warming up with the ball using various surfaces of the foot. The aim of this section is 5 minutes intense core work with little rest as a warm up. I felt I gained the right level of intensity from the players during this section and I felt they grasped this task and took on board the points I wanted them to concentrate on. One point I wanted to focus on was for the players to make their legs nice and wide on the sole to sole; I was not happy with the sole to sole they did at first so stopped them and gained their attention before showing them exactly how I wanted it to be performed. Some players seemed to struggle with the “kaka pivot” at first, by the end of that exercise they started to grasp it, however it is a core move I feel this group still need to work on.

I then introduced the “Rivelino elastic” with the sole. This is the smaller and easier movement pattern of the “full elastic. We then worked on this for 5 minutes at a high intensity and good work ethic. I felt I could have organised this slightly better as I wanted the players performing the move statically whilst still working hard. When planning this I don’t think I concentrated enough on this and I never thought about the fact the players would be moving around. I then addressed this during the session by placing the players side by side on a marked white line and I had them jumping up and down and performing the move on my signal which was a clap. I felt by having the players bouncing up on their toes, one foot at a time, it would prepare them to perform the move without being flat footed and then this would allow them to progress to performing the elastic on the move. The skill based movement patterns in FDS help improve body mechanics, which in turn better body mechanics are seen to reduce the likelihood of soccer related injuries. (Watson 1995)

They all grasped the elastic with the sole however I wanted to introduce the “full elastic” with the toes so when I felt each individual had a competent demonstration of the elastic with the sole we, as a group, could move onto the “full elastic.”

I then gave a demonstration of the “full elastic” and then asked the players to work on the move focussing on getting it right and then repetition. Vennell and Gooding (2004) state that a good demonstrations help players to understand a specific move or drill. We spent around 5 minutes performing the move then stopping it with the sole, and then performing the move over and over again. I also set this as homework to work on over the coming weeks so that we can really get to terms with it and start bringing the elastic out frequently in FDS game play. I was pleasantly surprised by the group as most players grasped this by the end of the section. However it still wasn’t perfect and is a move I really want the group to progress with. I feel it is an important in football and is such an effective move. The players enjoyed learning this move and were actively involved by asking questions in order to perfect the elastic. Caruso (1997) states that by asking questions in coaching sessions you are actively encouraging players to think of reasons for doing certain tasks, it allows them to understand reasoning behind drills. This is a move I have practised over and over recently myself and therefore I know the struggles that are involved with it. I broke it down and demonstrated how I first learned it and they seemed to respond to that way of teaching. Breaking down skills allows young players to see the individual parts that make up the whole skill; this helps them to learn the whole skill with time and practice (Rees, Van der Meer 2003). Williams, Hodges (2005) recommend players practice and improve their technical skills; they also suggest that in soccer acquisition of skills is fundamental and helps gather expertise. I had the players bouncing on their toes before performing the move on my clap in order to see everyone performing the elastic at the same time; it also means each player is working as hard as each other and gaining the same amount of touches on the ball.

We took the “elastic” and progressed into a more realistic situation by setting up a drill which mimics a standing defender. Once a specific drill is utilised fully and everyone in the group is comfortable, a progression of this drill can be demonstrated in order to further develop skills (Stoop 2004). I split the group into sub groups of 3 each with their own pole to run at. I wanted to focus on the timing of the move; timing is an important factor of skill acquisition, it comes from processing information within sport (Hanford et al 1997). I reiterated and involved the players by inviting questions and asking them when they felt the move should be performed. I wanted the player receiving the ball to receive it with their sole and burst in towards the pole as I feel the sole of the foot isn’t used as effectively as it should be by English players. I wanted to concentrate on 3 moves in this section as I feel it would give me a better opportunity to put my point across by limiting their choice of move; one move being the “elastic”. I was able to easily communicate and give demonstrations of these 3 moves specifying on the timing of the move. Demonstrations are a highly effective and inspirational process, but only if the players know what they are looking for. (Wade 1997). Annett (1994) in comparison suggests that a demonstration with correct verbal labelling is essential for skill acquisition. I pointed out key factors to look for when I was demonstrating and then asked questions afterwards. I felt this was an effective way of doing this as they all grasped the timing and done this task well with great enthusiasm and intensity.

We then moved from using the poles as defenders to a 1 v 1 situation. I didn’t want to make too many rules in this section; I wanted the players working hard and competitively in a good spirit, which they responded to well. Hastie, Sharpe (1999) suggest that sport helps to develop social qualities, this is the culture I wish to create in my sessions, however as Ruiz (2003) states that if training exercises lack a competitive edge then player will simply go through the motions; it is important that players understand the importance of both. I wanted the players to bring out their own style of play and really express themselves as an attacker; by doing this with the attacker it allowed me to concentrate on defensive duties with the defender. I expressed 3 coaching points that I wanted them to concentrate on and involved them with questions about why we do things as a defender. They took the points on board and I was impressed by their discipline as I said no sliding tackles and not one person did. Ellinger et al (2003) suggests in business that a management coaches behaviour influences an employees performance; relating this to sport and my sessions in particular, it relates to what Binzinski (2003) believes, he states that without disciplined players you cannot make much progress; every coach will have to discipline their players in order to gain a good response to drills. Therefore as a coach I need to instil this discipline into my players to gain a good response from my drills. I felt this was my best organised section and the players seemed to respond well and like this section of the session. They worked hard whilst having a good spirit and sense of competitiveness. The players were bringing out a lot of aspects that we focussed on during the session and I was pleased to see them doing this as it showed to me they took on board the points we coached during the session.

The 1 v 1 set us in good stead to play FDS. The FDS game play in tonight’s session was excellent I was really pleased with how the players responded to me as a coach and also the drills I set up. I feel they took the session’s good spirit into the game play and expressed themselves. The movement of the players was great and the players used the ball well as individuals and also in a team effort.

I felt tonight’s session was appropriate to the players needs and they worked with a good work ethic. I want to create a culture in which players’ follow this ethic at all times, we can do this through sport education. Siedentop (1998) suggests that sport education is best achieved through a combination of various approaches, such as small group work or peer teaching rather than more drill orientated teaching. With a few adjustments in the session I feel we were able to meet the session objectives. When I felt things weren’t going right I addressed the issues and changed things slightly in order to get things right. I felt the session was organised well however, I did deviate away from my original plan during the session as I felt there were things I could change to make a more effective communication. The players are beginning to show a good attitude and I feel as the week’s progress the players are beginning to respect me more. There are still certain little things I need to address, such as players saying, “can we not do this instead”, I have been doing so by just repeating “do as I ask please”. The players will hopefully take this on board and in future they will just “do as I ask”. The players worked hard in this session; however I did find it hard to gain the intensity I wanted when teaching the elastic. I adjusted my original plans and was able to do gain a higher intensity by having them bouncing up on their toes, one foot at a time. I was impressed by the elastics achieved by the end of the session. I felt my communication with the players was good and they responded in a good way, but I still need to work hard on areas of my communication, there are 3 types of communication as stated by Hargreaves (1990), physical, verbal and visual. Visual and verbal are possibly the two most important in BSS coaching as it involves a lot of demonstrations for specific skills, Horn et al (2007) suggest that demonstrations allow the learner to pertain the movement solution at a quicker rate from the visual communication. I feel as each session progresses it is becoming easier to communicate in the various ways.

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Introduction to my group and Brazilian Soccer Schools

Coach: Chris Brown
Brazilian Soccer Schools
Under 10/11s

This group is a male group with a mixed age of under 10s and 11s. They are generally fit for their age as a lot of the work we do is high tempo, and places strain on the anaerobic and also aerobic system. The players are working very hard in this group; they do 6 hours a week coached sessions but also go home and are working around 10 hours with the ball at home. Each player is disciplined so that they want to work hard with an FDS ball at home away from coached sessions. This can only be a good thing for the development of there all round skills.
The group contain many transferable skills that are developed within our sessions. Agility, Balance and Co-ordination being the main ones. The sessions we deliver are highly skill based with often complex movement patterns being trained. The footwork that the players develop can only benefit in other sports as they have quick foot movements.
There are many players in professional academies within this group giving them a good level of experience for their age however these players aren’t often the best players in our group. The best players in our groups are the ones that train up to 6 hours with coaches and then work very hard at home, what they lack in experience in the full sized game they gain in individual skills and ability to use the ball well on the floor with various surfaces of the body. We generally coach skills and use the game of FDS in order to bring these out in a gaming environment. Players benefit from this rather than player too many matches without first developing the skills needed to play matches. It is a pitfall in the English game.
The group are in the early stages of BSS and their personal development however in comparison to non BSS players I feel they far advance their age.
Our sessions don’t revolve around the football season we continue to develop skills and work hard week by week, month by month, year by year. This does not coincide with stereotypical teams and clubs, however, we are continuing to make good progress and it surely works for our players. The group is not a team and therefore why must we concentrate on season and off season practices. The aims of the group long term are to all progress into professional football, and as much as this seems unlikely our players will continue to work hard with us outside of their academies also. Short term goals are to continue working on various aspects of the game increasing on our scores such as juggling etc, each week. Medium term goals are to progress towards working on strength and conditioning work so by the end of the season each player will be gradually moved onto strength work and also anaerobic and aerobic endurance work.
The groups train with me Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The time they spend away from our coached sessions they will work on our core work, juggling, moves to beat players and various other areas we cover, in order to help reach their potential.

A lot of the work we do at Brazilian Soccer Schools is skill based. It focuses on a variety of technical skills that develop agility, balance, co-ordination and also speed with the ball. The ball we use is an essential tool in the development of our younger players. The ball is a futebol de Salao (pronounced salon) or FDS ball for short. It is a size 2 ball which is heavier than a stereotypical football and only has a 10% rebound. This encourages young players to play with the ball on the floor and allows more touches per player as the ball isn’t bouncing uncontrollably around the playing area. Futebol de Salao originates in Brazil, in my opinion the most successful and exciting nation in football. It is the game that the likes of Pele, Carlos Alberto, Jarzinho and many other Brazilian superstars, more recently Juninho, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, used as the foundation of their technical development. Ronaldo is very fond of FDS and fully supports it as the foundation of his success in the full sized 11 a side game: “Futebol de Salão is how I really got started. This is my love, the thing that I enjoy most.” (ICFDS.com) Our players at Brazilian Soccer Schools play this game as much as possible in our coaching sessions. It is a fast game and is good to watch with distinct movement and tempo. A recent graduate of Brazilian Soccer Schools is Micah Richards the Manchester City boy prodigy. Micah has already made steady progress in the England first team and is a product of the sort of player that can be produced using our coaching methods. There are many players now up and coming that have trained with Brazilian Soccer Schools and hopefully we can be the revolution of the future.