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Top Down

Marcus Walfridson

What do you see when looking around on the internet or when you are at coaching seminars? Do you mostly see objective information about the game and how to improve your knowledge or is it mostly the flavor of the month, a quick fix to be a successful coach and books about drills? You probably recognize that in these environments it’s mostly the quick fix that is bated around for gullible coaches to bite and swallow. Drills and ”methods” that has worked well in someones environment and that is sold as universal even though it is per definition a subjective … Continue reading Top Down

Action TheoryLeave a comment

What is football?

Marcus Walfridson

In earlier posts we have put things that the football coach does into the context of which the coach operates. For example, we have discussed that the way you coach should be decided by the context, the sport you are coaching and only thereafter the external factors in your specific situation. In this post we will look at the overarching context for everything on this blog, namely the game of football. The purpose of this post is to give you an objective description of the game, a frame of reference for your coaching. First and foremost football is a game … Continue reading What is football?

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Personal Development

Marcus Walfridson

In todays post we will have a look at personal development, what it is in the context of football coaches and also give some practical tips you can use to improve and become a better coach. Personal development for football coaches usually means going to coaching courses, reading books and blogs, listening to podcasts, practicing your coaching on the pitch and maybe using a mentor to receive quality feedback. However, what could be a problem for many coaches is if they go to these courses and read books without a clear frame of reference for the what that is their … Continue reading Personal Development

Maintaining Good LeadershipLeave a comment

Maintaining Good Coaching

Marcus Walfridson

When you are coaching football you are interacting with your players and coaches within the context of football. Your players are executing football actions when they are on the pitch and as the coach, you are executing coaching actions. In order to improve as a coach you want to execute better coaching actions which means that you are increasing the quality of your coaching by disregarding your own personality and taking the game (situation) as a starting point while using the correct leadership style when coaching. In this post we will look at maintaining the quality of your coaching actions … Continue reading Maintaining Good Coaching

Better Leadership, Leadership Styles, Uncategorized4 Comments

Way of Coaching

Marcus Walfridson

In the sport of football it is the players who are continually executing their own decisions within the context of the game. This is different than from other sports, i.e. baseball were the coach makes the decision and the players go out on the field and execute the coach’s decision to the best of their abilities. The same can be said about American football since the play, the positioning of the players, is already decided by the coaches and the players try to execute this play. When comparing these sports we see that baseball and american football can be called … Continue reading Way of Coaching

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Coach Educators

Marcus Walfridson

In this post we will look at the role of the coach educator in the context of observing coaches on the pitch in training sessions. As a part of mentoring coaches and when consulting clubs there has been observation of sessions with direct feedback to coaches with a written report afterwards. These experiences and the comments from the coaches observed is the background for this post and it’s content. Think back to when you did your last coaching course and where on the pitch delivering a session. When you received feedback afterwards, how was that feedback delivered and what did … Continue reading Coach Educators

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National team observation

Marcus Walfridson

Today’s post is an analysis of real life football coaching taken from three different youth-national teams. After observing these teams train and play games against each other we will theorize what was observed and see if there is something for you as a coach to take away and learn from. This post will first look at the structure of the tournament before a short description of the training sessions for each of the observed national teams. Thereafter the leadership of the coaches, how they coached in the sessions is discussed before looking at the games to see what the transfer … Continue reading National team observation

Better Leadership, Uncategorized6 Comments

Coaching Actions

Marcus Walfridson

When you are coaching football you are interacting with your players and coaches within the context of football. Your players are executing football actions when they are on the pitch and as the coach, you are executing coaching actions. Imagine a beautiful day at your training facilities when you walk out onto the pitch to start training session. What is the first things that you do? You are looking around, taking in the information your surroundings are communicating to you. You notice how many players that are on the pitch, if the sun is shining or if it’s still cloudy, … Continue reading Coaching Actions

Better Leadership6 Comments

Better Coaching

Marcus Walfridson

In the post coaching football we took a philosophical look at what it is that the coach does in football. To summarize, coaching football is enabling players to execute better decisions (football actions) in the game of football. This is done by helping the players improve their football actions together with their team-mates in the context of attacking, transitioning and defending against an opponent. Thereafter, in the post How should you coach we saw what the starting point for all coaches should be. The next question for coaches who want to improve is what better coaching means, so let’s have … Continue reading Better Coaching

Leadership Styles6 Comments

The Manager

Marcus Walfridson

When you are coaching football you are in essence executing (inter)actions with your players and staff in the context of the football game. These coaching actions can be executed in a lot of different ways which is what is called leading, the way you coach. We have earlier described in general, three different leadership styles that you as a coach use when leading; the commander who tells players what to do, the teacher who guides the players and the manager who takes a step back and let the players guide the process. Now, let’s zoom in on the remaining leadership … Continue reading The Manager