Youth football coaching might just be the world’s best and also one of the most challenging jobs. But it almost always gives more than it takes. As a coach, you are part of a team that seeks the best possible performance. We often talk about players giving their best, but one can also talk about the pursuit of the best performance as a football coach. When players and coaches strive together to achieve their ultimate goal, playing and training is very meaningful and motivating.
Football coaching requires a lot of work and time. Workouts need to be planned and prepared, then comes the training and after training it’s time to rethink what went well and what the team could do better. Experience tells us that a normal 90-minute football training requires another 90 minutes of work outside the scheduled training. If a team trains four times a week and you count together all the additional work, you’ll easily spend 15-20 hours as a football coach per week. And that does not include attending a weekend tournament!
It’s important for a coach to also pursue their own best performance. Every committed football coach wants to improve their own skills, evolve in different parts of the coaching process, help players to learn more and efficiently and be at the forefront of development.
Pressure football coaches face during training and games
Very often a football coach is curious about what actually happened in a training session or game. Your own eye or colleague’s comments are often form the basis for analysis. The difficulty is that the coach cannot simultaneously gather information about all the players in the team. Attention can only be spared to some of the events. Sometimes something essential is overlooked, which is completely human.
The evolution of football tracking technology gives the coach many tools to collect training and game data. It is essential to find a suitable analytical tool for the player’s development phase. When players learn new skills, it is essential to also learn about the development of players’ technical capabilities.
Pushing yourself and your team to do their best
With an older player, attention can be focused on improving physical capacity. When younger junior players are still learning skills, it is important to control the ball with both feet and different parts of the foot. Does the player know how to do a «Zidane» turn on the left and right, can the player pass with the inside or outside foot, is striking equally strong with both feet?
Pushing your own physical boundaries is important. If a player is able to train in a way that their performance level rises and the records are steadily improving, we are on the right path. A football coach’s job is to help players develop both their skills and physical capacity. As a football coach you must have a knowledge of the individual performance of the player. This requires metrics, monitoring, coaching and analysis of football tracking data.
Next Generation Tools to help Football Coaches Now
Fortunately, there are many tools today that can help football coaches analyse training. Some take videos, others make tests, others measure the heart rate. Xampion Coach is a next generation tool for football coaches that combines many of the core features of training. It provides accurate information about ball touches: how many assists a player made with the left inner foot or shots using the right leg specific part of the foot.
All this information and more is available to a football coach right after the session with Xampion. Within a minute from that, you have already sent your players training tips to develop their ball passing skills. Xampion Coach gives a football coach facts and quick analysis as well as helps players and creates a basis for the next workout plan.
When you add physical activity data, you get a combo which is a big help to the entire coaching process. We have moved from paper logs, from hours and hours of video analysis and measuring tape to the present time. In the future, one can also add a video to the Xampion Coach analysis (streamed or self-recorded) to which the data is time-stamped. Coaches can choose which clips they want to send and the system cuts and sends the clips to the players based on Xampion data. Criteria can be a pass or a strike, a high-tempo sprint or a high heart rate value.
That’s Why Youth Football Coaching is The World’s Best and Most Challenging job
Every football coach deserves recognition. Football coaching is the World’s best and most challenging job, which contributes to common public health, sometimes a small town stadium and occasionally Anfield. Every football coach wants to give quality coaching, support player development and take their team forward. Good planning, a positive atmosphere, encouragement to learn, and the appropriate level of demand are the foundations of coaching. When everything goes smoothly, training ends in a smile. Let’s all work toward it!
Author Jukka Talja is a UEFA -licensed football coach.
Learn more about Xampion solutions for teams here!
Want to try the Xampion system and Xampion Coach in your team free of charge? Contact us at sales@xampion.com!