Coaching Clinics can be Dangerous

As I watched a soccer webinar (on-line seminar) this morning I had to ask, who is the target audience here?  The clinician is fairly well known and has published a couple of books on systems of play. The webinar is on the 1-4-2-3-1 formation.  The exercises and drills being used seek to explain how professional sides play out of the formation - what their systems of play are. 

Those in attendance range from coaches of U8 teams through high school and college coaches. An organization with a national base is hosting the event and will take anyone's money who wishes to attend.  And of course, I am watching the webinar (for free)  six months after it took place. 

The clinician is very passionate about the virtues of the formation and is clearly excited to be presenting its secrets to the audience.  He has a decent girls side working as the presentation team.  What he is actually doing is using a combination of pattern play and shadow play to illustrate the teams shape in the transitional phases of play - going first from defending shape to attacking shape, then back again to defending shape.

I find myself wondering how many of those present or who have watched the on-line webinar actually know what the phases of play are? 

As I continued watching I witnessed the clinician allowing improper or poorly executed technique to take place as movement of the ball was utilized to demonstrate the morphing of the teams shape from defending to attacking and back again.

I have attended many coaching courses, clinics and seminars over the years. I suppose the actual number may stand at 100 or more. Very few made a lasting impression on me, but those that did were the ones in which the clinician explained the details and reasoning for what (s)he was doing and demanded the presentation team provide excellence within their ability level to what they were being asked to do.

Traveling back in time to this past July and August I recognized the tactical application of the 1-4-2-3-1 being presented as what my son's high school team was working on in preparation for their high school season. My immediate thought was "that lasted all of about a month before his high school coaches abandoned it."  And that is largely a fair and true statement although the final flameout would not occur until their 4th game of the season in an embarrassing misapplication of attacking shape during a goal kick restart.

And that is one of the points I wish to drive home today. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing when the person holding that knowledge does not have a foundational background sufficient to support its application. From past experience I know many coaches in attendance that day and also those who have watched the webinar will go back to their teams and put them through the exercises presented in this webinar anticipating great things will follow for their teams. 

It's not that simple.

There is a process involved. One must start at the beginning of the process and work one's way through the process. What many of these coaching education opportunities do is to place their audience in a position of having to reverse engineer the information they receive.  The information being provided is really solid stuff, but too many of the coaches receiving it will not have a sufficient foundation to set it upon.  It's a bit like building a million dollar mansion atop of quicksand. There will be a lot of settling and in the end that million dollar mansion is going to be condemned.

We do not start our schooling with a 7th grade curriculum. We lay the foundation for 7th grade in the K-6th years.  It would be silly to start a 5 year old in 7th grade, would it not?   Yet this is what we do in education for soccer coaches when it comes to clinics and symposiums. It's a one size fits all approach that just doesn't work for many, perhaps a majority.

With this in mind, I have begun to alter how Conceive Believe Achieve Soccer presents coaching clinics and symposiums. We break things down by age and ability of the teams the coaches will be working with by matching phases of development with appropriate progressions of tactics.  I also try to break down the presentation to an appropriate level of understanding for the strength of the participants foundation in the knowledge of the art of coaching.

It is not an easy undertaking for me, but it is one I feel passionate about. As I look at American soccer and compare it to the great soccer countries of the world the one thing that really stands out is game intelligence. Other countries simply play smarter than we do.  A primary reason is we do not establish a solid foundation to build upon. We just go straight to advanced tactics without creating the foundation these tactics must be based upon. Here at CBA Soccer we are looking to change that one coach, one team at a time. A grass roots movement for soccer intelligence.