Skill Acquisition Guide

SKILL ACQUISITION GUIDE

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE PREMIER LEAGUE

The League Managers Association, National Football Centre, St. George’s Park, Newborough Road, Needwood, Burton upon Trent, DE13 9PD

www.leaguemanagers.com

The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and not necessarily those of the League Managers Association, its members, officers or employees. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Editor Alice Hoey alicehoey1@gmail.com

Publisher Jim Souter Jim.Souter@leaguemanagers.com

Art Editor Ian Cherry Ian.Cherry@leaguemanagers.com

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the LMA and LCA Skill Acquisition Guide, the first technicalthemed publication in our series of personal and professional development guides.

Coaching is a skill that requires career-long growth and development. For some of our members, it may feel like a natural accumulation of everything you’ve learned about the game since childhood, coming to life in a training session, team-talk or one-to-one with a player. For others, coaching may feel more academic, the transfer of knowledge from one generation to another, or from peer to peer. With each session or exchange, your own personal bank of experience increases in value.

What unites all of our members, though, is a hunger to constantly grow, improve and adapt their coaching skills to the modern game. At the LMA and LCA, we recognise this thirst for knowledge. Through the LMA Institute of Leadership and High Performance, we are committed to providing opportunities for our members to continuously develop and challenge their knowledge and perceptions around coaching.

Through consultation with our members, we know that the principles of skill acquisition are of real relevance to coach development today, and will likely be the focus of growing attention in the future. To this end, we have engaged with some of the most respected practitioners and researchers in the field, notably Keith Davids, Professor of Motor Learning, and his team at Sheffield Hallam University’s Centre of Sport and Exercise Science, to share their insight and expertise. We thank them for doing so in such an accessible and engaging way.

We hope this collection of introductory articles serves not only to inform you, but also encourages you to reflect on your own coaching practices, and prompts further research and reading. Meanwhile, the LMA and LCA will continue to provide a wide range of learning opportunities and material around the core skill acquisition principles outlined in this guide.

SKILL ACQUISITION: THE AUTHORS.

This guide owes its content entirely to Sheffield Hallam University’s Academy of Sport and Physical Exercise, and more specifically to the expertise and insight of Professor Keith Davids, Associate Professor Joe Stone, and Dr Martyn Rothwell. The LMA is hugely grateful for their help in putting this guide together, condensing what are, at times, highly technical and scientific concepts into something we hope you will find accessible, transferrable and of real practical benefit in your day-to-day role.

PROF KEITH DAVIDS.

As a Professor of Motor Learning in Sport and Human Performance, Davids investigates skill acquisition, expertise and talent development in sport at different levels of participation, from recreational to elite. He is an applied scientist who researches how processes of learning, development, performance preparation and participation in sport, physical activity and exercise may be facilitated. Prof Davids has over 30 years’ experience of teaching and conducting research in Ecological Dynamics with collaborators across Europe and in related fields like Sports Science, Psychology, Behavioural Neuroscience, Sports Coaching, Physical Education and Human Movement Science.

ASSOCIATE PROF JOSEPH STONE.

As Associate Professor of Skill Acquisition and Performance Analysis, Prof Stone’s primary research focus is on using ecological dynamics as a guiding framework to examine sport and exercise. His role includes teaching on a range of degree programmes in Sport and Exercise Science, including modules in Skill Acquisition, Performance Analysis, Research Methods and Psychology. He is also a Postgraduate Research Tutor in Sport and Physical Activity.

DR MARTYN ROTHWELL.

Until recently, Rothwell was a senior lecturer on Sheffield Hallam’s BSc in Sport Coaching, and a researcher in the Sport and Human Performance research group. Research interests are in the fields of skill acquisition, coaching pedagogy and talent development, where an international research profile has been developed. His research involves exploring the influence of socio-cultural-historical constraints on expertise acquisition. Prior to joining Sheffield Hallam, Rothwell held various coaching roles and managed talent development programmes in rugby league.

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YOUNG PLAYERS NEED FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION TO DEVELOP AS CREATIVE PLAYERS. THEY SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED TO TRY SKILLS WITHOUT FEAR OF FAILING.”

ARSÈNE WENGER

APPROACHES TO SPORTS COACHING

NONLINEAR PEDAGOGY.

The player, the coach and their environment form a complex system of interacting parts, which change and adapt to one another over time. Understanding how to work within this unpredictable environment is key to designing effective practice.

In a sports team, individual players, each with their own specific needs and behaviours, interact with each other, trying to coordinate actions onfield. They will then adapt, individually and as a group, to the ever-changing goals and challenges they face.

Nonlinear pedagogy is a framework of teaching and learning based on this concept of interacting elements; ‘pedagogy’ is the theory and practice of learning, while ‘nonlinear’ refers to the fact it is not a sequential or straightforward process. As a methodology to develop players and prepare them for competition, it can help us to better understand the challenges we face in coaching and teaching, and how we can design effective training sessions and programmes in sport, exercise and physical education.

Nonlinear pedagogy was first proposed nearly 20 years ago as a set of principles aimed at physical education teachers and those engaging in recreational sports. In 2005, Davids, Chow and Shuttleworth’s paper, entitled ‘A constraints-based framework for nonlinear pedagogy in physical education’, was published in the Journal of Physical Education New Zealand. Since then, there has been a flow of applied research outlining how the principles of nonlinear pedagogy might be applied and implemented at elite and sub-elite performance levels, as well as with children and adults, in schools and sports organisations (see pg 16).

IMPLICATIONS FOR COACHES

Because the different components of this complex interactive system of coaches, players and groups are constantly influencing each other and self-organising, there is unpredictability in their performance, learning and development. Each individual or group has the potential to influence and reshape how the other individuals or teams behave.

This unpredictability has various implications for coaches. For example, as performance, learning and development are not sequential or straightforward (nonlinear), it is difficult to make any predictions about outcomes based on the information you have at the start. You can’t, for example, foretell which team will win a match based only on the first five minutes of play. Continuous interactions between players can change things onfield, which leads us to the next key point.

It’s important to understand that the most skilful players are those who can assess what is happening in a game, learn quickly and adapt to changes in play over time. These changes will be influenced by internal processes, because of aging, effects of injury or changes in motivation, for example, as well as externally, such as amendments to strategy, playing styles or rules of play.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

To provide value and meaning to practice designs in a nonlinear pedagogy, the most important methodology is the manipulation of ‘task constraints’ during practice (see Constraints-Based Coaching, pg 38). In other words, coaches need to keep changing the rules of the practice task, the space or numbers involved, as well as the nature of the challenge or problemsolving opportunities for players. This concept breaks down into various key principles, outlined below, which we’ll revisit and explain in more detail over the course of this guide:

Representative design – Practice tasks should simulate what happens in competitive performance contexts.

Adaptive functional variability - Practice and training programmes should be designed so that players are challenged to adapt their actions, continually, individually and collectively, to changing environments. Why settle for a ‘comfort zone’?

Individual differences - Players change from moment to moment (due to fatigue, stress and excitement) and over longer timescales (due to experience and learning, growth and maturation, and ageing, for example). Training should take account of these changes in individual states. (Chapter 2).

‘Affective’ learning design - Coaching should embrace the emotional make-up of individual players, as this can affect both their practice and performance. Training should provide players with opportunities to regulate their emotions in action, developing resilience to think clearly and make decisions when their

thoughts are suddenly perturbed by anxiety or anger.

Opportunities invite actions - The practice landscape should be designed to closely resemble performance, constantly providing opportunities and challenges for players to recognise, accept and solve problems in practice games.

Task simplification – Coaches should take care not to break up tasks into micro-components that are isolated from relevant contexts. This may prevent players from finding the key bits of information they need to regulate their actions during performance. (Chapter 11)

Repetition without repetition - Practice games and activities must challenge players by providing opportunities for them to solve performance problems continually, rather than merely repeat and rehearse a movement technique or a problem solution provided by a coach and performed in isolation of pressure and game context. (Chapter 14)

Enrichment of athlete-environment interactions - Finding a nuanced balance between specific and more general practice experiences helps to develop and exploit the changing athletic capacities of players over their playing career, from youth to senior stages. (Chapters 2, 6 & 7)

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

Researchers have looked specifically at the application of non-linear pedagogy in football coaching. A recent study by Práxedes and colleagues, for example, examined the effectiveness of a practice programme with youth footballers using principles of nonlinear pedagogy, focusing on their decision making and actions. In this study, 19 footballers (U12s) participated in a programme of small-sided and conditioned games over 14 sessions, designed to familiarise, train and assess their performance. Player learning and development was evaluated both during and after the practice programme.

The findings showed that the children’s football skills and their decision making improved significantly during the practice phase, especially towards the end of the programme. The coaching and teaching methods involved aimed to develop the players’ exploratory learning and discovery skills, encouraging them to find solutions to performance challenges onfield. These methods were demonstrated to be effective in improving the decision making, rapid thinking and actions of players over time when used in small-sided activities (e.g., 2v1 scenarios) and conditioned games (5v5 on a small/large or narrow/wide fields).

DEFINITIONS:

Pedagogy - the theory and practice of learning.

Nonlinear - not sequential or straightforward.

Task constraint – any factor that influences an athlete’s behaviour or actions in a training activity. These include rules and conditions, physical boundaries, space, time and equipment, and can be manipulated by coaches to change the nature of a practice task.

Affective – refers to mood, feelings and attitudes. Affective learning is a relatively new term relating to learning focused around the individual’s interests, emotions and aspirations.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Chow, J.-Y., Davids, K., Button, C. & Renshaw, I. (2022) (2nd Edition). Nonlinear Pedagogy in Skill Acquisition. Routledge: London.

Práxedes, A., Del Villar Álvarez, F., Moreno, A., Gil-Arias, A. & Davids, K. (2019). Effects of a nonlinear pedagogy intervention programme on the emergent tactical behaviours of youth footballers, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, DOI:10.1080/17408989.2019.1580689

Rudd, J.R., Renshaw, I., Savelsbergh, G.J.P., Chow J.-Y., Roberts, W., Newcombe, D. & Davids, K. (2021). Nonlinear Pedagogy and the Athletic Skills Model: The Importance of Play in Supporting Physical Literacy. Routledge: London.

ATHLETIC SKILLS MODEL.

The Athletic Skills Model (ASM) is a training approach that develops the general athletic capacities and sports skills of young people from childhood to adulthood.

Developed by professional coaches in the academy at AFC Ajax in Amsterdam, the ASM opposes an emphasis on early specialisation in one sport, seeking to safeguard young people’s health and wellbeing.

The idea that athletic potential can be identified in children from a very early age and then developed to produce elite performers is not without its issues (see chapter 4 - 10,000 Hours and Deliberate Practice).

For some time, research has shown that ‘early specialised training’, whereby the focus is on developing a child’s abilities in only one sport, can lead to physical problems caused by repetition, over-use and stress on joints in a growing body. Long-lasting psychological, emotional and social problems have also been reported by some athletes subjected to early specialisation.

Variation in training and development (engaging in multiple sports and activities), meanwhile, is known to reduce the risk of problems from physical overloading and repetitive strain injuries, as well as the probability of psychological and emotional burnout in athletes. The ASM promotes the value of movement variability (inside and outside a target sport) to encourage performance ‘functionality’ of athletes (i.e. finding different ways to move in an ever-changing environment) and support better musculo-skeletal and mental health, especially at sensitive stages of growth and maturation.

ORIGINS AND KEY PRINCIPLES

The Athletic Skills Model was developed by René Wormhoudt, strength and conditioning coach of the Netherlands national football team, with the aim of helping young academy athletes develop their abilities and prepare for competition, while minimising the aforementioned risks.

Wormhoudt and his colleagues were critical of coaching and training approaches in football academies because “weeding out of players seems to be given more prominence than having patience, and training the less-well developed skills of a child over time.” They also regretted that the “typical, highly-charged achievement-oriented environment in elite sport does not provide a secure and nurturing environment for most children.”

To counter these weaknesses in the system, Wormhoudt and his colleagues combined ideas from contemporary science with their own experience of coaching footballers from childhood to adulthood to create an evidencebased model that can be applied to developing athletes in any sporting environment. The ASM seeks to enhance the physical skills, athleticism, conditioning and mental health and wellbeing of athletes throughout childhood and into adulthood, helping active people to adapt to the various mental and physical challenges brought on by performance, growth, maturation, injuries and ageing.

The ASM maintains a balance between specific performance outcomes, talent development and the health and wellbeing of each individual athlete in any sport. In particular, this methodological programme avoids some of the documented negative impacts of specialisation training by taking into account the different training needs of children during their adolescence. Different training methods are used before and after the onset of a child’s growth spurt (known as ‘peak height velocity’ or PHV), when the growth rate reaches its maximum. After PHV, a child’s body is in a more stable condition and specific skills can be learned or relearned, taking advantage of the greater strength and power that tend to emerge after this phase of maturation.

While the ASM recognises the importance of specificity of practice, the methodology is based on the key principle that we must first experience a range of sports and physical activities to build a solid foundation for all-round athletic development that can empower individuals for more specialised training and performance. Indeed, the motto of the model is ‘first the athlete, then the specialist’. The ASM, therefore, advocates that coaches and teachers should provide varied sporting experiences and activities earlier in learning, designed to help children reach a high level of athleticism, confidence and movement intelligence.

In the ASM programme, attention is given to designing activities that develop all-round movement skills, promoting: acrobatics (balancing, gliding, riding); non-violent body contact (pushing, pulling, lifting, holding, carrying); different types of locomotion (forwards, backwards, sideways, walking, running, cycling, galloping, hopping, using two legs and one leg, stopping/starting); flight (take-offs, jumping, rotating in the air, landing on one leg and two legs); body control in space (rolling, tumbling, turning, tucking, ducking, stretching); limbeye coordination (using head, hands and feet); climbing, scrambling, leaning, hanging, swinging in space; and rhythmical coordination (dancing, swaying, while singing).

These activities provide children with opportunities to engage in a wide variety of sports, learning to coordinate their actions and vary them in a functional way (relevant and appropriate to a specific performance context later in life).

This early phase of all-round development is very important for later specialisation in one particular sport. Indeed, it is considered so valuable that the ASM advocates elite and specialised athletes maintaining their all-rounded athleticism throughout their careers. That means engaging in a training programme that works on a greater balance of skills than they might typically employ, albeit recommending a reduced proportional balance between specificity (>80%) and general (<20%) activities than in childhood.

This does not mean that there is no room for sport-specific components, like basic, sport-specific technical skills, early on in an athlete’s development programme. However, while engagement in some sports early on in life is acknowledged as being important in developing future elite athletes, in others, early involvement is not necessary to reach the highest level.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

There are different phases of play, skills practice and movement performance promoted in the ASM. These interconnected phases require different approaches to athletic skills training and advocate when more general athletic experience is needed, and when specialised training needs to dominate the training of individuals.

The phases are not hard-set and an athlete can move back and forth along the continuum at any stage in their career, depending on their specific training needs. For example, an individual might be recovering from long-term injury or illness, or need to adapt their training regime as they age. Figure 1 (overleaf) shows the different approaches to athletic training and skills development advocated in the ASM, with an initial emphasis on engaging in multiple sports and activities. This is contrary to most specialised training in sports academies, where children may be identified as footballers from the age of four or five years.

This approach continues throughout childhood, with experiences in different ‘donor sports’, which are activities close to the ‘preferred target sport’ identified by a child. Thereafter, there are two phases of more specialised training in a single sport, which are needed for athletes to specialise their expertise and skills in a single, target sport. Because their athletic skills have been well developed, they have been provided with a solid foundation that better prepares them for specialised training and performance.

Even at the elite level, athletes could be encouraged to maintain a balance between specialised sports training and more general athletic training. The ASM has been found to have long-lasting effects on motivation in athletes because of its emphasis on promoting fun and enjoyment, and instilling a sense of play.

The ASM emphasises that performance development is a life-long process that should be designed to fit the specific needs of each individual player. The time spent in activities at each interconnected phased approach to athletic skills training will differ according to the needs, skill and experience level of each player. More experienced players will spend more time at the specialised and skill adaptation end of the ASM continuum, compared to less experienced players, early in their development. The ASM has been shown to have value for all athletes seeking to develop their skills from recreational to elite level in sport.

MULTI-SPORTS

General & varied movements and sport experiences

DONOR SPORTS

Experience of sports that are similar and relevant to a target sport

SKILL ADAPTION

Mixed training focused on adapting skills in a target sport

SPECIFICITY OF TRAINING

Specialised training in skills, conditioning and tactics of a target sport

DEFINITION:

Early specialisation - Participation in a single sport, with a deliberate focus on training and development in one sport only.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Baker, J. (2022). The Tyranny of Talent: How it compels and limits athletic achievement… and why you should ignore it. Toronto, ON: Aberrant Press. https://www.athleticskillsmodel.nl/en

Wormhoudt, R., Savelsbergh, G.J.P., Teunissen, J.W., & Davids, K. (2018). The athletic skills model: Optimizing talent development through movement education. New York, NY: Routledge.

HIGH-PERFORMANCE

SYSTEMS

SHOULD BE DOING EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO MAINTAIN ALL ATHLETES’ ENGAGEMENT, AT ANY LEVEL, FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.

JOE BAKER

CONSTRAINTS-BASED COACHING.

Player characteristics, environmental factors and the nature of the task all have an influence on individual and team performance. Understanding this interplay of factors can help coaches design more effective and focused training sessions.

Traditionally, it was thought that in order to develop a movement-based skill, such as kicking or heading a ball, a player or athlete should follow a staged approach. In other words, you had to go through a series of stages to learn the basics, before moving onto more complex skills. However, a player’s development and performance don’t always follow a linear pattern; there’ll be sudden progressions and regressions, irrespective of age or previous levels.

IN PRINCIPLE

In the 1980s, prominent psychologist Karl Newell proposed the idea that human behaviour is ‘non-linear’ and determined by a complex system of individual, task and environmental factors. These are often referred to as ‘constraints’ and include any boundary or factor that can be changed during coaching to vary the nature of the task, the information available to the athletes, and the skills and behaviours they are encouraged to display.

A murmuration of starlings or a shoal of fish, for example, coordinates its behaviour based on individual capacities, collective goals (get to a certain destination), and the environment it is in. In sport, meanwhile, individuals and teams will tend to self-organise, and will respond to a variety of information sources around them (e.g., spaces in a defensive system, or the habits of opposition players inviting certain attacking strategies).

These are important points for coaches to consider when designing practice sessions. Identifying factors that constrain self-organisation over weekly, monthly and season-long periods can help players and groups of players (such as defence and midfield) build stronger synergies.

In one study, researchers looked at the effect of different pitch sizes on collective tactical play and the creation of goal-scoring opportunities. Three pitch sizes were analysed - standard (53m x 38m), long (63m x 32m) and wide (43m x 47m) - during seven-a-side football games. The study showed that long and wide pitches produced more counterattacks and goal-scoring opportunities, as well as higher offensive penetration. The wide pitch, meanwhile, produced more assists in the form of crosses, more use of wide spaces when attacking, more attacking headers as the final action, and fewer assists in the form of passes in behind the defence. This kind of information could prove valuable for coaches when designing small-sided training games that more effectively represent the competition environment.

Constraints-Based Coaching

IN PRACTICE

To help bridge the gap between theory and practice, Renshaw and colleagues proposed the below series of Environmental Design Principles to support coaches in applying Newell’s ideas in the field of sport. These can help to plan and deliver effective learning opportunities that are more aligned to the development and performance needs of the players.

KEY ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN PRINCIPLES:

1. The priority for coaches should be the session intention or aim, as this will influence their approach to planning, preparation and delivery. Crucially, a training session should aim to develop those specific skills and tactical elements that have been identified as necessary to progress individual and team performance.

2. During the planning, preparation and delivery stages, the coach should ask continually whether the players are being encouraged to explore opportunities for action related to those session aims. For example, is the pitch size inviting specific team tactics related to the development needs?

3. Another important principle is something known as ‘representative learning design’ - i.e. whether the situation presented by the training session is an accurate representation of the physical, skill, emotional, mental and tactical demands of matchday performance. A key component of effective representative learning design is drawing on player insights to enable more competition-like practice experiences. This concept has been termed ‘representative co-design’.

4. Finally, in a constraints-based approach, coaches are challenged to avoid designing practice sessions that require players to simply learn by repetition, doing the same task over and over without any challenge. The concept of ‘repetition without repetition’ advocates providing variable practice conditions to induce instability in players’ behaviour. Getting the right balance of challenge is essential to ensuring players continue to learn and develop.

DEFINITIONS:

Individual constraints – Personal capacities such as physical, psychological and emotional, and the influence they have on an individual’s interactions with the performance environment.

Task constraints – Specific factors that a coach might manipulate during practice (e.g., equipment, space, players and time) to shape certain behaviours.

Environmental constraints – Factors that a coach is less likely to influence over shorter timescales, such as social and cultural issues, the weather and the built environment.

Self-organisation – Football players can receive information from around them (e.g., from teammates, opposition players and gaps in the defence). By exposing them to such information sources during practice they can develop synergies.

Emergent behaviours – Performance behaviours are not predetermined, but emerge dependent on interacting individual, task and environmental constraints. Coaches can become skilled at understanding how specific constraints can be used to shape emergent behaviours.

Environmental Design Principles – Principles to guide coaches in designing more effective learning environments.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Renshaw, I., Davids, K., Newcombe, D., & Roberts, W. (2019). The constraints-led approach principles for sports coaching and practice design. Routledge.

González-Rodenas, J., Aranda-Malavés, R., Tudela-Desantes, A., de MatíasCid, P., & Aranda, R. (2021). Different Pitch Configurations Constrain the Playing Tactics and the Creation of Goal Scoring Opportunities during Small Sided Games in Youth Soccer Players. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(19), 10500

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910500

Woods, C. T., Rothwell, M., Rudd, J., Robertson, S., & Davids, K. (2021). Representative co-design: Utilising a source of experiential knowledge for athlete development and performance preparation. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 52, 101804.

EXPOSING YOUNG PLAYERS TO GREATER LEVELS OF PRACTICE ACTIVITIES

INVOLVING ACTIVE DECISION MAKING OVER TIME FACILITATES THE TRANSFER OF SKILL ACQUISITION AND LEARNING TO MATCH PLAY. ROCA, FORD

DELIBERATE PRACTICE.

The idea that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become expert at a skill has been accepted in some fields, but debunked by many others. We look at what relevance and limitations this theory might have in football.

The notion that 10,000 hours of ‘deliberate practice’ (practice that is purposeful and systematic, see pg40) is required to master a skill can be traced back to a 1993 article by Anders Ericsson, Ralf Krampe and Clemens Tesch-Römer. In ‘The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance’, it is argued that expert performance is dependent on the quantity and quality of practice in an individual’s field or domain. In other words, sustained engagement in deliberate practice is necessary to reach expert levels in sport; 10,000 hours is the amount of practice amassed by those involved in the study.

Although these original ideas were based on the study of musicians, the authors argued that this notion of deliberate practice applies to expertise in all areas of human development.

“In most domains of expertise, individuals begin in their childhood a regimen of effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimise improvement,” they said. “Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning.”

LIMITATIONS AND APPLICATION

One problem with the deliberate practice framework is that it is based on a very narrow perspective of the role that nurture might play in developing expertise. Suggesting that practice alone is the key ingredient ignores the influence of genetics, environmental factors, such as schooling, family and culture, and training experiences.

Responding to claims made about the deliberate practice framework, talent development researchers Baker and Young posed some useful questions, which we can adapt for use in football. It’s worth considering these questions when thinking about how best to structure training and practice over the length of the season.

First off, does football practice need to be deliberate? Play, unstructured practice (such as player-led games) and competitive matches don’t feature in the deliberate practice framework, but can they still help to develop football expertise? How important are these forms of activity in supporting and developing other important factors, such as motivation, enjoyment, novel skills, emotional control and learning to compete?

Secondly, we might ask ourselves whether 10,000 hours is a good estimate of the time necessary to become an elite footballer? The acceptance of the 10,000-hour rule can be attributed to popular science books, such as Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’ and Matthew Syed’s ‘Bounce’, but is this figure a realistic estimation in football? This is a complex subject and difficult to study, but there are certainly likely to be differences, both between team sports that require decision-making qualities, and individual sports.

Thirdly, supposing that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is an accurate reflection of the time taken to become an expert, is it really achievable? As anyone who has committed to a personal goal knows, motivation, concentrated effort, sticking to something that isn’t enjoyable, and scheduling the right activities to achieve something can be major roadblocks. How important, therefore, are factors such as the practice environment in keeping the player motivated? Lastly, given that playing football requires many different skills, what should those 10,000 hours of deliberate practice focus on?

Identifying specific factors affecting the acquisition of skills, from nature or nurture, is a major challenge for coaches and performance managers. Rather, time might be better spent engaging in a continuous process of enriching players’ interactions with practice and competition. This can be achieved by designing practice environments, in collaboration with players, that expose them to individualised and contextualised learning conditions, based on specific learning and performance needs.

WHAT IS ‘DELIBERATE PRACTICE’?

Deliberate practice has been defined as a highly structured activity requiring focused attention on very clear performance goals. In a recent study, Ericsson and colleagues identified the following characteristics of deliberate practice. It’s worth asking to what extent these might be taken into account when designing training-based practice.

1. Activities are goal-directed through defined and structured activities.

2. Activities are set at an appropriate level of difficulty, and require sustained concentration and attention.

3. Augmented feedback is provided to support improvement through error detection and correction.

4. There is opportunity for repetition, and correction of errors.

5. There is no immediate financial or social reward.

6. Demanding of physical and mental resources. Work, not play!

7. It is not inherently enjoyable or motivating.

8. Sustained participation is dependent on the individual’s motivation to improve.

9. If an individual wants to become an expert they must start at an early age.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological review, 100(3), 363.

Baker, J., & Young, B. (2014). 20 years later: deliberate practice and the development of expertise in sport. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7(1), 135-157.

JOHAN

IMPLICATIONS FOR COACHES & MANAGERS

INVITING SKILFUL BEHAVIOUR.

One of the main objectives of a coach is to develop skilful behaviour in their players. However, many practice methods fall short.

When we talk about ‘skilful behaviour’ in football we mean the ability of a player to find functional solutions to complex problems, and to adapt to different situations as they arise. Coaches therefore look to design training sessions that invite these behaviours.

Traditional coaching practices, however, don’t always achieve this goal because they tend to focus on what has been termed the ‘knowledge acquisition metaphor’. This is where learning is focused on acquiring skills, while lacking any kind of context. In many cases, this results in isolated skill practice, where training practices and methods are rigid and focused on rehearsing what are seen as ‘optimal’ performance techniques.

In contrast, coaches who facilitate a context-based or ‘contextualised’ approach to learning and development position their players as active agents, capable of self-regulating to respond to invitations for skilful behaviour. Contextualised practice requires players to attune their perceptions to the sources of information around them, such as opposition players, formations, and opportunities to dribble or pass. This encourages more exploratory behaviour, such as scanning (see chapter 16), which invites adaptable and functional movements and actions.

It’s important to note that not all opportunities or ‘affordances’ will invite skilful behaviour and some learning spaces provide only a very narrow range of opportunities for players to demonstrate it. Ecological psychologist James Gibson argued that individuals inhabit ‘ecological niches’, such as an academy programme or a coaching setting, and that these present us with many opportunities to demonstrate actions or behaviours, ‘good or ill’.

ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

Focusing on the interaction between the individual and their environment, it is based on the theory that we each encounter different environments throughout our lifespan that may influence our behaviour.

Crucially, therefore, players should be exposed, consistently, to ecological niches or environments that are rich in information and that invite them to practise with autonomy and freedom. They will then be more likely to develop the holistic skills and capacities they need to respond to opportunities with highly skilled actions.

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

The notion of coaches providing a wide or narrow ‘landscape of action possibilities’ is evident in Roca and Ford’s 2020 study of coach-led practices in elite youth football across England, Germany, Portugal and Spain. It found that Portuguese (68%) and Spanish (67%) youth players spent a significantly higher percentage of session time in active decision-making activities (e.g., unidirectional games, small-sided and conditioned games, possession games, and phase of play), compared to German (57%) and English (56%) youth players. This last figure may well have changed following the Elite Player Performance Plan in English football, but more generally the study demonstrates how the training activities and learning spaces of coaches can facilitate or hinder the decision-making opportunities or affordances available to players.

IN PRACTICE

To invite skilful behaviour, coaches should design practice experiences that solicit opportunities for players to continually explore, directly perceive and select from the information around them. That includes designing practice and training experiences that look and feel more like match day. It’s worth taking time to consider how this might look in practice. For example, how might you design a session that invites more skilful dribbling behaviours? This might involve lots of inviting potential for players, where attackers and defenders can seek and explore functional outcomes to keep or retrieve the ball. During this practice, a coach could manipulate different task constraints to invite certain affordances over others, dependant on the development needs of the players.

DEFINITIONS:

Skilful behaviour – Players demonstrate functional and adaptable behaviours to navigate complex problems during practice and competition.

Ecological niche – A social and cultural space (e.g., a football team) that a player occupies on a regular basis; this has a deep influence on their development.

Specifying information – Players perceiving opposition actions, team formations and pitch marking would be considered to be specifying information. These sources of information should always be present in practice to guide actions.

Affordance – Possibilities or opportunities for action in a game of football. An affordance will not cause behaviour, but will invite certain behaviours, dependent on the individual’s capacities. NB: According to James Gibson, affordances are not causes of a movement, but are possibilities or opportunities for action, which players may or may not use to achieve their intended performance outcomes. In a contextualised approach, practice is a search process for players to find and use available affordances as opportunities for action in the sport performance landscape. This implies that the environment is a “manifold of action possibilities” that players need to learn to interact with in practice and competition.

Practice as a process of search – Practice or training should encourage players to search for specifying information sources.

A contextualised coaching approach – Ensuring as much as possible that practice looks like competitive football. Doing this will help with skill transfer.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Gibson, J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Roca, A., & Ford, P. R. (2020). Decision-making practice during coaching sessions in elite youth football across European countries. Science and Medicine in Football, 4(4), 263–268. https://doi.org/org/10.1080/24733938.2020.1755051

ENRICHING PLAYER INTERACTIONS.

Exposure to a range of general, non-football activities improves players’ underlying athletic abilities, helping them to adapt to their constantly changing performance environment.

Frameworks for designing training and practice programmes, such as the Athletic Skills Model, emphasise the importance of using activities that are specific to football when preparing players for competition.

However, while specificity of practice is important at the right time, overuse of the same practice activities can lead to significant physical and psychological issues. Too much training and practice of a specific nature may not allow players to develop the movement adaptability they need to succeed at a high level in sport. For this reason, the ASM also emphasises the value of players experiencing multiple sports and activities, as well as variability in practising football skills, to help them develop throughout their careers.

‘Enrichment’ via exposure to more general activities in training leads to better physical performance and safeguards mental health and wellbeing. Importantly, it also enriches the adaptability of players in interacting with changing performance contexts. This rich mix in skills practice helps them to flourish in different performance conditions, e.g., when playing in different weather conditions, in different social cultures, on pitches of varying dimensions and when teams have to adapt to sudden events, e.g., teammates being sent off or becoming injured.

Research shows that football teams that are capable of adapting successfully, varying their tactics according to the opposition and environmental conditions, and finding different ways to perform the same actions, are most likely to be successful in their defensive, attacking and transitional actions. Players’ abilities to adapt confidently to the changing demands of a specific context can be developed continually by coaches and trainers enriching their interactions with different environments in practice and training.

IN PRACTICE

Enriching players’ interactions with their performance environment requires the careful and continuous designing and redesigning of practice tasks. Players must be led to find many different ways of achieving their intended performance outcomes, whether that be passing accurately under intense pressure, or making a shot on target, and to navigate the traps set by their opponents.

Enrichment of player-environment interactions means that players need to be exposed continually to a variety of different sports and activities, as well as a range of football-specific tasks that require them to learn, problemsolve, make decisions and adapt their actions, quickly and confidently.

Providing uncertainty in training activities and environments, at the right time in the performance-practice cycle, is also an important part of the enrichment process. Rather than using the same drill in the same way each time, for example, it’s worth considering how it might be tweaked so that practice conditions challenge players to produce consistent performance outcomes in different ways. This will help them to respond more quickly and successfully in match situations, adapting their performance to the challenges set by their various opponents.

ENRICHING PLAYER-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS

– SOME

EXAMPLES.

• Encourage the players to explore how opposing players and teams might respond to the same game-based challenges and problems that they are facing. This information will allow the players to engage in the development of training activities and in the refinement of tactics and actions.

• Spend significant time in practice developing skills to improve adaptive actions. For example, challenge players to explore several coordination patterns to deliver a free kick into the penalty area. Find opportunities to put these ideas into practice.

• Schedule practice at different times or on different days, with spectators watching or when being filmed. This helps the players to feel comfortable with uncertainty and confident in focusing their attention under a range of circumstances.

COMPARING APPROACHES TO PLAYER DEVELOPMENT.

The left-hand side of the figure below shows the path taken by a player who is coached to use only one or very few, similar ways of achieving a performance outcome. As this shows, players are exposed to limited actions to achieve their performance outcomes. The right-hand side, in contrast, illustrates what enriching player-environment interactions in training looks like, experienced as learning opportunities.

Enrichment provides the means for players to make decisions, face choices and find different ways to achieve the same performance outcomes, tactically and through individual actions. In other words, enriching the interactions of players and performance environments helps players to become ‘multifunctional’ (perform in different roles or use different styles in the same role), or to have a broader bandwidth of performance when forced to by their opponents or match circumstances.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Rothwell, M., Rudd, J. and Davids, K. (2022). Integrating specificity and generality of practice to enrich children’s learning in sport (pp284-292). In: Toms, M. and Jeane, R. (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Coaching Children in Sport. Routledge Research in Sports Coaching. New York, Routledge.

Davids, K., Rothwell, M., Hydes, S., Robinson, T. & Davids, C. (2023). Enriching athlete-environment interactions in youth sport: The role of a Department of Methodology. Children: Special Issue – Sports Science in Youth. 752. https:// doi.org/10.3390/children10040752

AFFORDANCE: POSSIBILITIES OR OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION.

AN AFFORDANCE WILL NOT CAUSE BEHAVIOUR, BUT WILL INVITE CERTAIN BEHAVIOURS, DEPENDING ON THE INDIVIDUAL’S CAPABILITIES.

GENERALITY VS SPECIFICITY.

The integration of general and specialised approaches in practice can help us to better understand how to coach players, enhance their athletic development, and prevent injuries.

When planning and delivering training activities, coaches can adopt methods that are based on principles called ‘specificity’ or ‘generality’ of practice. Specificity involves players engaging in highly repetitious practice with the aim of developing ‘optimal’ football techniques, such as passing or heading. Generality of practice, meanwhile, involves players being exposed to a variety of play and practice experiences. As we’ve seen in previous chapters, this helps them to develop a solid foundation of functional movement skills, which sets them up to interact better with specialised training later on.

All too often, specificity and generality of practice are thought of as a dualism, where one approach is considered superior to the other. However, the two approaches to refining skills can complement one another. By understanding when players would benefit from engaging in specificity or generality of practice, coaches can enrich their learning and development experiences, ultimately leading to improvements in player performance.

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

Research into motor control and learning processes (how we control and learn movements) has been one of the most influential scientific subdisciplines to shape learning designs in sport coaching practice. Advances in these research areas started in the 1960s and quite quickly a debate emerged between the two approaches. One train of thought argued that an internalised ‘programme’ should be developed through practice for each sport-specific skill (i.e., specificity), while others suggested individuals should develop a more general range of movements, such as running, throwing, kicking or catching (i.e., generality).

It wasn’t until sport science practitioner Anatoly Bondarchuk advocated a more nuanced understanding of generality and specificity of practice that these approaches were considered to be complementary when applied to developing athletic performance. Bondarchuk proposed that more general training should be concerned with developing general athletic skills, acting as a solid movement foundation for athletes to use in learning and performance, whereas specific training should be dedicated to performance enhancement and preparation in one sport.

More recently, contemporary sport research has advanced these ideas through concepts such as ‘representative learning design’ (i.e., specificity) and ‘variability of practice’ (i.e., generality). Ross Pinder and colleagues proposed representative learning design as a framework to ensure that training and practice adequately replicate the specific constraints experienced in a performance environment (e.g., distance between players, formations, field

locations, or timings). When players find the information available to them in practice to be representative of the competition environment, they are better equipped to make decisions and regulate their actions onfield.

Variability of practice (see chapter 13) can be achieved by providing experience of generality of movements within a target sport that athletes are aiming to specialise in, or within a different, but closely-related, sport or activity. For instance, in a recent study Luiz Uehara and colleagues identified the popular Brazilian pastime of playing ‘pick up’ football games in different environments, known as ‘la pelada’ (see figure 2) as a major influence on the development of football expertise in Brazil. Pelada is an unstructured form of football, played on the street, beach and in school yards. This activity provides more general movement-based learning experiences, as players navigate the challenge of playing on different playing surfaces, surrounded by different obstacles and objects, and with older and younger players. Many of Brazil’s top players have attributed their football development to pelada.

IN PRACTICE

The challenge for coaches, then, is to integrate specificity and generality into their coaching plans to develop both athletic skills (e.g., dynamic movement and body control) and sport-specific skills. To do this effectively, it is necessary to adopt an individualised view of player learning and development, to focus on what movement competencies a player needs to develop to advance their skills and tactical play.

A player who has skill or tactical deficiencies may well need to improve their general athletic ability to improve overall football capacities, or to develop a unique skill set. Sports such as judo, gymnastics, futsal and handball could be used to develop a range of relevant athletic skills alongside their development of football skills. These experiences will help to develop movement coordination, body management, tactical and perceptual awareness, decisionmaking capacities and more, which can be applied to football performance.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Bondarchuk, A., 1994. General and special training. Fitness and Sports Review International, 29, 163–16.

Pinder, R. A., Davids, K., Renshaw, I., & Araújo, D. (2011). Representative Learning Design and Functionality of Research and Practice in Sport, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 33(1), 146-155. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.33.1.146

Uehara, L., Button, C., Araújo, D., Renshaw, I., & Davids, K. (2018). The role of informal, unstructured practice in developing football expertise: the case of Brazilian Pelada. Journal of Expertise, 1(3), 162-180.

AT A YOUNG AGE ATHLETES HAVE TO PLAY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. LET THEM PLAY DAY AND NIGHT AND LET THEM MAKE MISTAKES. PEP GUARDIOLA

CULTURE.

Influences inside and outside of the club can impact on a player’s behaviour, attitude, values and performance.

A common misconception in football, and in sport more generally, is that the only culture relevant to the playing squad is that existing within it. Managers and coaches will therefore work tirelessly to establish and manage team standards and behaviours, aiming to improve performance and shape attitudes and values. However, culture goes beyond the team, and even the football club.

Culture is much more complex than a set of behaviours that a group of people agrees to. This is an important point for managers and coaches to consider, because taken-for-granted assumptions about coaching and training, influenced by wider society, can have a profound impact on player performance and development.

CULTURE IS MULTI-LAYERED

In their recent work, Rothwell and colleagues have drawn attention to the multilayered nature of culture, whereby a network of complex subsystems interact continuously to influence a group of people or wider population. Crucially, this means that culture is not hierarchical or top-down. It is part of a wider complex system, in which multiple subsystems can influence one another. These subsystems consist of:

Macrosystem – Socio, cultural and historical influences on wider society that provide a clear identity for modes of expression and performance in sport.

Exosystem – An organisation that a group of individuals are not part of, but that influences their cultural values (e.g., a sport’s national governing body).

Mesosystem – Multiple systems that an individual moves between and spends time in, which have an immediate influence on their values, behaviours and attitudes around their sport. This could, for example, be a social group, family unit, school setting for younger players, or the workplace of a part-time player.

Microsystem – The main place of concern in terms of an individual’s cultural persuasion. In football terms, this would be their team or club.

An important consideration for managers and coaches is how these interacting systems might influence an individual’s thinking, attitudes and behaviours. Could they help to explain poor team performances, a player’s unique skill-set, or a preferred playing style, for example? These considerations are especially important in the modern game, where teams tend to be highly multicultural. Failing to understand how a player’s background aligns to the systems outlined

here could have a detrimental effect on their mental and physical wellbeing, and on team performance.

Setting time aside to get to know an individual as a person rather than a player can help a coach to appreciate their family background, social influences and outlook on life. Having a better understanding of these factors can help the coaching team as a whole safeguard the individual’s mental and physical wellbeing, and maximise their onfield performance.

RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Brazilian football coach and researcher Luiz Uehara has spent the last 10 years studying football cultures in Brazil. He found that the lifestyle known as ‘malandragem’ has been a major influence on the development of the incredible technical skills that characterise Brazil’s ‘Ginga’ playing style.

Malandragem can be traced back to the 1880s and developed among disadvantaged Brazilians in response to socio-economic issues, such as inequality, corruption and unemployment. People were forced to be highly adaptable and to use their cunning in order to survive and flourish in this environment.

Uehara’s findings demonstrate how multiple subsystems interact to influence the microsystem of Brazilian football. The behaviours and attitudes towards performance that are associated with malandragem are often seen expressed in the skills and playing style of Brazil’s national players.

What, then, might some of these points mean for how you interact with your own players? It’s worth trying to sketch out the culture of your club, thinking about each of the different interacting subsystems, then take some time to consider how that culture might shape how you develop and prepare the players in the future. How does the culture influence your recruitment strategies, playing styles and training methods, and how do these align with the players’ expectations?

WHAT IS CULTURE?

Schwartz (1992) defines culture, saying it “consists of the derivatives of experience, more or less organised, learned or created by the individuals of a population… transmitted from past generations.”

Culture is notoriously difficult to define, but Schwartz’s description is especially relevant, because it demonstrates the reciprocal nature of attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviours that are shared between individuals. In a football context, this indicates that players can influence wider society and vice versa.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Rothwell, M., Stone, J., & Davids, K. (2019). Exploring Forms of Life in Player Development Pathways: The Case of British Rugby League, Journal of Motor Learning and Development, 7(2), 242-260. https://doi.org/10.1123/jmld.2018-0020

Uehara, L., Button, C., Saunders, J., Araújo, D., Falcous, M., & Davids, K. (2021). Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-cultural constraints on the development of expertise and skills in Brazilian football. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 16(3), 622-635.

AN

OVERLOOKED ASPECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE DESIGN OF ATHLETE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

IS SOCIO-CULTURAL HISTORICAL INFLUENCES.” SCHWARTZ

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX” NAME HERE IT IS CRITICAL TO HAVE A SCRUPULOUS SET OF CRITERIA FOR EACH PART OF EACH EXERCISE. UNFORTUNATELY, IN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PHYSICAL PREPARATION THE CRITERIA ARE MUCH TOO GENERAL.” BONDARCHUK

CHAPTER HEADLINE

DAY-TO-DAY PRINCIPLES

PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT & PREPARATIONS.

Understanding the difference between learning, development and performance, and how they interrelate can help in the design of effective training programmes, right up to match day.

Learning, development and performance are some of the most commonly used terms in sports coaching, but while they’re often used almost interchangeably they’re not the same thing. Learning and development typically occur over the medium to long term, whereas performance emerges in, and is influenced by, the current context, i.e., the here and now.

Competitive football performance is unpredictable and guided by information and situations that are changing constantly. This demands the players to act, make decisions and problem solve quickly. Coaches can use this understanding of performance (in the here and now) to design training and practice that enhances players’ development (in the longer-term) and prepares them for competition.

PLAYER DEVELOPMENT

Developing players requires patience over a long timescale and there are no clear or pre-planned start and end points. It is a messy, noisy, uncertain process, without a linear trajectory.

YOUR PLAN

As it isn’t easy to measure a player’s learning directly, coaches must infer that it’s taking place by assessing their performance. This is done using subjective assessments as well as objective measures, such as specific attacking actions or defensive movements. It’s important to remember that performance is also influenced by a number of uncontrollable factors, including confidence, injuries, accumulating fatigue, and changes in drive and motivation, which can hinder learning and impede player development.

Nevertheless, as a player’s performance outcomes begin to display relative permanence, greater stability and consistency, and lower levels of outcome variability (e.g., misplaced passes, shots off target and ineffective tackles), a coach can surmise that learning is occurring.

As we will see in more detail in chapter 13, movement variability should not be confused with inconsistency of outcomes. Movement variability is used by players to achieve the same outcome in different ways, as demanded by the opposition, the playing conditions and the sheer uncertainty of the game.

CHALLENGES IN TALENT ID

Given that learning and development are long-term processes, it begs the question of whether it is really possible to identify footballing talent in young children. Indeed, research suggests that the case for doing so is weaker than the case for talent development, and even that the concept of ‘talent’ might need to be redefined altogether.

One of the main problems with tests for identifying and selecting talented players during childhood is that talent programmes focus on metrics associated with physical performance, such as muscle function. These performance measures on ‘tests of football skill’ tend to be skewed by the Relative Age Effect, meaning that more mature children, who are further along on their development pathway, dominate the outcomes temporarily and gain an advantage over their less mature peers. Problems may then arise

when those less developed peers catch up.

The reality is that personal development is neither linear nor predictable. This is especially true when variations in social and cultural backgrounds are taken into account. These can have an important and tangible effect on someone’s performance and consequent development.

Current evidence suggests that it is extremely challenging to determine someone’s potential for success in elite sport and that it can only really be done over the long term.

There is a need to consider how to provide everyone with the opportunity to fulfil their potential in sport, with a proper understanding of the potential barriers to development. For coaches, that means individualising the development of each player, understanding that their whole career is a unique and personal journey. The trajectories of other players’ careers may share similarities, but also display many differences.

PREPARING PLAYERS FOR COMPETITION

While developing players involves a long-to-medium-term commitment, much of coaching and sport science support is devoted to getting the best out of players from week to week during a competitive season. There are some similarities in preparing players for competition and developing them, but perhaps the biggest distinction is the timescale involved. The timescale of performance is ‘here and now’ and this requires a lower intensity of mental effort, concentration and physical commitment to skills and tactical practice as kick-off time approaches.

Preparing players for competition requires training and practice design that focuses on the interconnectedness of events in week-to-week playing schedules, training loads, and the mental and emotional challenges that confront players.

Periodisation is a particularly useful tool here, because it considers the physical, psychological and emotional demands on players in between matches and ensures that these taper off the closer one gets to the next match.

Skill periodisation means that any exploratory and innovative work on the practice field takes place further away from kick off, while greater consolidation and stabilisation of skills work is included closer to game time. For example, it’s better to explore new skills with players or look at a tactical reorganisation during pre-season, rather than during the competitive season.

There can, of course, be tweaks, refinements and adaptations of skills and tactics throughout the competitive season, but any ‘heavy lifting’ should be avoided, because of the effort, concentration and commitment required to adapt important components of the players’ skills repertoire.

The timescale of performance preparation, therefore, is typically based on days, hours and minutes, rarely extending beyond a week at the highest levels of football. Work on learning new skills, making substantial coordination changes (developing new ways of doing things), changes in tactical approaches and reorganising skills (perhaps destabilised by injuries, growth spurts or ageing, for example) need time to become embedded.

More variability can be included earlier in the build up to competitive performance (e.g. early in the week before a match or in pre-season before the big kick off). This is partly because more intense work means the players need more recovery time; pre-season periods and small breaks in mid-season are therefore invaluable.

The closer to the start of the season or an upcoming match, the greater the emphasis on control and stabilisation, and consolidation of movement skills. Closer to a competitive event, performance preparation should also focus more on specificity of practice, with practice designs more ‘representative’ of the scenario the players will face.

These representative designs might include specificity in terms of the performance conditions. What, for example, will the weather and lighting be like? Is the match at altitude or will jet lag be an issue? Can the playing area dimensions and surface conditions be replicated in preparation? How might the crowd conditions be simulated?

The closer that these variations can be represented in practice, the better prepared the players will be to put their well-honed skills into practice on match day.

VALUE IN VARIATION.

As we saw in chapter 2, player development may be best approached through exposing young people to a wide range of sports and activities, rather than getting them to specialise in one sport early on.

While evidence suggests that early specialisation in one sport has a clear link with success in competitive youth sports, there is no strong correlation with success in adult competition.

Studies into the development of elite athletes have revealed that many play multiple sports when younger, and many recognise the value of playing in streets, parks, family gardens and other more social venues during childhood and adolescence.

Excelling at one sport, while experiencing others, is valuable for the personal development of children, allowing them to enrich their social, psychological and emotional capabilities alongside their physical skills.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Learning and development occur over the medium to long term, while performance happens in the here and now.

• Performance is used as an indicator that learning and development is taking place.

• Measures of performance on young children may be skewed by both the Relative Age Effect and external influences.

• Learning and development are long-term processes that are nonlinear and unpredictable. Sporting potential can therefore only really be clearly estimated over the long term.

• Skill periodisation dictates that exploratory and innovative work should take place in pre-season and mid-season breaks, tapering off as match day approaches.

• Greater consolidation and stabilisation of skills work should be included in practice closer to competition time.

• As match day approaches, practice designs should be as representative as possible of match day conditions and context.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Otte, F.W., Millar, S.-K., & Klatt, S. (2019). Skill training periodization in ‘specialist’ sports coaching - An introduction of the ‘PoST’ framework for skill development. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living - Movement Science and Sport Psychology, 1(61), 1–17. doi:10.

Baker, J. (2022). The Tyranny of Talent: How it compels and limits athletic achievement… and why you should ignore it. Toronto, ON: Aberrant Press.

PERCEPTION-ACTION COUPLING.

Understanding the link between what we see and what we do can help us to develop more effective training programmes.

In simplistic terms, perception-action coupling is the link between the visual information we have available to us and the movements we make as a result. What we see and what we do are intertwined and create a feedback loop.

To give an example of this, a player who is facing a one-on-one situation with an opponent has a number of options: they can dribble past the player on the left or right side, pass the ball to a teammate, or shield the ball until more support is available. The player will decide on the most appropriate action based on what they can see around them or the ‘perception information’.

Let’s say they decide to dribble past their opponent and are successful in doing so. As a result of this action, the perception information available to them changes as they progress up the pitch; they can now see teammates and opponents in different positions, and the distance to the goal is shorter. This results in new opportunities for action, such as to pass to teammates, run into space or take a shot at goal.

While this might all seem pretty obvious, the idea of perception-action coupling can be useful in helping us to understand player behaviour on the pitch and to develop more effective training. We can examine how footballers are using the visual information available to them to guide their actions, and how their movements help them to pick up new visual information for decision making.

Importantly, players can develop their perception-action coupling by learning which key information to focus on for a relevant movement, while understanding what irrelevant information to avoid or disregard. Understanding and developing this coupling between what a footballer perceives and how they decide to act is important in transferring performance in practice to competition, and can help us to design more effective training.

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

Research has explored the link between perception and action in various sports and activities, including table tennis, one-handed catching, kicking footballs, and the long-jump run up. Evidence suggests that skilled behaviour is developed partly through this refinement of perception-action coupling.

In one recent example that is particularly relevant to football, Dicks and colleagues demonstrated how varying the amount of perception-action coupling can affect a goalkeeper’s perceptual and movement behaviours.

The researchers created five conditions for the study with varying amounts of perception-action coupling. These included a video simulation, whereby the goalkeeper simply had to judge verbally where a penalty would go (low perception-action coupling), a goal-mouth situation, where they had to motion with their arm where the ball would go (medium coupling), and responding to try to save the goal as they would in a game (high coupling).

During those tasks where perception and action were essentially decoupled, because the keeper could only respond verbally, they spent more time looking for information from the penalty-taker’s movements, and less time looking at the ball location.

However, the keeper spent the same amount of time focused on the penaltytaker’s movement and ball location in conditions where they had to actually move and save the penalty kick.

This research suggests that where practice design causes a disconnect between perception and action, footballers may learn to focus on information that is not as relevant during actual match play. In other words, practice design can alter perception-action coupling for footballers. Coaches should therefore look to support their athletes by developing practice with more advanced and elaborate perception-action coupling, which replicates performance conditions. Perception-Action Coupling

IN PRACTICE

Promoting appropriate perception-action coupling can best be achieved in practice by following some of the other principles outlined in this guide, such as representative design and repetition without repetition. For example, when practising set pieces such as free kicks, rather than using a series of static football mannequins in the wall, which alters both the perceptual information for the free kick taker and goalkeeper, these might be replaced with real defenders. This retains representative perception-action coupling of the complex environment. Using repetition without repetition, meanwhile, and taking the free kicks from different positions each time helps to strengthen this coupling.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Dicks, M., Button, C., & Davids, K. (2010). Examination of gaze behaviours under in situ and video simulation task constraints reveals differences in information pickup for perception and action. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 72, 706-720.

Lobo, L., Heras-Escribano, M., & Travieso, D. (2018). The history and philosophy of ecological psychology. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2228

WE MUST PERCEIVE IN ORDER TO MOVE, BUT WE MUST ALSO MOVE IN ORDER TO PERCEIVE.”

JAMES GIBSON ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGIST

COACHING COMPLEX SKILLS.

Research suggests that simplifying a complex skill in training may be more effective than breaking it down into manageable parts.

Conventional wisdom dictates that, when coaching a complex football skill like passing, shooting or dribbling, we should break it down into smaller components. These components are trained separately before being put together as one, hopefully improved, action. This approach is sometimes referred to as ‘task decomposition’ or the ‘part-whole’ method. The idea is that it reduces the task load on the athlete, enabling them to make sense of each element in isolation. As the individual skill parts are relatively simple to perform and can be perfected quickly, athletes tend to see improvements quickly.

For example, when coaching players to pass the ball correctly, a common way of decomposing the task is to ask them to stand in one spot and pass the ball in a straight line to one another. The components of receiving the ball and passing it with the same foot in a straight line involve little variation, and there are no other actions involved or decisions to be made about where to kick the ball.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

The problem is, as these techniques are not typically taught in a game context, a skill that seems to have been learned well in drills, such as dribbling around cones or shooting without defensive pressure, can start to look fragile when applied in a game situation. Researchers believe that this is because breaking techniques into sub-parts in practice drills removes key information, such as the positioning of teammates and defenders, or pitch markings. It breaks what we call the ‘information-movement loop’.

Theoretical and practical research suggests it may be more effective, therefore, to focus on simplifying tasks rather than breaking them up into drills. This allows athletes to maintain the links between the movements they are being taught and the information around them. This is known as ‘task simplification’, and one effective way to achieve it is to provide athletes with more time or space to perform a task.

Another potential problem with practising skills in isolated drills is that different movement patterns may be developed accidentally. Because task simplification doesn’t isolate skills learning from game play, it produces performances that better reflect what is required in a competitive game situation.

Finally, simplifying tasks gives players opportunities to self-regulate, to think, problem solve and make decisions for themselves, based on their assessment of the situation in hand and their own strengths and weaknesses.

IN PRACTICE

How, then, does task simplification work in practice? If we take the example of dribbling skills and agility, a conventional approach might be to set up a series of cones, line the players up and ask them to dribble from one end to the other, avoiding touching the cones. Coaches will often be heard telling their players to keep their heads up during drills like these, as there’s a tendency to focus on the feet, ball and cones. There is no game context to this practice; they’re just dribbling around static cones.

An alternative method of teaching dribbling skills would be to use a simplified version of a game. For example, we might give each player a ball, determine the playing area and instruct the players to dribble around it.

To add defensive pressure, opponents might be assigned to tag or steal the ball from the other players. This provides a more dynamic environment in which to learn to dribble, with specific intentions and an understanding of how to succeed in the game. Players need to be aware of what is around them while manipulating the ball, and they are encouraged to work out how to make it as difficult as possible for the opposition.

Using this example, the game can be made simpler or more complex by changing the number of taggers or the playing area, or adding more opponents or scoring zones that the ball has to be worked into.

What’s key here is that, by simplifying rather than decomposing the task, we ensure that key information-movement coupling is maintained. Players must keep their eyes up to detect and outmanoeuvre their opponents. Their physical movement and ball control is based on information from the body movement of the tagger or opponent, rather than static cones. Players are required to move with purpose, and it’s more engaging for them.

These types of simplified games, and others such as one-on-one dribbling, invite players to think beyond the specific technique being taught, and to focus on solving movement-based challenges, such as manipulating the ball into scoring positions, keeping possession until in a scoring position, or regaining possession.

COACHING COMPLEX SKILLS:

• Look to simplify, rather than break down, the skill.

• Make the practice environment more dynamic and less static.

• Allow athletes to develop the same type of information-movement coupling they would use in a match.

• Enable variability in practice. This encourages the athlete to solve movement problems related to the game, and prevents them from developing a solution based on non-relevant information that may not transfer to fully scaled-up action.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Barris, S., Davids, K., & Farrow, D. (2013). Representative learning design in springboard diving: Is dry-land training representative of a pool dive?. European Journal of Sport Science, 13(6), 638-645

Reid, M., Whiteside, D., & Elliott, B. (2010). Effect of skill decomposition on racquet and ball kinematics of the elite junior tennis serve. Sports Biomechanics, 9(4), 296-303.

INSTRUCTIONS & FEEDBACK.

Communicating verbally is perhaps the most obvious and most commonly used tool in the coach’s development toolkit. However, it’s important to understand when and how to use it to best effect.

Verbal instructions and feedback are widely accepted as being hugely important for coaches as a means of guiding players in practice. Using verbal information is therefore an important skill for a coach to develop and there are many questions around how best to use it. What, for example, is the aim of verbal feedback and what type of information should be given, and when? Should we use verbal communication alone, or is a mix of visual and verbal information more effective in coaching?

Traditional coaching methods have emphasised the importance of providing clear information during practice. The players memorise this information, internalising it to use when making decisions or performing skilled actions during competition. The focus for the coaches, then, is on telling players what to do, and how and when to do it. From this perspective, the clearer and more detailed the verbal information is, the more likely it is that the players will remember what to do on the field.

GUIDING VS DIRECTION

More modern approaches to coaching and teaching, however, focus on a different role of verbal communication. Rather than using instructions and feedback to direct players in what to do, they are used to stimulate, provoke, guide and encourage them to solve problems and make their own decisions. This approach stresses the importance of verbal instructions in helping players avoid becoming over-reliant on coaches for solutions and ideas.

Research over the past 50 years has emphasised the need for a clearer understanding of how best to use verbal instructions and feedback in teaching and coaching, and that includes when to give it. Studies have shown, for example, that feedback should not be delivered too soon after performing a skill in practice, in order to afford the athletes time to reflect on their performance. Delaying feedback encourages players to take control of their own learning process, rather than expecting the coach to step in and tell them what to do at all times.

Some coaches already deploy this strategy. Rather than interrupting training games and practice tasks to give feedback, they provide clear verbal instructions beforehand, and then limited instructions and feedback during change-over periods and water breaks. More detailed feedback and instructions can be provided in the period before the next training session, including video evidence from the previous session to back up their thinking.

Again, timing is important, because delaying feedback provision for too long can cause a problem when players are competing so regularly.

Use of feedback and instructions intermittently, and with short delays built in, are an essential part of the learning and development process in sport. In the heat of competition, it is often difficult for coaches to convey instructions to players onfield, so it’s important that players are coached to take responsibility and be prepared to address any challenges they face themselves.

That includes, for example, facing individual opponents in ‘duels’ and adapting to collective playing systems and sub-groups of opponents, such as a changing defensive line. This approach is not about players memorising tactical formations and positional changes as instructed by the coach. Rather, it recognises that players need to be highly adaptive, alert and focused on what’s happening around them on the pitch, communicating with the coaching staff during breaks in play, when possible.

The instructions and feedback given by the coaches therefore needs to support players in working together within a broad strategical plan to constantly adapt to the challenges that emerge during competition.

VISUAL AIDS

A mix of visual and verbal information can be helpful in encouraging players to look in the right places onfield for the information they need to make appropriate decisions. Visual information may also sometimes work better in demonstrating to the player what the verbal information of a coaching team is trying to convey. This is where the work of performance analysts becomes particularly important in football practice and preparation. Demonstrations need to be accurate, uncomplicated and clear to be useful, so a mix of visual and verbal information can help players to look in the right ‘ball park’ when searching for a performance solution. While pictures and video clips will never

replace the carefully chosen words of a coach to guide the athlete, they can be powerful in helping to bring these words to life.

The aim of instructions and feedback from a coach should not be to provide all the information needed for a player to solve a problem on the pitch. This would be an impossible task and would mentally overload the players. Instead, verbal information and instructions should be used to help players improve their onfield decision making and problem solving, provoking them to look for and find appropriate solutions to whatever events come their way during play.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Barris, S., Davids, K., & Farrow, D. (2013). Representative learning design in springboard diving: Is dry-land training representative of a pool dive?. European Journal of Sport Science, 13(6), 638-645

Reid, M., Whiteside, D., & Elliott, B. (2010). Effect of skill decomposition on racquet and ball kinematics of the elite junior tennis serve. Sports Biomechanics, 9(4), 296-303.

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS – 7 KEY POINTS:

1. Use words selectively to help players search for and find relevant information to support their performance, e.g., recognising and noticing little details in the opposition (which side of a defensive line is weaker; where gaps keep appearing; which teammate needs a little extra support; what the tactical intentions of an opposing player are; limitations of an opponent, and more).

2. Instructions and feedback help players pay attention to specific issues and problems during performance in practice and competition.

3. Verbal information can help players to understand what they might do to deal with challenges onfield.

4. Coaches should not be too quick to give instructions, especially in practice. Be patient and allow the learner some time to come up with a solution.

5. Likewise, allow players thinking time when posed questions. Don’t solve problems for them. It’s important that players develop this skill, instead of looking to the coach immediately for answers.

6. Ask players to respond to your questions with their actions in practice, not just through their verbal answers. ‘Don’t just tell me, show me’ should be the training motto.

7. Communication and interchanges between players, and between players and coaches, are needed at all times to ensure everyone is on the same page when it comes to performance.

VARIABILITY & ADAPTATION.

Building variability into training can encourage players to adapt to their situation and environment, and keep the opposition on their toes.

While the idea of variability was once thought to imply inconsistency, unreliability and error, research now shines a much more positive light on it. Variability in our movements is important in order that we can adapt to changes in our environment. It’s also an important part of life; we all have to adapt as our bodies change, due to ageing, illness or increases in expertise or skill.

Movement variability is observed in both novice and elite players, although for completely different reasons. What’s important for coaches is that they are able to recognise the difference. Novices will often display high amounts of coordination variability simply because they are less experienced and their skills are less stable. Elite footballers, meanwhile, will often show high levels of coordination variability because they are able to adapt in order to perform skilfully in fast-changing environments. In other words, their skills are more flexible. This is captured in the diagram opposite, in which the green line represents skilled players and the black line represents less-skilled players.

The key to understanding these differences is to look at the relationship between movement variability (promoting adaptations to changes in context) and the actual performance outcomes of less-skilled and more-skilled players.

STRIVING FOR ADAPTABILITY

Coaches need to understand the difference between variability in performing a movement and consistency in achieving a performance goal during play, such as finishing on target or heading the ball. This is a crucial distinction to make in skill acquisition.

Coaches and recruitment staff often look for players who have an ability to replicate a technique, beautifully and in the same way, time after time. Likewise, coaches may encourage players to aim for consistency in repeating a classic movement technique or a specific tactical pattern, a machine-like repeatability and reliability. There are, of course, occasions in football where such consistency is a distinct advantage. These include the capacity to play the same long pass accurately into a corner of the field, time and again, and taking a goal kick that lands in the half spaces midway in the opposition half.

LESS SUCCESSFUL

PERFORMANCE OUTCOME

MORE SUCCESSFUL

However, that doesn’t mean that repeatability of movement techniques should necessarily be regarded as the hallmark of a skilled player by coaches and teachers. Players must also be able to adapt to changes they perceive in their surroundings and situation.

Performance analytics can now be used by opposition coaches to reveal player preferences and the tricks they use in competition. Therefore, it is important for individuals and the team to be able to adapt their actions and reinvent how they do things. Indeed, research confirms that adapting to the dynamic performance environment in this way is an important characteristic of successful football players and teams.

IN PRACTICE

Such variation can be replicated in training by challenging players to achieve a consistent outcome, such as finishing a move, in many different ways. Repeating a task with varying contexts (manipulating space and distances) helps the players to constantly adapt their skills to changes in their environment and encourages consistent outcomes using varying movements.

Let’s take the example of trying to achieve consistency in getting a shot away when under defensive pressure. The coach might vary the starting distance, angle or location from goal. They might change the number of opponents the player is facing, the goal dimensions, or how the ball is fed into play, provoking players to use either their foot or head in finishing.

Another method is to encourage all players to be involved in attack, defence and transitions, at different times, during practice games. This requires players to adapt their skills and so builds flexibility into team performance. Players can still specialise in a particular role, but will be ready to get involved in different phases of play when needed by the team.

Performance analytics can highlight which foot a player prefers for crossing or shooting, then practice tasks and programmes can force them out of their comfort zone, encouraging them to use both feet when defending, passing, shooting, controlling the ball and changing direction.

This type of adaptation can be promoted from early on in a player’s development, and ultimately produces better players. An economic analysis of player salaries in the top five leagues of Europe found that dexterity and flexibility in switching between feet when performing important skills added considerable value to players’ salaries in football markets. Two-footed players were found to be, in general, more adaptable and therefore to command higher salaries.

Having shaken off its negative connotations, it is now variability and not consistency that should be considered the hallmark of a skilled player. Players trained to adapt their skills and vary their approach are more likely to confound the opposition and respond positively to whatever comes their way during a match.

ACTION POINT:

Design tasks that encourage players to use a skill repeatedly, but within a diverse range of contexts. The relationship between variability and stability of conditions in this practice design is captured in the term ‘repetition without repetition’. Varying distances, angles, pressure and opponents, or getting players to play out of their normal positions, can all help to build skill variability.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Bryson, A., Frick, B & Simmons, R. (2009). Centre for Performance Excellence Report no. 948 (funded by the Economics and Social Research Council), London School of Economics and Political Science.

He, Q., Araújo, D., Davids, K. Hwa Kee, Y. & Komar, J. (2023). Functional adaptability in playing style: A key determinant of competitive football performance. Adaptive Behavior: DOI: 10.1177/10597123231178942

IT IS POSSIBLE THAT HIGHPERFORMING TEAMS ARE CAPABLE OF FUNCTIONALLY

SWITCHING

BETWEEN PLAYING STYLE REACTIVITY AND IMPOSITION, DEPENDING ON MATCH DYNAMICS.” HE, ARAÚJO, DAVIDS, HWA KEE & KOMAR

REPETITION WITHOUT REPETITION.

Simply repeating a technique in isolation can’t adequately prepare a player for the complexities of a football match. Training with context is essential to develop onfield decision making and adaptive actions.

Research shows that the players who perform most successfully in challenging performance environments are those who can make decisions and solve problems quickly and accurately under pressure.

Because football is such a dynamic and competitive environment, the conditions and contexts of performance are always changing. For example, players have to perform under different weather conditions, on different surfaces and against teams with their own distinct strengths and weaknesses. To do this, they need to use a wide variety of tactical formats and styles.

The question for coaches, then, is how they can help their players adapt their skills to this rich variety of contexts. The answer comes in the form of what is known as ‘repetition without repetition’, whereby skills and movements are not practised in isolated conditions, but against a changing backdrop that more closely represents what players might experience on match day.

As coaches and managers know, players don’t have the time or space during a game to perform movements in isolation. There is always a performance backdrop to consider, and each will present its own problems for players. For example, during a match, players will find themselves confronted by opposing players and will have certain teammates available for support, in specific spaces and areas of the field. What’s more, players rarely have the luxury of running in straight lines, so they have to bend their runs, stop and start, and change direction at different speeds, with or without the ball.

It is this backdrop that provides the information that players need to perform at their best, guiding their decision making, skill performance and problem solving. For this reason, the information that provides the background context for practice tasks needs to be similar to what they might find and use during a competitive match.

CREATING THE BACKDROP

Practice tasks should closely reflect the different scenarios that players will come across. No amount of cones, neat squares and line markings can provide the same contextual information that players will need to solve performance problems and make decisions during play.

Consider a player receiving a pass from a teammate. How they receive the ball and what they do next will always be shaped by a huge variety of factors: where is the nearest opponent, and the nearest team-mate? What is the current score and how much time is left on the clock? While these important considerations are not front and foremost in the minds of players all the time during play, they can help to inform their immediate decision making (i.e., what they decide to do next with the ball).

Coaches, therefore, need to think about how players might be challenged to respond to these questions with their football actions. Simply repeating and rehearsing a movement technique or a pattern of play without any context or pressure - in the form of time, space, other players, or a particular goal, for example - won’t help players in their decision making and problem solving on the field. Playing a long ball, for example, can be rehearsed in isolated practice. However, this repetition doesn’t help players learn to find different ways to perform a long pass in different contexts, according to the positioning of their opponents or need to complete the pass quickly.

Players can better learn to adapt their game skills in practice tasks that emphasise repetition without repetition. These sorts of practice tasks can be changed and altered by modifying information from the performance environment. For example, you might add in a team-mate’s run from midfield (changing the angle regularly) into the area behind a defender, or make the target space for the long pass larger or smaller.

Small-sided and conditioned games are ideal for helping players learn how to use information to solve problems and make successful decisions at high speed. Coaches can put their own spin on these games by changing the rules, the shape and dimensions of the playing area, and the numbers involved. This constantly challenges players to adapt to their dynamic context.

ACTION POINT:

Aim to design practice sessions that resemble a competition scenario. Consider the ‘backdrop’ to the session – the information that is available to the players and the challenges they are faced with. Tweak this backdrop each session to develop the players’ ability to perform their skills and make decisions under a range of conditions. Help players to repeat the solving of movement problems, finding varied solutions, not just a technique.

READ THE RESEARCH:

He, Q., Araújo, D., Davids, K. Hwa Kee, Y. & Komar, J. (2023). Functional adaptability in playing style: A key determinant of competitive football performance. Adaptive Behavior:

Champion, L., Middleton, K. & MacMahon, C. Many Pieces to the Puzzle: A New Holistic Workload Approach to Designing Practice in Sports. Sports MedOpen 9, 38 (2023).

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-023-00575-7

Davids, K., Araújo, D., Correia, V. & Vilar, L. (2013). How small-sided and conditioned games enhance acquisition of movement and decision making skills. Exercise and Sport Science Reviews 41, 154-161.

TEAMMATES ARE ATTUNED TO INFORMATION ON OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION FOR OTHER PLAYERS, ESTABLISHING THE BASIS OF TEAMWORK.” DAVIDS, ARAÚJO, CORREIA & VILAR

SCANNING.

In the dynamic sport of football, the adage ‘keep your eye on the ball’ doesn’t always apply. Research shows that scanning can offer a considerable performance advantage.

Scanning, more formally known as ‘visual exploratory activity’ (VEA), is where players look away from the ball or use their peripheral vision purposefully to check the position of teammates, opponents or other objects (e.g., goalposts or cones). This valuable snapshot of what’s going on around them helps them to decide on their subsequent response on the ball.

With practice, a player can learn to position his or her body and head subtly when receiving a pass, or look away from the ball when dribbling, to scan more effectively for this valuable information. The best players use this scanning behaviour to buy time in congested areas of the field or in tricky situations.

We tend to see examples of scanning most commonly when players are under time pressure and need to explore the surrounding environment quickly before they act, in the same way that a cyclist might check for hazards before turning off a busy road.

For example, when facing their own goal on the edge of the 18-yard box, defensive midfielders will typically engage in scanning just before they receive the ball to check for any immediate opponent pressure or opportunities to turn with the ball. Equally, they might look to find available teammates to pass the ball to if pressure is imminent.

A DEMONSTRABLE EFFECT

In football, studies suggest that both the frequency and timing of scans affect how well players can recognise opportunities to play the ball (known as ‘affordances’). In particular, analysis of player performance in the Premier League and in male youth tournaments in Europe have found links between a higher frequency of scanning and increased performance on the ball. Findings suggest that, by scanning more often, players have more information to act on, and therefore become more attuned to affordances in their environment.

The timing of scans and other game-related factors are also important. Analysis of different roles in match situations reveals that, in the 10 seconds prior to receiving the ball, central defenders and central midfielders generally record higher scanning frequencies than wide players or forwards, likely due to positional demands.

Players under more opponent pressure in tight situations, such as where an opponent is less than three metres away, typically engage in less scanning

prior to receiving the ball. This might be because they need to locate the ball precisely under pressure, and so not take their eyes off it.

Engaging in scanning can, however, help players to find space and reduce the pressure they face from opponents when they receive the ball. Analysis of a recent European women’s football tournament showed that pitch location when receiving the ball is linked to scan frequency, with higher frequency of scanning found among players in central defensive midfield locations.

IN PRACTICE

For coaches and their multi-disciplinary teams, the first step is to recognise just how important these factors can be for player behaviour and performance. The challenge then is to design training activities that develop effective scanning behaviours. For example, in one academy U18 team, a six-week training intervention, using video analysis and imagery scripts, successfully increased the scanning frequency of its central midfielders.

While ‘off the grass’ interventions such as this can increase player knowledge about the importance of scanning, there is also a need for onfield practice activities to couple scanning to actions on the ball. Designing game constraints in training that encourage players to search for game-relevant information, such as the position of teammates, opponents and space, needs to start early in players’ development.

For example, coaches might design small-sided games that encourage players to receive the ball, turn with the ball under pressure and scan for appropriate actions to release the ball. Doing so will help to avoid players developing bad habits, such as engaging in unnecessary ball watching. Scanning can be tiring and disorienting at times, so timing scans can save energy and help players maintain focus. Experiences in dynamic practice games can support players in coupling scanning to actions with the ball, at the right moment and in relevant contexts.

ACTION POINT:

Designing off-field practice on scanning skills, using tools such as video analysis and imagery, as well as onfield training that encourages players to link scanning to actions on the ball, can help players both understand the importance of scanning and put it into practice more effectively.

READ THE RESEARCH:

Aksum, K. M., Pokolm, M., Bjørndal, C. T., Rein, R., Memmert, D., & Jordet, G. (2021). Scanning activity in elite youth football players. Journal of Sports Sciences, 39(21), 2401-2410.

Eldridge, D., Pocock, C., Pulling, C., Kearney, P., & Dicks, M. (2023). Visual exploratory activity and practice design: Perceptions of experienced coaches in professional football academies. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 18(2), 370-381.

Pocock, C., Dicks, M., Thelwell, R. C., Chapman, M., & Barker, J. B. (2019). Using an imagery intervention to train visual exploratory activity in elite academy football players. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 31(2), 218-234.

SCANNING:

A BODY AND/OR HEAD

MOVEMENT IN WHICH THE PLAYER’S FACE IS ACTIVELY AND TEMPORARILY DIRECTED AWAY FROM THE BALL, TO LOOK FOR TEAMMATES OR OPPONENTS.

TECHNOLOGY & PRACTICE.

Some of the key principles of skill acquisition can help to guide coaches in making the most of technology in training and practice.

Technology now plays an important part in the football industry, and there’s no shortage of products and tools aimed not only at enhancing the performance of players, but also that of coaches, managers and support staff.

With new innovations released at a rapid rate, clubs will often seek out the latest technology in an effort to gain a competitive edge. However, with so much choice, new technological concepts to take on board, and aggressive marketing campaigns, it can be hard to know how best to invest. Where in the performance pathway might that investment reap most rewards and how might the technology be integrated into everyday practice? Before we seek to answer some of these questions, let’s look at the common types of technology currently used in football.

Video has been used by coaches to review performances for decades, but even this more basic technology has changed considerably over the years. Whereas athletes once had to wait while their coaches fast-forwarded and rewound the tape, searching for key points in the game, today there are multiple recording and feedback options, and relevant information can be sought at the click of a button.

Today, however, video is just the tip of the iceberg. McCosker and colleagues summarised the main types of technology currently on offer to support coaching and athlete learning as those opposite:

1. Modified equipment and training machinery

Examples:

• Stroboscopic visual devices

• Gaze behaviour registration technology/eye movement monitoring

• Technically modified balls

• Robotic (football) training machines (e.g., the Footbonaut)

• VR-based training systems

2. Physical management/tracking technology

Examples:

• Heart-rate monitors

• Global positioning systems

• Local positioning systems

• Accelerometers

• Platforms (e.g., Openfield, SAP Sports One and Kitman Labs)

3. Performance analysis technology

Examples:

• Video-based analysis and feedback software (e.g., Hudl Sportscode, NacSport and Dartfish)

• Graphic video enhancement software (e.g., Coach Paint or KilpDraw)

• Data-driven recruitment and scouting platforms (e.g., Wyscout or Statsbomb)

WHICH TO GO FOR?

It isn’t always easy for a club and its coaches to determine whether a particular technology is worth the time, money and effort involved in its implementation. However, considering some of the key principles discussed in this guide, such as ecological dynamics, can help to guide these important decisions.

To this end, the below checklist may be useful in determining whether a technology would be effective in improving or enhancing your practice (refer to the respective chapter to read more about why each item is important). Context is particularly important here, so whether you tick a box will depend on what outcome you want from your players.

Use of the technology:

Promotes a representative practice design. (Chapter 1)

Allows functional perception and action coupling to be maintained. (Chapter 10)

Accounts for individual differences across timescales. (Chapter 9)

Promotes individual movement solutions. (Chapter 13)

Promotes ‘adaptive functional variability’ so that players are challenged to continually adapt their actions, individually and collectively, to changing environments. (Chapter 14)

Enhances an ‘affective learning design’, allowing training to be designed so that players are given opportunities to regulate their emotions in action. (Chapter 10)

Promotes task simplification over decomposition. (Chapter 11)

Promotes repetition without repetition. (Chapter 14)

Using technology, coaches can feed their players with more information during practice, supporting their decision making and helping them to respond to situations appropriately. Technology can also aid coaches in the design of representative practice tasks, in the analysis of competition demands, which again enhances future practice interventions, and in skills assessments.

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

Coaches do, however, need to consider carefully whether there is a real learning advantage for their athletes in training with a technology. While technology can be an excellent tool to provide feedback to coaches and players, for example, more information is not always better for learning or motivation. As McCosker and colleagues point out, poor use of technology can result in negative effects, including enhanced ‘explicit instruction’, and too much ‘control and surveillance’ of athletes.

• Explicit instructions: When coaches include video feedback and prescribe a way of moving or acting explicitly, it can discourage athletes from looking for their own solutions to the situations they face.

• Control and surveillance: With the huge quantity and range of data available, athletes risk sensing that they’re under ‘dataveillance’. If this is not managed well, it can lead to them feeling a lack of control. For example, wearable GPS technologies are often worn during training and competition to monitor athlete load, but this may result in athletes looking to hit those targets, rather than focusing on the specific training or game requirements at that time.

THEORY GUIDING PRACTICE

With the sport technology market set to grow further, the choice facing coaches and practitioners looking to enhance their athlete’s preparation and performance is likely to get more complex. Using a theoretical framework to evaluate the use of such technologies will, therefore, become even more important.

As we have seen throughout this guide, learning develops as a result of the interacting constraints between the athlete and his or her environment. That learning environment should be designed to promote relevant possibilities or opportunities for action (i.e. affordances) and to encourage athletes to become more adaptative and to respond in the right way.

With this in mind, the aim of implementing technology should not be to enable the rehearsal and repetition of a technical action, but rather to enhance the athlete’s ability to interact with the information around them. This information should be designed into practice environments in such a way that players are constantly searching and exploiting opportunities to act, and producing stable, yet adaptable actions.

What’s key here is that we view the coach as a learning facilitator and move away from a one-size-fits-all approach. Using technology in this way will support learning and promote the active engagement of athletes in the learning process.

READ THE RESEARCH:

McCosker, C., Otte, F., Rothwell, M., & Davids, K. (2022). Principles for technology use in athlete support across the skill level continuum. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 17(2), 437-444.

DATAVEILLANCE:

THE PROCESS OF MONITORING OR PROFILING SOMEONE BY STUDYING THEIR DATA TRAIL, RATHER THAN BY LISTENING TO, OR VIEWING, THEIR ACTIVITIES.