To become a more knowledgeable football coach, here are some tips to consider: Keep learning: Stay updated with the latest trends, tactics, and techniques in football coaching. Attend coaching courses, seminars, and conferences to learn from other coaches and experts in the field. Read books and watch videos about coaching, strategy, and player development. Analyse matches: Analysing matches can provide valuable insights into team performance, strengths, and weaknesses. Watch professional matches and analyse the tactics, player movements, and strategy of different teams. Use technology: Tech ..read more

Going abroad to coach football can provide many benefits, both personally and professionally. Here are some of the advantages: Cultural exchange: Coaching football abroad allows you to experience new cultures and customs, and to learn from people with different perspectives and backgrounds. This can broaden your horizons and give you a more global perspective. Language skills: Living and coaching abroad can provide an excellent opportunity to learn a new language or improve your existing language skills. This can be a valuable asset in the football industry, where communication with players ..read more

Over the next few weeks, we'll be asking Chat GPT to write some articles. This is more out of curiosity and exploration rather than proving any specific hypothesis. Some of the questions I have are; Can AI assistance help? Will it make humans lazier and less creative? Does AI get to the point quicker when humans are prone to waffling? Is most of the advice coaches give generic and unhelpful? If AI gives better advice, will this make coaches obsolete? In what ways can AI take over some of the coaching responsibilities? What implications does AI have for coach education? Perhaps we'll think o ..read more

This article was written by Rob Ellis. I am a 44-year-old ex semi-professional footballer. I have played football for as long as I can remember and I currently play in a recreational 8-a-side league. In my career, I have played in well over 1000 competitive matches and taken part in even more training sessions. I have experienced many physical and performance related changes on the football field. I can still remember how it feels to be an 8 year old, a teenager, in my prime (early to late 20s) and an older competitive player (30-35). I do not need reminding of what it feels like to be a 44-y ..read more

While trying to unwind, and let my mind turn to mush in the few weeks off between games and training that I have over the Christmas period, I was mindlessly scrolling social media, not a care in the world, and I came across this video on Instagram. It caused me to tweet; "This kind of thing is too complicated and rarely works in real competition. Please stop teaching it." https://video.wixstatic.com/video/e7de1a_72d7c72ad1bc4f179decc3809c50a2e8/480p/mp4/file.mp4 Social media is full of clips like these, and you may think it does no harm. It's just honest people trying to help others, and bring ..read more

The BFCN Tournament Builder is an excellent downloadable PDF that coaches can use to enhance the engagement, fun, ownership, and learning of your players. And the best thing about it is that it is free! Sometimes it's great to just play games. It's all they want to do anyway. But is there a way to make games more beneficial, rather than simply throwing a ball in there for the match at the end? Kids love to use their imaginations, which are powerful tools, so let's play on that! They like to emulate their favourite teams and players. That's why they buy replica shirts and play FIFA. We can bri ..read more

Are you prepared to suffer? Are you willing to lose? Are you ready to endure the pain? You're going to have to risk it all, and if you're not okay with failure, you don't want to win enough. This is me, ten years ago, during my first coaching job abroad in Canada. For those who don't know me, you need to know that this picture is incredibly sarcastic. I was giggling just seconds before, and cracked up immediately after. I spent a summer working at Disney World in Florida, so I'm more than familiar with the believe in yourself type quotes. These quotes were all over the walls of family homes t ..read more

We know that communication in football is key for players and coaches both on and off the pitch. Coaches at all levels have the common saying (along the lines of): “we’ve got to talk more”. Well how important is it and how you can encourage it from an early age? From the coach's perspective, sometimes talking less, is more. Too much information can affect game play and decision making so ensure you communicate effectively - be punctual and informative in your message. How can you recognise your current communication? Film yourself/record your coaching and look out for your communication. Do y ..read more

Are you looking for session plans that cover a range of topics? Does your club need a methodology or curriculum? Would it be great if all teams and coaches at your club or organisation were all working together and pulling in the same direction? The BFCN Club Curriculum 120 page PDF that includes a curriculum and methodology for an entire club. It covers fun games for young players, 5v5, 7v7, 9v9, 11v11, goalkeeping, and futsal. Each one has several topics, and within those topics you will find; suggested exercises, full session plans, learning objectives, questions to check for learning, coa ..read more

In this article, we’re going to look at some of the basic fundamental concepts that should be included within rondos. Rondos as an exercise receive a lot of criticism from coaches that I don’t believe understand what they are or how they should work. If your complaints are that rondos are not realistic, because there is no realism via direction, transition, space, distances and angles, or whatever else, then it’s your fault for not including them in there. A rondo is like pizza. The concept is the same, but the toppings are your choice. So in this video, I’m going to talk about a couple thing ..read more