Supporting their child Encouraging their child Helping their child Forget obsessing over results, a missed shot at goal or trying to manage each and every minute of a game they are playing. Reframe it all and start obsessing over what you can do to maximise their enjoyment. They and you will get some much more out of junior football ..read more

Some good news to share – Annie is now an official Trainee Foot-Tech Coach Annie started with us a player a good few years ago and has been volunteering at our sessions working alongside our coaches on Monday nights. She’s been there week-in week-out for a long time helping with our youngest players and she’s more than earned her call up to the big leagues! She’s still playing (and is very good!), knows the Foot-Tech way and we look forward to helping her progress with her coaching. We need more female coaches in football so we’re really pleased that she wants to take her experience to the ne ..read more

Coaches, this is a good reference to use with your players when talking about supporting a player in possession. Very simple and easy to understand for younger footballers ..read more

If your child is still playing football when they’re an adult – you’ve won. Redefine what success looks like. Make enjoyment the foundation of your approach to being a football parent ..read more

Had a chat a while ago with a Dad about the Beckham documentary. Main thing was about how hard his dad seemed to be on him when he was a junior player. Now, this wasn’t him saying he felt it was too much or a bad thing. It was more him thinking ‘do I need to be harder on my child to help their football’. And this is something that so many get wrong. What was clear from the doc was Beckham had ‘it’. He was born with something that gave him the edge in football. Not only that, he also had the obsession. He wanted to be out playing all the time and absolutely loved football. This is the perfect c ..read more

Training like this is good for reps & can boost confidence but it’s realistic reps that make the difference come game-day. It’s great to see kids slamming it in the top corner on social media during 121 training but it only counts when they can do it with defenders and a GK to deal with. It also comes down to what other football training a child is doing. Take Annabelle here. She does group training minimum 3 times per week plus 1-2 matches. A 121 every so often is a good addition as she already gets plenty of ‘real’ football training. 121’s can help with those little extras. She moved to ..read more

Coaches, should we stop the 2 touch rule at kids training? BIG debate at Foot-Tech HQ last week… Plenty of us have used the 2 touch rule in our sessions and most of us are (were) big fans of it. But, is it actually good for kids when it comes to football development? By insisting that kids play 1 or 2 touches we coaches have just removed a massive layer of decision-making. WE have made the decision for the players. We’ve insisted they take 1 or 2 touches when, in reality, what if 3 or more touches was the best decision? What if the player has a bad 1st touch and needs 2 more to correct it? Wou ..read more

As parents, we want nothing but the best for our children, especially when it comes to their interests and passions. But in the world of youth football, how do we strike the right balance between nurturing our kids’ love for the game and inadvertently pressuring them to excel? How do we know if they’re obsessed or we’re obsessed for them? In our latest podcast episode we discuss what warning signs to watch out for to understand if you’re pushing to hard and how best we can support our children to nurture that passion and obsession for football themselves. Search Shouting From The Sidelines whe ..read more

We often hear groans from football parents about their child’s grassroots manager. Some of it is very justified i.e. their child is always sub, the manager doesn’t speak to kids in the right way, they are in massive lines at training etc. But sometimes we hear things where we think, this manager sounds like he/she is trying to do the right things but this parent doesn’t seem to understand. And this is why communication is so important whether that be to individual parents or a group meeting at the start of a season to set out your approach and how things will run. This doesn’t mean managers ne ..read more

Big news for Luke L… A massive congratulations to Luke L who has had his coaching role expanded at Leeds United. Luke has worked in the pre-academy at Leeds for a while but will now be combining that with a role with the u13’s & u14’s. We’re really pleased for him. He’s someone we rate very highly and think he will go far in the game. His knowledge is brilliant but he also has the right approach with the kids he works with and gets a lot from them. Unfortunately, it’ll mean he won’t be at our weekly sessions as much But, you’ll still see him coaching at most of our camps Well done, Luke ..read more