A Discussion About Challenging and Supporting Young Players

After a week of player reviews it’s led to some contemplation and discussion about what’s the best approach to take with young players. Do we critique, challenge and push, or support and boost their ego’s? Let’s discuss.

In the Academy system there a parent player review meetings, usually twice a year, like a parents evening at school, where the players development is discussed and reviewed. A discussion takes place between coach, player and parent and usually an action plan is agreed to develop to the next review. Unfortunately a player may be released during these meetings.

In the EPPP world of Academies there are some who critique the constant review procedure, believe it takes away the players creativity and freedom. Every six weeks (module) the players are often reviewed and their performance and developed assessed. Criticism of Academies can be aimed at the set up of curriculums, modules and annual plans for individuals whose development pathway are not linear and not generic. Each individual has their own plan, path and needs – so planning needs to be more micro and not macro. How we do know what a player needs 9 months away? 

What is most important surely is the development of the individual player. Individual Development Plans (IDP’s) or Individual Learning Plans (many different versions of the same thing) are effectively a players own plan for their own development. This is a positive step towards helping each player develop to their own needs. 

We look to develop these IDP’s with the player in a discussion at the beginning of each season – what are your key strengths and what do you need to improve on to get better. Every player has flaws and strengths (except for perhaps Messi), the hope is that a coaching programme can help develop each of these areas. Focusing on a players strengths is an important part of a players development; too often coaches are critics of their players, focusing on what they can’t do and not seeing what they offer and ‘can do’. We see it in the criticism of players like Mesut Ozil, focusing on his ‘flaws’ and not seeing the brilliance he offers. 

Surely that is our role as youth developers, that we seek to improve and develop the players we work with? Isn’t that our key role? Not winning games or trophies, but taking a genuine desire and interest in helping each player to improve? Developing a players IDP must be seen as a holistic process, as players will be stronger/weaker in certain elements of Technical, Tactical, Psycho-Social, Physical. 

The key areas for a players development tends to be focusing on the pysch-social elements; confidence, self-belief, mindset, resilience, decision making and many more. We see many players suffer due to their physicality, mainly due to their maturation during puberty, some players are bigger early, some develop ‘later’. Early developers tend to get more advantages and opportunities early due to their physical attributes, but often suffer due to a lack of focus on their technical and tactical development due to being able to ‘deal’ with the game due to their physical strengths. This is a sad indictment of coaches who don’t see the need to improve these early developers. And as they are ‘caught up’ their flaws are exposed and the time which could have been spent working on these players all-round/holistic development has left them without the tools and skill-set to perform as they get older. 

The opposite tends to happen to the late developers, they tend to excel in the Tech and Tact areas due to their need to ‘survive’ in a world of size, strength and speed. They have to possess the skills and game intelligence needed to perform. And as they grow they become stronger and faster, and with the skills and intelligence required. Unfortunately many clubs don’t give these individuals the time to ‘grow’ and are abandoned too early. The picture used for this article is of Morgan Gibbs-White who is a great example of what happens when an Academy and 1st team manager trust their coaching and the players long term development. He is now a regular 1st team Premier League player. 

The irony is that if you put together a list of the worlds best players, most of them are between 5’5 and 5’10. But too many coaches and decision makers believe size matters and small players suffer. In both cases, early and late, as well as the situation with all players, there is not enough work which happens to help the players to truly develop their all-round game. 

Sessions aren’t focused enough on the individuals, or the players don’t take advantage of extra work which focuses on ‘them’. A forward should be taking 200 shots minimum a week to develop their game, but that doesn’t happen in sessions – so they need to do extra, or Academies need to provide tailored sessions to help the individuals. If players are helped to develop their own IDP’s, provided a plan and a strategy to improve, if it is seen as fundamental to their progression and development, then surely it will help each player get significantly better? 

The key is that player/parent/coach need to plan properly to maximise practice time, while not overloading the body leading to injury, fatigue and burn out. I believe that these plans should be viewed like an Olympic style 4 year programme; having a clear objective and vision and a long term plan to achieve the individuals personal development. Unfortunately the Academy system often feels too focused around 9 month, 1 season plans, and players aren’t provided a longer term plan. So each year it feels as though it is ‘new start’ instead of a continuation. Even at scholar age 16-18 it feels like 18 months to 2 years, but why shouldn’t it be 16-20 years? And with that a proper plan in place to achieve the outcomes? It all just feels like we limit the time needed to truly help a players development, and then make the decision half way through to abandon the plan and let a player who you’ve invested time in to leave. It feels like short termism when you’re in a long termism world. And unfortunately too many fall away because of this thinking.

The Role of the Coach - A Limiter or a Developer?

As well as the issue of investment of time, IDP’s and long term focus, there is the issue of the role of the coach in all of this. Although the parent is the main protagonist for a player, they have most contact with them and perhaps the most influence, often the players as they become older become more focused on the feedback and perception they have with their peers and their coach. The role of the coach is therefore fundamental for a player. It is often through a bias that a player either excels or regresses when working with a coach. 

In terms of coaches philosophy and personality a player either ‘fits’ in to what the coach wants or ‘lacks’ the skills needed. Too often coaches and Academy ‘philosophies’ base their judgements on what they want and expect, more than what the player needs or who they are. It is why I feel that many Academies recruit and retain players who often resemble the staff, their personality and culture, and why many players suffer because they are ‘different’. The irony of this being that when Academies review their players and recruitment they often argue that they don’t have enough ‘variety’, ‘difference’ or ‘mavericks’, without considering that perhaps it is their own culture and restrictions which deny this type of player to emerge and progress. 

Therefore a coaches role, the culture he/she creates and the way they communicate is essential for a players development, either good or bad. Unconscious bias is a strong factor which many don’t think about, reflect on or are self-critical enough to consider if their own bias’ are effecting the development of the players they have. Look at the situation with Raheem Sterling and the fallout about subconscious racial bias.

The reason I wanted to write this article was to discuss coaching communication and the way players are ‘coached’. I believe that the coaching community has moved on from the authoritarian, negative and angry coach. The command only coach who shouts, screams and complains more than talks, educates and supports his players is becoming phased out. So many players have been ruined for this approach of negativity and the belief in ‘hardening’ players up. Unfortunately we are seeing more stories emerge of ‘bullying’ which happened within Academies in recent decades. 

It certainly feels this is changing, which is good, young players should be challenged yet there is no need to bully a young player. It is unnecessary and not conducive for positive development. It tends to create scared players who will do what is asked out of fear and who may perform but never to the level they could if they weren’t restricted. It’s where you get ‘safe’ football which doesn’t take risks and thus limits the development of young players, for what outcome, a winning result? But what about the players development, is this enhanced? We need to create better environments which challenge and develop the players, where they can be creative, take risks and make mistakes. If you can’t do that at a young age then when can you do it?

Over-praising and creating fixed mindsets
But, and this is the big but of this article, don’t go the other way, don’t over praise, don’t be so overly positive that you, the player and their parents lose a sense of perspective and reality. In the reviews I've been in I’ve heard coaches talk about their players as though they have no flaws, that they are “excellent”, “amazing” etc etc. I love positivity, I love building confidence, but be conscious of creating a problem for the player. Creating a strong and positive relationship with a young player is essential, today's youngsters need to feel respected, valued and a loved. You won't achieve much without building a strong bond. However don't abuse it, don't just praise and hype a player without being honest, fair and asking for more. 

At first team level you may be the type of man-manager who makes his players feel like a million dollars, you need them to perform for the team, you need the three points. Boosting ego and confidence at this level is different with a different outcome. It is a short term focus which is about winning games. The best coaches are able to blend developing players long term with short term success and performance. But at young levels the role of youth coach is not just about coaching to win, it is about educating, nurturing and developing young players. 

By over-doing the positves and making players feel they are ‘great’ the coach is actually doing a dis-service to the long term development of a player. By overly praising and neglecting the ‘flaws; by not focusing on what the player needs to improve on, we are actually hampering their development. We should want to create players who are desperate to keep improving, to be great workers who are relentless, who want to keep finding improvements in their all-round game to get a further edge, to refine techniques, to develop as much of their game as they can. By telling them they are ‘great’ can stop that. 

Regardless of whether growth/fixed mindset is valid or not the idea behind it makes sense in that if we communicate too much with praise and make players feel they don’t need to improve further, we create a fixed mindset in a player where any talk of further development becomes seen as a criticism, rather than a chance to improve further. I’ve witnessed a mentality in players where they feel as though they don’t need to learn or develop further, and this is often because a coach has given them too many positives. In the same way that negative coaches restrict players, the overly positive coach has the same effect. 

What we need in youth coaching is a balance, a culture of constant support and demand, a place to improve strengths and focus on areas of development which may be lacking. Creating an environment where development is at the forefront of the coaching and where players remain humble about where they are and what they need to improve on, is important for successful development. 

Our role is different to senior level, where results do truly matter. Although I love those clubs who seek to genuinely want to develop players in the senior game, coaches like Eddie Howe and Pochettino are excellent at this. While we believe that we are helping players by ‘bigging them up’, we are actually mis-leading and actually being unfair to them. 

By all means be positive and supportive, we want confident players who are creative, but don’t limit them, push them further, ask for more and help them get there. Above all our role is to produce the best players and people that we can, not every player can become a professional, but we can produce a higher number of quality players and people, who are creative and who understand the need for continued improvement and development. If we produce this type of individual, then we’ve helped to succeed in life. Enjoy the challenge of being their mentor, be their champion, see their strengths and push them further than they could have gone without you. Just don't limit them. 

The Whitehouse Address @The_W_Address