Short, practical pieces for anyone coaching kids: what to do on Tuesday, what to say on Saturday and what to stop worrying about entirely.
Nobody has ever become a better footballer by jogging round a pitch. What to do with the first ten minutes instead, and why the ball goes out before the cones do.
Half-term, flu season, a birthday party. Every coach gets the Tuesday where five children arrive for a session planned for fourteen. Here is how to make it the best session of the month.
Every goal has a witness standing in the middle of it. Why goalkeeping is emotionally unlike any other position a child can play, and what to do in the week after a bad day.
Wet, dark, cold and half the squad is thinking about going home. Winter sessions need a different plan, not a shorter one.
Most grassroots coaches never get a full pitch to themselves. Planning for a cramped quarter of a field is a skill, and it is mostly about geometry.
The modern goalkeeper touches the ball with their feet far more than their gloves. How to train a young keeper who can pass, receive and stay calm - without terrifying them first.
You do not need a twelve-week periodised curriculum. You need four blocks, one theme each, and the discipline to stay on the theme for longer than you want to.
In youth squads across Europe, players born in the first three months of the selection year are wildly over-represented. What that means for how you judge an eleven-year-old.
Eleven kids, three minutes, one adult who is annoyed. The half-time talk is the easiest thing in youth football to get badly wrong.
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