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On this week's Play Development Project Podcast, we answer a question from our community. Hi everyone, my name is Dave Wright and welcome to another Play Development Project Q&A. The latest we joined as usual by PDP Technical Advisor Dan Wright. Dan, how are you?
Good, thank you mate. How are you? I'm here with the community question and it's come in via Twitter from Elliot. And Elliot said, how to coaches structure sessions?
Is it using a technical warm-up, arrival activities? He's talked about opposed versus unopposed and he said, look, I know it depends on the topic, but we'd love to hear some examples around typical sessions. So Dan, what are your first thoughts around this one? That's another big question, isn't it?
I think I'm aware to start. I think the context of you and your team and your players, I think, is probably the place that we should start. So it would depend for me on the individuals in the group and it would depend on how many training sessions maybe we had a week and then maybe on what day you're going to focus on what. So if you're fortunate to have three or four sessions in a week, how you manage the physical outcomes in relation to the game and then in different sessions or different times of the week, you might focus on team stuff or curriculum stuff or individual stuff.
That'd be my snapshot answer. How about for you? Yeah, I think it's a good place to start. I mean, if we take the first part of the question in terms of the structure of sessions in a traditional sense through coach education, perhaps we've been talking about the ideas of way practices or technical practices or small-sided games or these kind of ideas which have come through on traditional courses.
So I think that sort of gives you as a coach a little bit of a menu in terms of some ideas around how they work. And then conversely, in a more contemporary sense, ideas like representative learning design and I guess the debate that goes on on social media and in the world of coaching around opposed versus unopposed is something that's worth covering here as well. So I think taking off the sort of idea of the type of practice, again, it's relevant to your sort of context. I like to use personally practices that are generally opposed or at least interference-based.
I think there is a place for unopposed practice in terms of that as a type of practice. But then you could use constraints and again, to slightly warn us, I was having a conversation with him around this exact topic on unopposed practice and how you can constrain that. It may be that the condition of the practice is that there's no bubbles on the past. Well, there's certain types of triggers and behaviors that happen within that as opposed to a prescriptive unopposed practice.
So that can be manipulated. So I guess that's a good place to start. I think one of the challenges with a constraint-led approach is that it's getting morphed into a games-based approach and they're not the same thing either. So you can have constraints on a way of practice.
You can have constraints on a technical practice. You can have constraints on a 1B1. So that would be an acute anapyl for another day. But I think the traditional kind of coach education way would be maybe an unopposed isolated technique again, another acute anapyl for another day.
Moving into a skills-in-opposed or semi-opposed practice into a game, that's how I would have done my level 1 and my level 2. And then in the UK with the introduction of the youth awards, we were exposed, I suppose, to different types of practices. Like I said, whether it's a wave practice, whether it's a squad practice, a functional practice, a small-sided game with equal or not equal numbers. And then moving through the kind of more formal UAV and UAVA, you then talk about phases of play.
So that would be half-pitch or three-quarter-pitch practices with at least two units or functional practice where you'd use part of the pitch geography. So for example, if you're working with full-action, you might find a lot of use on one side of the pitch. So there really is loads of different ways to structure the actual practice design and the session design. I think it'd be worth talking about the kind of balance of individuals versus curriculum versus reactive to the game.
It'd be quite a nice bit to come. But how would you plan for individuals in your session or through the weeks and months? Yeah, look, I think a lot of the time that I'm at the training ground working with players, I'll be having conversations with them. What are you thinking about right now?
What would you like to work on? One player I'm working with at the moment is quite analytical and looks at lots of different components of his game. So the point where I say to look, let's just pick one thing for the next six weeks and we'll just look at that. So you go away and think about it.
And so he decided that movement would be what he wants to work on. He's a striker. He's looking at ways to get creative with his movement, use his body because he's a big physical player. And really, that's the thing that we're trying to hone in on.
So in terms of the way I'm observing, I'm looking at those behaviors and saying, okay, how effective is the movement, when's it good, I'm affirming it, when it's going well. So whatever type of practice we're using, going back to the question, I'm looking at that as part of his individual program, the thing that he wants to work on technically or tactically, however you see that sort of element. I think from a personal level as well, there's also types of practice that whatever your philosophy or your view of coaching and the game that you're probably lean towards. So if I'm doing some kind of passing practice, perhaps as a warm up or I'm doing a warm up, I might say, well, I want to include a ball in the warm up.
I don't just want to have a static warm up. So I might do an interference passing practice and then time that so that there's some dynamics and there's some foot or movement in there and the players are getting activated. Same goes when I'm looking at a session on a given topic. I'm going to look at, well, how does that look in the game?
And then try and work backwards from there. So I think within those different frameworks, then you can go, okay, well tonight I'm going to focus on individual A, B and C. And then maybe the next night it's looking at a couple of different players or it may be positioned specifically relative to the theme. If the theme lends itself to working with two centre backs and we're playing out in the back, then maybe those two players will be the focus on whatever they're working on within that.
So lots to consider. But I think it's really important not to overdo it from a coaching perspective in terms of the amount of individuals. You may not be able to get to 16 individuals on the night, but you might be able to work with three or four on one night, three or four on the next and three or four on the next after that. How about you?
Yeah, I think you made a good point about the individual results. So we've been going about planning for the individuals in the session a lot for these Q&As and through the kind of PDP message. I think one of the things that I've probably come a little bit more skilled about is trying not to affect every individual in every game. That was kind of one of the messages that was encouraged in the gun to education we've done.
And it's unrealistic if you've got 12 to 16 players, you're not going to effectively help those in every single practice. But then also be mindful that you've got four parties now attending into a tight month kind of you've got 10 months to coach all of these boys. So really focusing on two or three, a session or two or three for a week and then the next to a three. I found that much more successful.
And then there's a way where you can tie in what you're working on to say. You're working on switching of play. Well, that's a really nice topic to focus on my sentiment field. So when we're doing switching play with that for a week or a few weeks, then I'm going to really work with these three or four midfielders on angle and body shape and my passing range and positioning as the three and the relationships and the three because those two tie together.
So it's not like do I do individuals or team? I do both. And then maybe when you're doing play out from the back then your primary players would be the goalkeeper central defenders and then you might move up in the weeks until you're holding player in your full back. So there is a way where you're smart and you've got a curriculum where you've got a pan scheme of work.
You can say these individuals are linking well to this curriculum and in this way I can work with these boys targets. I found that to be more successful than trying to go right. What's David's talking about? What's Jimmy's talking about every single week?
You just end up in a spin and kind of go an off topic and it can be confusing for the players I think. It can be. And I think also from a session design perspective just to kind of keep time back to that question. I don't think there's one type of practice.
But if you look at any program you're working in, there may be an element, OK, we've got a pre-activation, then we may have a warm up. You may have an assistant coach working with you. So do you split the group? And I know we recorded recently on this for the Q&A and the podcast.
So how you balance that load between you is important. And it might be that on the night the players are going really well in one particular practice and you actually the flow is really good here. So we'll just leave that other bit that we had planned. So while you might come in with let's say a warm up, perhaps a positional gamer or a passing practice leading into whatever the next part of that session is, whether it's a small-sided gamer or a function or you split off and do position specific, being flexible within that is key.
And I think this kind of leads a little bit into the curriculum conversation and what our views are on that. There's plenty to talk about there in terms of the way you're playing your sessions because a lot of coaches will be working in clubs with the grassroots and with their academies, where they have to work for a body or work or they have to work towards a philosophy. Sometimes those things don't necessarily align personally and with the clubs. So you may be a little bit conflicted as to how you go and implement that.
So I guess it's really important to say that there's not one type of training session that you would put on every night. It may be relevant to the stage of the week, the physical load and the topics you're working on within that framework. Yeah, it's quite complex, isn't it? I think the curriculum can be constrictive if you've only got one or two sessions a week because then it can be a challenge to have those individuals in the curriculum is something that they don't need or is something that's kind of too advanced for where the rap, you know, it's all a lot about the player being the solovers and the players should drive, you know, what the sessions are.
In my environment, unfortunately, because the boys train five times a week, so we're able to kind of flip between team-based, individual, opposed, unopposed, 11 macro game, small-sided, 4-5-4 wasn't to 77. So in that way, you can kind of do some critical sessions, some completely around the individual, some completely around the match prep and team-based. So it's quite an easy way to hit all the boxes. I think in a grassroots environment, planning out every single session and only having one session a week and being completely led by the curriculum can be a challenge.
I probably would be something I would do. I would recommend kind of the 50-50 approach. You've only had one session a week. So you do need to leave space within that framework for what the kids need and what maybe what you've seen on game days as well.
Absolutely. And I think something that I'm becoming a little bit more conflicted around is because is the curriculum for us as the curriculum for the player? So you mentioned the idea of the player being the syllabus and the player's into approach and all of these things that we talk about within the PDP model and a lot of great contributors around the site talk about. I think it's important that that curriculum doesn't dominate and that goes for whether it's one or five sessions a week in my opinion because you need to be out of flex and almost the more experience you get.
You can sort of smell how the weeks go and you can feel how the players are going. An example, we had a very heavy session last night. It was an internal game. It was 11-11.
It was hot. So we will adjust the next session accordingly, 36 hours later. And we'll make sure that the players are not being overly stretched in a physical sense. Maybe we just adjust the distances.
Maybe we shorten the session. All of those things are being considered. So the curriculum is still there. That framework is still there.
But we're working within that to say, actually, this is what the players need. And I think as time goes on, I look at it more and more and think you must have a philosophy and you must have a framework. But it's got to be very, very flexible. It can't be too rigid in terms of you must deliver practice.
And then you must have a good session. So I guess that's really important caveat on the idea of curriculum. It's just from my own personal opinion. I mean, it's semantics, isn't it?
But I think if you've got a playing style, a game model, a tag, a philosophy, whatever kind of language you want to use, as long as your sessions, in my opinion, as long as your sessions aren't going against what you want to see in matches and what you want to see this season and in five seasons time, I think that then you're on to a winner. So if you've got a principle based, for example, we want to play out from the back, we want to try and win the ball back within five seconds, those kind of overarching principles, and link it to what you said earlier about effective design or representative design. Then you should be able to coach first year every topic and every practice. If it's got two goals and players running around and it looks a bit like football, then I should be able to coach secure in first and second passes or press it from the front or play out from the back and think less practices and players being familiar with the area size and what the game constraints or conditions are.
I mean, so you can say we're doing this game again, off you go. And then you can say right today, I'm going to focus on, I can say go back to those midfielders or could be, do we get width from full backs or wingers? Because that might be one of our principles. Getting more comfortable with that having some kind of overarching principles of how we're going to play and then every time we practice, those principles should be in the practice most of the time.
Obviously, conscious of saying every time in the game generally we set those principles in practice. And I think if you also look at that going back to the question of the types of practices that we talk about, so a functional practice, a phase of play, there are different benefits that go with those practices. So perhaps tactically, you're working on something in its middle of the season and perhaps you've seen something that or identified something as a coach that needs to work to. Well, maybe a phase of play is the most relevant topic if it means we need to get lots of repetition of our back forward defending in this area or our front five playing in this area.
So maybe a phase of play is the most appropriate one. A function for me is quite beneficial and it can isolate and get a lot of repetition, position specific stuff. So let's say wing of a full back with perhaps one center back inside and a goalkeeper or two center backs inside. So it might be defending crosses and we just work that right channel.
Maybe you've got a midfielder just getting lots of opportunity to play different types of pass into the winger and maybe there's a full back overlapping to look at those combinations out there. Now again, you can balance that function off relative to do I want the attacking team to get success? Okay, well, I'll leave the full back unmarked and give that play lots of chance to overlap and make the forward runs if that's what we're working on. So functions for me is something I've always enjoyed doing because you can really get into that position specific stuff.
It's also a game, a lot more chaos, a lot more variety or variable outcomes within the game itself. So I think you've got to look at one of the benefits. What am I trying to achieve and then choose from that menu of practices in my opinion? It's such a complex question because you can even start with the game itself.
So if you were watching a film and then you say a take then, if you're watching a film or your team playing, it was an area you were trying to either get better at because it wasn't very good or get better at because we're quite good at it and we want to be excellent. So when does it happen on the pitch? What does it start? Who's involved?
The idea of who's James Bond and who's the leading and the primary player? There's loads of different ways of attacking the same problem here. You could just say, on some days it happens here mostly so we use that area of the pitch. It uses these players mostly so we need those players.
It starts here so I need that player to start the practice. Normally we're trying to take on this amount of players. This amount of defenders. And then the idea of how does the game restart and the transitions because I think one of the challenges with phases and functions is that it becomes a bit, well the players here would call it a bit dead.
It goes, you're attacking then it's the end. So it's kind of that isn't the game. So you've got to have that realistic restart and the motivation for the players defending to actually want to defend. So it's an interesting question.
Certainly. Certainly, as I'm absolutely delighted you've dropped the old Ted Dale, James Bond analogy there and I think thinking back to some of the courses we did up there at St. George's Park and the idea of the air going out of the balloon. And that's the point you're trying to make.
Just to reiterate that it's important to look at your practice designers. How is the ball recycled? How is their incentive for the team to finning? Or is their incentive for both teams to really put in?
And the analogy of the air going out of the practice and that balloon kind of being popped in that moment can be quite flat and make the practice quite unrealistic. So certainly nice to sort of reflect on those ideas as well from a few years ago. Any final thoughts on this one for you mate? Just to ask, we're still on the topic of kind of phases and functions.
I think one of the things that I probably missed for years and years was only coaching one team. See when you go through the coach education process, certainly here in the UK, you're encouraged to only coach one team and you're working in possession and this is my plan. And that's a bit silly when you think about it because on a Saturday or Sunday or a game day you want all of the players to do all of their jobs. So I don't really agree with just coaching the possession team or just the acquisition team.
So you're working with a system which is a Q&A we've done before. Can you affect the players? Or can you say you defend us? I want you to defend really compact and I want you to get practice of narrowing those lines and making sure the team go outside.
And then the possession team might be trying to break a block. So it's just making sure you're not missing those learning opportunities I think for all the players without kind of running in too much. You know, making it too complex and too many, you know, before getting learning outcomes and spending in the practice I think. Absolutely.
I've got to let the ball roll and give the players a chance to fail. So Dan, thank you very much for your time. I hope you've helped Elliott with that question. Lots of ideas there at least for discussion and debate.
And we will look forward to another Play Development Project Q&A very soon. Thanks for joining us on the Play Development Project podcast. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram, at Play at dp or find us on Facebook. Don't forget to head over to Play Development Project.com where you can sign up to our Prism Coaching community and gain access to a wide variety of resources to help you in your coaching.