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Last week on twitter I saw a few coaches retweet or respond to a quote from Arsene Wenger which stated that “Between the ages of 5 and 12, its better to have no coach at all than a bad one”.
It was interesting to see the replies which included people wholeheartedly agreeing, some using it to criticise academy football for taking players away from playing with their friends, some discussing that its more about developing good coaches, then finally the comments suggesting that too many coaches ego’s get in the way of players fun and development.
The reason that this quote stood out to me is that when I am delivering coach education, I always use the phrase “the best session plans are the one’s that when you don’t say a word as a coach, the players are still learning and improving just from playing”. I use this quote when I am helping coaches to plan their sessions that they are going to deliver. I don’t mean to devalue the coach and say they shouldn’t be saying anything, I am trying to get across that if your session looks like the game of football, is engaging and the challenge level is right, then even if you don’t intervene the players should still be learning and that is the formula for a great session. For me, if it doesn’t look like the game then although it may appear they are learning, it may not relate to challenges they will face during a game. I believe that all players need to be engaged in the practice with the challenge level at a point that they are individually thinking “I need to concentrate, work hard and think here if I am going to get success in this practice.”
I don’t think Wenger is referring to what players necessarily need in this quote, in my opinion he is referencing the fact we need to improve coaches and coach education before we think about the players.
In terms of the actual quote in respect of children being better off with no coach rather than a bad one, do I agree? Yes, I completely do. I am going to give my reasons why, you may agree or disagree with them and that is fine, I am not always right. I like to share my thoughts but will always try to back up why I believe in them.
Football is all about opinions, as is coaching, so first I must clarify my opinion of a “bad coach” as referenced in the quote.
The first thing would be a coach who is not willing to learn or refuses to change anything about themselves. Because ultimately, every coach is on a journey and some coaches are just starting on this journey and don’t have knowledge or experience yet. So, you can’t say they are a bad coach as they are still learning and developing. I may see behaviours from a coach that I don’t personally agree with, but if this coach is developing and open to learning still, then you can’t judge them yet as they aren’t a finished article. Also, I will am pushing my values and beliefs on them, which many might disagree with as well, but I am also still learning.
Secondly, and lastly, I believe a bad coach is someone who negatively affects a child’s love for playing the game. This can manifest in several ways including giving the perceived weaker player (especially in the foundation phase) the last couple of minutes of a game and only playing them when they are winning. Or the coach that constantly criticises, intimidates, and berates players of all ages, especially when they don’t offer any actual coaching advice or solutions.
So on to the replies of the tweets.
I am openly happy to say one of the arguments that irritates me the most is the argument that young children shouldn’t play academy football they should stay in grassroots as they want to play with their mates, or should be playing under no pressure. The reason this argument irritates me is that in my 17 years of coaching I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of grassroots games. For people to paint the picture that it is all rosy and a lovely atmosphere at every game shows they are delusional. I have seen amazing grassroots clubs and coaches that nurture young children and encourage them to enjoy their football, its amazing to see. I have also seen coaches constantly screaming at 7 year olds, being halfway on the pitch during games, parents screaming and shouting at children on their team and the opposite team, I have lost count of the children I have seen in tears or looking dejected at grassroots football games.
Coaches and parents will then argue that kids want to win too, that’s fine as I believe they do, but if an under 7s team has lost 15-0, throw them a ball after a game and watch them go and play and be happy again, whilst some parents/coaches are still shaking their heads about the game the kids have already forgotten about.
As I said there are amazing environments, but also horrendous ones, usually the teams that are from good environments still must play the ones who are the opposite, and this is not usually a great place to be playing football as a young child.
Obviously with my role as a tutor this is something that the FA are trying to change, I am always doing my best to educate and help coaches think about their players, but some people will not want to change, and this is more difficult to manage.
The second argument that comes up in the replies on social media is about young players being in academies too early. I am open and honest about how much I enjoyed my time working in academy football. My opinion, is that they shouldn’t be going fully into academies until secondary school, I wouldn’t have them coming in so young. But I also think that it’s a better environment for players to learn in and be able to develop than grassroots, with less parental involvement on a matchday and players encouraged to make their own decisions and try things.
I also think that academy football can be too much for players when they are so young and even into the teenage years. I think we have the responsibility as parents and coaches to let young players understand that is ok if you don’t enjoy being in an academy or want to be under that pressure, its no problem to leave if it’s not for you and you aren’t happy. Rather than selling professional academies to young players as “this is your chance to make it”, we should be saying to them “it’s a great place to go and learn to play football, go have fun and enjoy the experiences and see what happens”.
I don’t want to too far in depth about academy football but didn’t want to come across as bias.
Finally, the last reason that I agree with the Wenger statement is this idea of the coach putting their ego first. Football at 5-12 should all be about the players and what they need and want. If you have a team that are all mates and want to just enjoy having a kickabout with each other, then let them. Create social focused sessions that still develop them tactically and technically, then rotate positions and do equal playing time (I have a video blog about the importance of rotation of positions here). If you have 10 players who are all excelling at their current level, who are all naturally very competitive and want to win everything they do, that’s also fine, embrace it so that training is competitive. But it should still be equal playing time and rotation of positions on a matchday, if they are competitive challenge them to compete against themselves to keep trying to improve them as an individual.
Coaches often hide behind players to justify their ego by saying “well they want to win”, this is usually the justification behind not playing some of the currently perceived weaker players as much. I always have the same argument against this, which is to try to put the coach in the players shoes. I had a coach recently say to me that they done roughly equal playing time all season, but in the cup final two of them were happy not to play as they would have a better chance of winning with the best players playing the whole game. So, they didn’t play and the team won, even the players who didn’t play of course celebrated. My question was to ask if they were actually ok with it? Which the coach stated yes of course as they won.
I came back with, “ok so if you’re a level 2 coach and you coached your team to the cup final, then your club’s chairman or head of coaching who has a UEFA B licence came over and said they would take over the game, as they are a better coach than you and its an important game, how would you feel about that?”
I personally see no difference in that to dropping players for a cup final at the foundation phase age groups.
So yes, I do agree in the whole about Wengers comments, but in conclusion I don’t think it is about the players, its about the coaches, he is saying lets get the coaches right and this will take care of the players by itself.
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