Let's Talk Soccer: Using Game-Calls to Develop Communication and Decision-Making in Football

By Gérard Jones

Soccer coaches across all levels of the game share a common and simple dilemma: how best to improve their players. One of the best ways to do this is through improved communication and how we individualize our messages to our players. It’s fundamentally important for coaches to provide quality communication with clear detail and, as the FA’s Future Game Philosophy makes clear, “Mastery of innovative coaching methods that utilize communication styles is the mark of a gifted coach, and will be an essential requirement for the game of the future.”

Examples of good communications that develop game understanding and skill are seen with elite football coaches such as Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola. Their messages are directly linked to how they want their teams to play, hence the importance of having a coaching vocabulary that players can understand.
Let’s Talk Soccer introduces ‘Game-calls’, game-specific communication designed to enhance decision making and skill among players. Through Game-calls your team will become more organized, and your players will understand – as individuals – how to play within your playing philosophy.

About this Book Let’s Talk Soccer is a practical resource on how to develop communication in game-realistic practices that will increase creativity and skill across all ages. This book is based on tried and tested methods, offering you a framework using ‘keywords’ directly linked to your playing style. The book will help you develop a clear coaching language such that, when used in training and in games, your players will instantly understand what you mean and can consolidate their learning.

Who is this book for? Let’s Talk Soccer is for professional and amateur soccer coaches across all levels of the game who are interested in improving how they communicate with their players, and how their players communicate and perform on the pitch.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bennion Kearny
• Release date: Apr 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910515259

Book preview

Let’s Talk Soccer: Using Game-Calls to Develop Communication and Decision-Making in Football

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Gérard Jones

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 [Smashwords Edition]

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Published in 2015 by Bennion Kearny Limited.

Copyright © 2015 Bennion Kearny Limited.

ISBN: 978-1-910515-25-9

All Rights Reserved.

Bennion Kearny has endeavoured to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Bennion Kearny cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Published by Bennion Kearny Limited, 6 Woodside, Churnet View Road, Oakamoor, Staffordshire, ST10 3AE

www.BennionKearny.com

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my mum, who always made sure I can achieve my dreams, and my dad for believing in me. In unity we grow, I won't forget.

About The Author

Gérard Jones is an award-winning entrepreneur having established his first soccer coaching business into becoming recognised among the Top 100 Best Business Start-ups in the UK in 2010.

With over 10 years coaching experience, Gérard has worked as an Academy Coach at Rochdale AFC, Director of Coaching with Arsenal Soccer Schools and as a Manager at semi-professional level with Eccleshill United FC, alongside coaching at grassroots working with boys and girls, and as a Head Coach at College and University senior level within the men’s and women’s game.

With a Master’s degree in Performance Coaching, Gérard is currently completing both the FA UEFA A Licence and FA Advanced Youth Award, is a qualified teacher and has worked internationally with players from the USA, Europe, Africa and Oceania.

Gérard has implemented game-calls into his everyday coaching practice and developed numerous players onto higher levels as a result.

Team or Individual Coaching Gérard can deliver team training sessions with your club across all ages, developing the use of game-calls through practical game-realistic activities.

Team sessions or private one-to-one coaching can be one-off or a series of sessions, where Gérard will utilise his Play-Practice approach to coaching with the use of Game-calls to increase decision making and communication among players.

Public Speaking Gérard is one of the UK’s leading motivational speakers! As an award-winning entrepreneur and former Ambassador for Entrepreneurship in the UK, Gérard continues to deliver talks on mindset, business and coaching and anything to do with improved performance in businesses, colleges and universities.

You can follow Gérard via twitter: @gerard_jones or online at www.gerardschooloffootball.com

Acknowledgements

Thank you to James for believing in me and being patient whilst I was writing this book, your expertise has helped make this dream happen.

A massive thank you to Roger who is an inspirational coach and someone who has influenced my coaching a lot leading to the creation of this book. Thank you to Tony who has been an excellent mentor to me.

To Ellie for helping me come up with the title of the book.

Finally to my dad who is so patient with me and always listens to me talking about football.

Illustrations (download)

If you are reading an electronic version of this book, you may find some of the illustrations difficult to explore fully on your Kindle or Nook or iPhone. Likewise, if you are reading the print version of the book and would like to get your hands on the illustrations anyway – we can help.

All the illustrations in this book are available as a freely downloadable colour PDF.

Download the file from the publisher’s web page at: www.bennionkearny.com/talk.pdf

Chapter 1:  Setting the Scene

It’s not about winning, it’s about education Xavi, FC Barcelona

Across all levels of soccer coaching, with players of different ages and abilities, there is a common theme: how well they communicate on the pitch. Often, we see players judged as too quiet or they don’t talk enough. I would argue that the most successful sporting teams in the world are the ones that communicate with each other the most.

It is no coincidence that some teams do not talk if their head coaches do all the talking for them! Whatever level I have coached at, I have always come across head coaches screaming instructions from the sidelines (some spectators do so, too). How does this encourage player ownership and communication? It doesn’t.

What is it that drives coaches to talk to their players throughout the game? Is there an issue with this? Whether the coach likes to admit it or not, incessant talking (as though they are playing the game for their players) is a sign that they don’t feel confident in letting players work things out for themselves. Instead, the coach prefers to take control and marshal the team themselves, in order to micro-manage how they want the game played.

This is not to say that instructions are bad. There is a time and place for feedback or questions during a game. However, we need to accept that the game is an assessment of the learning that has taken place during the week; therefore we need to give our players ownership and permission to take control.

Why is it that the first question on everyone’s lips when referring to a game, at any level, is What was the score? and not What was learned? Perhaps it is due to our general naivety. We use the scoreline to measure immediate (performance) success and not long-term learning success, because that is how it is done at professional levels. This is where it is important to see the game as an education, with ‘winning’ being the long term outcome.

Not everyone will agree with this, and that’s fine; however what should be agreed is the importance of communication on how well teams learn and perform. It forms the basis of everything we do and how we see our teams playing.

So, how good is our communication, as coaches? What words do we use? How do we use them? Is there a connection between our vocabularies and how we want our teams to play? I would argue that our communication is typically not very good, simply because communication is a poorly understood concept. Whatever style of play you want your team to play will drive how you communicate with your players.

Do you have a clear ‘coaching philosophy’ or ‘game-style’ that underpins your coaching practice or do you simply deliver a session and make it up as you go along? It is my belief that many coaches deliver sessions with no thought behind how the session links (longer-term) to the playing-style of the team and the long-term vision of each individual within the team.

All coaches should have an ‘identity’ and a belief on how they want their team to play, so that players are trained on this, and when it comes to games – assessed on this. So what are the key starting points for all coaches, regardless of level?

1. Write down your vision for your team in terms of playing, achievements, and development.

2. From this, write down your playing philosophy (game-style) of how you want your players to play.

3. Now, construct your ‘coaching programme’ to support this philosophy and vision.

4. Within your coaching programme (i.e. – each training session) what is your ‘coaching vocabulary’? This underpins and shapes everything above.

Your playing vision will determine what you see as ‘good football’ and will help shape your playing and coaching philosophy and therefore your ‘game-style’. What you see as the key achievements will determine what you value most. Is it, to get three players into the first team? Your team wins the league or promotion? At least two players go on to represent their country? Whatever your vision – use it as a target to work towards.

The importance of communication

Point 4, above, is the crux of this book. The biggest element of coaching and how we interact with each other as human beings, is through ‘communication’. How do we communicate our ‘game-style’ to our players for them to produce effective performances on the pitch? How do we ensure that players make decisions in line with our game-style and in line with their developmental needs?

The answer to both these questions is for coaches to create a ‘coaching vocabulary’. We all have one, but perhaps few of us actually think about it in depth long enough to really understand it.

We all use keywords that we instantly expect our players to understand. For example, a manager may shout Play quickly or Away! These are calls used to influence decision-making on the ball. Do we use these words consistently? Do all our players know what the words are instructing them to do?

Why not develop a list of keywords that are constructive as opposed to destructive? Keywords that players can use themselves to influence and support each other during a game? These same words can used in training to develop skill and game understanding.

This book is not about saying ‘here are all the answers’ and this is what we should all do. It’s about getting you, as a coach, to think about what underpins your coaching practice, and about having a clear ‘game-style’, ‘philosophy’, and ‘vocabulary’ of how you want to coach. These things underpin everything you do with players. In turn, vocabulary is not just about the words you use but also the behaviours associated with your words.

Often, in coaching, we hear managers and coaches screaming and shouting at the players to Pass quicker, Switch Play, and Start-again. At times, some of the information coming out of their mouths is complete nonsense.

So, how should a coach ‘communicate’ his/her style best to the players? I believe it should be done through the use of ‘game-specific’ keywords; words that represent the decisions and actions you want them to make, in and out of possession.

The importance of communication in training soccer players is under-valued within the coaching process. You need to give your players the tools necessary to be good communicators and that only comes by designing practices where the coaches and players use deliberate words to help dictate play.

Summary

The quality of our communication, as coaches, is the key to how we work with players. Communication enables us to structure our training sessions properly, prepare for match days, and assess our players’ performances during both training and matches. Communication describes ‘the football we want’.

Famous Dutch and former FC Barcelona coach Rinus Michels once said, Communication is key, there is no need for managers yelling instructions at players from the side-lines. Instead create a coaching language that the players can use to guide themselves on what to do, that underpins everything you believe in as a manager.

Okay, now we have set the scene, so let’s hit the next chapter and dive deep into the importance of communication in coaching.

Chapter 2: The Importance of Communication

Mastery of communication is an essential requirement for the coach and player of the future; the sooner we learn to teach our young players how to communicate effectively - the better.

Communication, in the context of soccer performance and coaching, is the ability to send and receive information from one individual to another that paints a clear picture - in the mind of the receiver - of the intended message. Described another way, it is the ability of a coach/player to inform his teammate on what to do, in a given situation, using a universally understood language. This language underpins the playing style and coaching philosophy of the team. This is what the best coaches in the world aspire to achieve, even if they are unaware they are doing it!

The quality of the communication process