Using the 4 corner model/Preparing for the new season

Through all walks of life, transitions happen and grassroots football is no different. As your players grow, so do their football pitches. Starting at U7 and 5-a-side, moving to 7-a-side when the players reach U9 and U10. Before embarking on competitive football at U12. A new season brings a new format for many young players. It also brings many new challenges, targets and experiences. Players, teams and managers will experience good and challenging games and will hopefully gain a lot of positive experiences whilst having fun and enjoying the game.

The pitch and goals really do start to look “massive” and it’s important to get everyone who is involved with your team prepared for the changes and how you can plan for them.

For lots of our players this will be incredibly exciting, but also players worry about change and what football will be like after summer, especially in uncertain times which we have all had to endure since March.

Here we take a look at ways to help prepare for the new season: - 

Be organised 

Doing the simple things like packing your bags/clothes/food – everything you need for the training session or match day - the night before. It is essential to have a clear and prepared mind for the day ahead. I do this in everyday life too, such as preparing things that I need for work.

Equipment checks

What equipment do you have/need to do your work to the best of your ability? Some grassroots clubs struggle to get the money to buy enough kits, balls, cones, etc. for the coaching team to do their jobs. I have experienced this a few season’s back where I had to go out and bring my own equipment so the team could train and prepare for matches. Even on match days I prepared the team with my own equipment.

At Southport Athletic JFC my previous experience will not be the case, as all teams are able to look at and order the necessary equipment needed for training and match days. We as a club aim to provide all our players, coaches and managers with everything that they will need.

What is your coaching philosophy?

How do you want to play? Attacking? Counter-attacking? Quick passing? Long Ball? What formation will you play? This is your philosophy – it’s what you believe will make your players better and enjoy it more.

A lot of coaches will say to you: 

“Do you want to win at the cost of the development of your players?” 
Example: If you have one player that isn’t as technically good as others you have, do you keep them on the bench and give them minimal time, so you can try and win the game? Or do you give them the maximum game time to try and make them better?

Another question: Would you bring them on if they were the only player on your bench and one of your other “better” players got injured?

If you answered ‘yes’ then are you not still jeopardising your “winning” mentality? If the answer is ‘no’, then how will this player ever get better under your guidance?

Finally, ‘winning’ is NOT a dirty word. You can focus on winning - that is perfectly fine – but does it jeopardise the progress of your young players?   

So based on all of the above, build a philosophy that you believe in and that you believe the players will achieve to get you the results you want, whether that be winning or developing. 

Set goals/objectives

Depending on the ability and age group of your team, setting them a team goal like: “Winning the title” or “Finishing the season with a + goal difference” can always be a help, but setting goals/objectives don’t have to be just for the players. Set goals for yourself as well. Where do you want to be as a coach at the end of the season? I spent one season completing both my level 2 and  youth modules 1 and 2 whilst working and coaching at a private academy, volunteering at grassroots level and then volunteering at nights at a pro academy club who all trained twice and played once a week. Everyone has a different life with different commitments but setting yourself a goal can help you become not only a better coach or player but a better person too. 

Build a schedule

You learn this a lot more in your FA coaching courses but a schedule for your players and for yourself helps a lot. What I do is a week-to-week plan on how we are going to be training. This way you can build a programme and sessions working your way through from playing out from the back to scoring in the final third. Below is a preview screenshot from last year, which will hopefully give you some inspiration and idea. When having a planned schedule parents and players are aware and know what you are working on and trying to achieve both in the short and long term.

Plan, Do, Review

Take it back to basics, spend as long planning a session as it takes to deliver a session and from there take some time to review it too.

What went well? What can you improve next time? Do you need to re-write parts of your session to make it better?

Planning is not just for training sessions but for match days also. Making sure your pre-match team talk and warm-up are game-related is very important. 

Time management is key

It is essential that you are early to all sessions and match days even if it’s 10 minutes before the meet time. It allows you those valuable moments to check the playing area, set up your session or set things up for the match, set up the warm-up, and go over anything last minute, especially if there are last minute or second changes or problems to try and iron out.

Players arriving on time is also essential. When managing older youth players it starts to become more of their responsibility and could involve dropping them to the bench. But with younger players it’s different. In previous seasons at other clubs my practice involved, at the start of the season, sending out a ‘code of conduct’ (no more than five bullet points) of what I expected of the parents and players. I gave this to them before they signed their child on, so they had a clear understanding of what they were committing to. Some grassroots clubs already have this and if they do not, sitting down with them to create one could be a good idea.

Team building is very important

Creating sessions that are fun will automatically give you great interaction with the players. With The FA Four Corner Model in mind, allowing players social interaction at the start is brilliant. Let them chat, make a little rondo and give them space. For those that don’t, give them responsibility; young players especially want to be older (whereas people like me at 21 want to be young again). Giving them a bit of ownership will also bring out the social aspects, e.g. if you have eight players “here are four green bibs and four orange bibs – pick your own teams” (you’ll find out that they automatically pick fair teams). Playing small games too, like ‘tic-tac-toe’, can build decision making as well as team spirit and competitiveness. ‘Chase the rabbit tail’, where players have bibs tucked into their shorts with the winner being whoever has the most bibs at the end of one minute, is another useful game.

In the not too far future our club plan to organise days out (bowling, football golf, etc) they can be fantastic for team building.
If you’re managing, for example, an U10s team, you might have this same team for six to eight years of their young life. So taking that into consideration, how important is it now to build a strong cohesive unit?

Enjoy it 

The most important point for me is that a lot of what we are doing is under a volunteer banner and requires time and effort to ensure that our players have a wonderful experience within the football environment. With all the above points, I hope that all the coaches, players, Parents, guardians, and carers at Southport Athletic JFC will gain an enjoyable and fun experience within the game. I know we cannot always have positive experiences, but we can help each other with motivation, desire and fun within the game.

Thank you for reading and I wish all our players, coaches, and teams all the best of luck for our first season as Southport Athletic JFC.