Digi-sign Soccer Coach Evaluation Made Easy

Digi sign soccer coach evaluation

we are in Champions League man I will know if we beat that blue bet this is the modern soccer coach podcast with Gary Kearney hello welcome to the modern soccer coach podcast my name is Gary Canaan my guest for today is dog lamothe and our topic is improving teaching communication an organization in a training session dog is a teacher and teaching mentor he's an author of a few phenomenal books teach like a champion reading reconsidered practice perfect he studies high-performing teachers and teaches coaches and teachers how to use effective techniques and skills in the classroom and in different environments as well he talks about preparation utilizing staff making an impact without continually stopping the sessions and evaluating player and coach performances after the session I also ask dog for some advice and guidance on areas that I really really want to improve specifically in my own coaching as well this episode of the modern soccer coach podcast is once again sponsored by Total Football analysis magazine there are digital magazine for all soccer fans coaches managers and analysts if you're looking for more detail than a mice report but don't want to get bogged down in numbers and stats that make no sense this is the magazine for you February's Total Football analysis magazine has just gone on sale and you can pick up 135 pages of pure football tactical analysis that includes Gian Piero Gasperini owners continuous improvement with Atlanta Arthur Melo and is he really the new shalva Timothy we're the American thriven at Celtic and coaching exercises to fan the counter-attack like that you can buy each magazine individually or take at a monthly subscription which come with some added extras and you can get 10% off all annual subscriptions by entering the code modern soccer coach at chequered head over to total football analysis calm slash magazine to get yours today highly recommend it folks I love the magazine takes me a couple of weeks to get through it right now because it's hood detailed and in-depth and really really enjoy it loads of animations loads of things for coaches well that I really enjoy about it that our ties in the training session so yeah looking forward to this month and I've got every magazine so far up until now and yeah highly recommended so here we go training sessions coaching Doug lamothe enjoy dope thanks so much for joining me today on the modern soccer coach podcast really excited to have you on me as well glad to be with you thanks Barry I wanted to be real specific in the title here and you know how to make training sessions better starting with the planning process and you know a lot of this is from my own perspective so planning the sessions exercises are where most of us put our focus and it wasn't until you're actually your conversation with Donnie Abraham's on his podcast that I realized how I wasn't with my staff that wasn't ever part of my planning was holy Empire them in terms of them coaching rather than packing up cones so how can we empower you delays our staff more yeah I think it's a great question is there so much talent on our staffs and and often waiting to be utilized and the more usual I've utilize them the more gratified there are the happier there are the more they you know it's a virtuous cycle I'm just thinking of I was thinking about this and I think a couple of things that I would probably want to think about generally I think one of the most powerful things that you can do as a coach from a planning perspective is to before the training session starts anticipate errors and plan out an exemplar which is I think we're really familiar with most of the activities that we run we tend to run them a lot but I still think it's worth thinking through not just what's the activity what I'm doing but what does excellence look like what was my goal for players to do during the activity right so we're building out in the back and I have an exercise that they do for building out of the back that I do over and over again but I think taking the time to write down and really write down and not just talk about what are the what are the four or five most important things that we should be doing when we're building out of the back so we're not just completing the exercise we were completing it with a standard of excellence is important and the second step would be and then anticipating the errors what are the things we're likely to get wrong if we do a b-plus version of it what are the thing where the places were likely to fall down and I think that this is an ideal place to involve your assistant coaches for two reasons I think they'll see things that you might not see and we'll have ideas for that our key with them when the session starts one of the main things I want my I might want my assistants to do is to be gathering data how our players doing so if we decide there are four things that we have to do to make sure that we're building out of the back effectively now my assistant coaches know what things to look for and I can pause this a great what do you see in because we've kind of decided in advance what we're looking for so I can really solicit their input more intentionally because they're we've decided what we're all watching for and in a live kind of way and then to the degree that they're making live comments to players and getting those saying good things things to players individually while they're playing they're more likely to be productive comments because they'll be aligned to the goal right we've decided that one of the keys when we're building out of the back is we have to make sure that you know every ball is struck that pace on the ground and since we've decided that's one of our priorities now they're more likely to comment on that as opposed to you know the assistant talking about something that's totally different from what I want to get out of the what I want in that planning process should we be looking specifically more towards individuals and/or do you think it's all collective that's acceptable is it attainable and where's the balance there yeah it's great it's some of those that there are group things we all need to do we want to look for the team but to go back to the example building out of the back you know there are different things I want to see from my center-backs in my for my number-6 and my wide back so and maybe I also have an individual player who's likely to mistake and I think that might be a great thing for an assistant to do which is generally as the head coach I'm looking for the four key things that we you know that we're working on what we've decided is excellent but I can ask my assistant I really wanted to even I dated Lily out of the back he's likely to do this and I really want you to get constant reinforcement on this point so I think that's oh that's maybe a way to I think the short answer your question is both which is hard but I think great role for an assistant is to focus on one thing or one player in one task and really really stay on you know I think that the learning comes in the repetition from doing it right so having a player really get constant you know we you can't attend it with every player is doing at all times during every activity but if there's someone who I know has something I want them to work on I can really ask one of my assistants to lock in on that pay attention to that specifically as sports science has grown and awareness has been increased the challenge has has now been presented for coaches about with certain training loads and with certain goals especially at the highest levels where the data is being collected as a coach you don't want to come into the session because it may directly impact the physical objectives if you come in a couple of times so one of the best ways for a coach to impact a session without directly coming in five or six times yeah I think if you're if you're in other words you don't want to break this session and disrupt the intensity of it by talking and therefore having it be downtown for players physically that's that's the best challenge yes yeah I think I guess in that situation the first thing I'd be thinking about was being really explicit before the training session and framing some shared vocabulary which is if I'm if I don't want to stop to teach to teach and explain things to players or reinforce things during I would explain to them before this is what we're gonna be working on we're gonna be pressing these are the most important things for pressing and then I think it's key if I'm gonna be I think therefore I'm likely to be talking to them while they're play and I think it's hard to communicate a lot all players are playing and so we have to make sure that we understand the same okay before him and not just vocabulary for to describe the game but the cues of moon so I might you know if I see you doing X I'll tell you you know if you hear stretch it means make sure you know do the following review the players beforehand not what we're trying to accomplish but the cues they might hear that would tell them they're doing it well or struggling with it so that I get more children capillary allows me to teach more efficiently in any situation so I want them to understand exactly what's gonna save them I don't think I can teach very well during last play but I can remind players of the thing I probably thinking about is assuming that I may have to stop a few times to teach a concept I'd also be thinking about how how can I you know there are constant breakages for non valuable reasons don't also be thinking about how can i engineer my session so that if we do stop its high value as opposed to we stop because the ball is out of play or players are confused about what to do and how to break into just explain the activity to them and so you know and you know John Wooden is sort of famous for this policemen of the balls on the basketball court so that there's never a second of downtime and no one ever had to run more than you know more than five feet for ball so you know I just think that's the mundane details of making sure I am my assistants are always ready with the equipment of the ball goes back into play immediately so I so I don't lose my training load for mundane reasons and then if I you know if we do break the break the physical intensity of training it's for a high value of learning reason I had a conversation with a coach last week but a good to be at about pre practice meetings something that I really value and then he was he questioned it and then once he started putting his point across I thought yeah you got me got me thinking about that there I believe that it basically give the players the session plan at times the exercise is it mapped out exactly what we would be doing and why so it helped operationally but he felt that that then presented you know this is exactly what we're going to do and the game presents different types of challenges what's your thoughts on this and the best way to approach it not sure that there is a right answer that certainly that I that I know it I think I'm inclined to be more I'm inclined to be more transparent with players tell them what we're trying to accomplish or what decisions I want them to make or what cues I want them to be looking at even if I'm even if I it sounds like what your colleague was saying is I want to be able to react to the game and make decisions for themselves and not know that not have someone tell me beforehand the decisions I want to me I want them to make but I think you could still say you could still prepare them for the types of situations the principles of play that we're using I think you could I'd still want to ensure their attentiveness two most important things because I think I would I would honestly do the same thing during the game I think you'd be unlikely to go into a game not getting players any guidance about what you're trying to do tactically so you know again I don't know that there's a there's one right answer I think you know cultures are different and there is a right answer I'm another I'm sure I'm not the guy who knows it but my gut is I tend to think that players learn better when we're transparent with them what we're trying to accomplish for the most part so hot I like the idea of every practice meeting brings us on nicely he said Lehren in there the difference between teaching and learning can you explain this and then how it applies to train them yeah I think it's both parts of the cycle teaching happens let's say you're you break your practice briefly and you explain two players tactically something that you want to do that's teaching but the learning really happens afterwards in the application which is you want you want one of your player just to press higher and get into a passing lane right you explain that to him that's teaching but he hasn't learned it yet until there are four or five situations in which he successfully does it and understands whether he's done it or not and so I think coaches need to be really attentive to what happens after they teach something because that's when the learning happens so one of the one of the things that I noticed most about training sessions as a coach roles will make a point during a stoppage live play will continue and he'll be sort of calling comments out to players in real time and they won't be in line to the topic that he addressed in the stoppage right so the stoppage was we've got to create more width you know we've got a great more within the situation we need to be all the way out of the touchline play begins great ball David you know super hustle yeah great vision they're like none of those comments are related to whether we are successfully getting wide or not and so a lining live feedback might sound focusing more on really first of all looking for in every situation our revived and and then saying yes that's why that's the width we want or still wider so that players know how they're doing in trying to operationalize the teaching that we did and also know that the teaching is important and the expectation is that when Western art when I stopped training to talk to you about something for a minute that's a big deal and so I expect you for the next ten minutes to really focus on using it and applying it because that the ten minutes after the teaching point is when the learning will really happen great task two focuses will help for a coach isn't it coaching which is you are overwhelmed by the complexity are so much going on at once it's so easy to be distracted and to try and as a colleague of mine New Zealand rugby said try and chase five rabbits right you're trying to reinforce five things at once and it ends up being scattered and it's often faster to really focus on one thing intent dado intently for five or ten minutes and make sure that players have got it before you go on to the next thing and ultimately you make more progress by doing one thing at a time so I think you know you make a stoppage the first thing you should be thinking about is I have to self discipline myself to provide consistent reinforcement on how we're doing it the thing I just told him was important enough to stop training to do and even then stopping it stop them again if they're still not doing it or to tell them that they've done it well or tell them live but not to go too long to be distracted by all the other things that are in my mind that I want to don't want to talk about I think one of the best tools you can have this you know it's hard for Newton we need to imagine coaching in a situation as complex as a soccer training session without writing some things down so you notice a player doing something that's important to talk about but it's nothing he just made a stop want to write it down so I remember to come back to it later but if I come back to it right then and in some ways I'm distracting them from this the teaching point from the linkage that you pointed out between teaching and learning which is I really want you to focus on doing this that's one thing that we just talked about this is the million dollar question how you shoot a coach bass judge the success of a training session I think there are two ways to two ways to think about this one is I think I want to want to go back to this idea the example are planning and being really clear about what excellence looks like to me beforehand so we're not just doing the training activity but we're doing it with a standard of excellence so that I can look for it and see it and really gather data while we're planning on whether we're doing it but I think then the second challenge is that most of what we've learned in our lives we've forgotten and our players are the same and if you want any further proof of this you don't have kids wait 15 years and try and help them with their homework the problem with learning is that just because players get it right at the end of the session seemed to understand it does not mean they'll understand it in three days in five days and seven days and months that as soon as we learned something the battle against forgetting begins and so I think when I think about the effectiveness about my training sessions I want to think about whether I got execution to a really high strand of mastery in that session but then I need to make sure that I come back to it and engage in what I would call it retrieval practice which is doing the repeating in the session coming back to that set of skills several times of the course of days or weeks or months to make sure that its players don't just know how to do it but it's embedded in long-term memory because I think if you want to use it in the game it has to be in your long-term memory you know as soon as we learned something to battle against forgetting begins that I just think the coaches overlooked that so often they see players doing it well at the end of one session they think right great we've got it we got pressing we're pressing really well as soon as you leave that session knowledge of pressing starts to today yeah so true so true from a personal standpoint of my own journey I really want to move sessions from intensity of players working hard physically towards players working hard mentally what are the best ways for me to do this I think it's a great question and I think about working hard mentally in a couple different ways I think one I want a socialized player stuff I want to build a culture of attentiveness so that players are always at a high level of alertness and awareness on the field it could mean that I challenge them with you know really challenging constraints when you're playing it doesn't have all by asking them any questions but it's just you know I give them I get some constant challenges that force them to be alert and aware by changing things the field is narrower this time it was wider this time to feel this shorter but I also think that you know most coaches that I know use questioning as a way to engage players mentally and they think a lot about their questions but I think often times those questions are undone by some the quality of the questions are undone by the environment in which they're asked in other words I stop and ask questions and it's the same three players answering the questions with the first thing that comes to the top of their heads over and over again and so even the very best question in the world is not going to build a strong mental environment for players that causes them to constantly be engaged unless I build a situation where every player feels like they have to answer it does answer every question feels like the Haffner answer question every question are accountable for every question so and I think the reason why you get this situation coach asks a question saying two or three players all answers out at the top of their heads is because coaches aren't clear and how they want players to answer so as so for example as soon as I I set the expectation that's fine to call out an answer to my question then I can't insert any weight to them which causes players to think more deeply right they're gonna say the first thing off the top of their heads and as soon as I build a culture with two or three players are answering them the other eight or nine players were above or will come to think I'm not gonna have to answer anyway because these three guys are gonna answer right so I'm check out so I can check out I don't have to really be accountable so a couple of tools that I think are important are I think cold calling is really powerful which is I set the expectation with my players that I'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask by name specific players whether or not they volunteered to answer the question dance or question when I pause pause where should the number six be maybe I you know so this is a question of either ideally I want my number six dancers I said Carlos where should you be or maybe I need my number eight to understand where my number six is so great um Jose where should Carlos be where should the number six be great and where does that mean how does it mean you react great and Trevor what does that mean you need to do so the idea that anyone can be asked a question asked to answer a question at any time gives me a different relationship the questions on my team means I have to be ready actually thinking every time the coach asks was a question so everyone is answering in their heads similarly sometimes when I ask a question and I don't get any answers I get blank stares the coach will then jump in by answering the question himself and I think a great move there is to say right turn and talk to the person next to you twenty seconds where should the number six be and why go 20 seconds a top-rate pause when you talk about what you decide where should the number six be Carlos David James so I think the building that culture of mental accountability is really critical if I'm gonna try and use questions the best question in the world is only so good but if only one or two people that's right yeah nova building a culture of attentiveness and mental accountability although he answered I think I know what you're gonna say is it healthy then for every single tree in session to be mentally challenging or do I as a coach ever need to worry about mental fatigue I think that's a really good question an important question to ask and I would say you're probably right the optimal firstly I think they're different they're different types of mental challenge I think I always want my players to be attentive when they're on the field so I want to focus them I wanted to be alert and aware of perceptive cues do they that's different from conscious thinking and being prepared to answer questions I think there are times when I want my players just to like play with first of all I want them to play with sheer joy and just and you know and love competition and I think that's a really important part of building a culture on the team so there's some times when I just wanted to compete and I don't necessarily want them to think deeply I think when I need them to learn something and change the way that they play the game or develop the way that they play the game then I really want to stress I want to build a really big culture that is a as much about mental hustle and engagement as it is about physical engagement but they're also time when we're not actively trying to like install something new or learn something new we're trying to learn to be competitive women to play for Dror we learned to just you know we're learning to play as we will in the game where we're not not actively thinking about problem solving and not we're indeed tune it differently mentally so I think it's probably a balance that earlier of state the earlier that players are in learning something more complex what they're learning the more it's absolutely critical that there's a culture of mental engagement in that that's that's actively built and I think that probably feeds into a culture that have that socializes players could be attentive when they're when they're playing in a less conscious way the players are not particularly conscious about what they're doing when they're you know in the midst of a game they're making decisions that are so fast they don't really have time to make active decisions about it it's really a matter of habit so there are times if I just want to let them build their habits in your book teach like a champion you talk about avoiding the pitfall of of of yes and no questions when talking to players and Hobbes suck like I ratted oh my god I'm so guilty out there I have can he give coaches advice son I'm just high to ask better questions and then how to improve engagement yeah one of the first things to watch out for is to listen to yourself and if you say things like is everybody clear and everybody get it you clear it like that's I think that's a classic case of asking a rhetorical question if you say everyone clear on the difference I was gonna nod and say yes and they guarantee that you that summer some players are not clear and so planning in advance after you've discussed some a few quick questions that you can ask to pepper them around the players to make sure they have understand it great so before we start off just minutes make sure we understand when when where say hi what's the most important thing for the number not to do the number 11 to do ask those questions really quickly of players 15 seconds 3 questions 2 players then missed I'm getting a student sample of lucky B they do they seem to understand as a post amount I just rely on their self-report Geoff report is almost always reliable so I think that's a simple case of where we fall back on yes and no questions we're basically telling ourselves this would be a great time to check for understanding but I don't really have time to do it so I'll just ask guys what they understand it'll not at me and they'll say they do and oftentimes that's that becomes a dead end but then I think you know I think a key thing is to we often try to think of our questions from the spur of the moment and a really healthy happiness if just plan in advance three or four questions I think will become critical even if I don't use them it helps the quality of my questions become higher and then building that in the fabric of I go I just I socialize my players to understand that when I'm asking a question anyone could be called on to answer it and so they have to be ready and they have to be attentive and they have to be locked in really listening carefully you've written about correcting instead of critiquing can you explain the difference and why coaches should be aware of it yeah I think it goes back to your question about the different teaching and learning so players do something incorrectly I stop them and explain what they did incorrectly I've taught them but they haven't learned it if I want them to learn and I have time to do it over again and do it better so rather than just saying stop you know pause we've played back into pressure there we have to play we have to play why they we have to play around they'll have to play around pressure the learning happens when I say great let's play them let's take the ball back to where David had the ball let's play from the situation show me how you play off the pressure great yes that's better right so then I when I give players the chance to fix their previous behavior to do it correct to do it correctly that's that's correction and that's building their learning critiquing them telling what they did wrong without giving them the opportunity to do it over again do it better I guess you could say it's teaching without learning I think that's a message to pitfall that I think a lot of coaches father - you're gonna stop to tell them that they did all give me a chance to learn to do it right another quote from your book went out when all students engage in thoughtful writing for a sustained period of time your levels of rigor and participation are both high coaches be implementing support structures that challenge or encourage players to reflect on every session or is that not a realistic goal in sport mmm it's funny if it's a great question that almost never been asked it writing is so important in the classroom and there just aren't many opportunities for players to do it on the field but I do think that you know there's powerful potential for players to write afterwards to reflect I know programs that have done this you know like I know there's some clubs anyone that have players keep reflective journals you know recall one coach saying you know you ask guys after the game how they did and everyone played great but ask giving them specific questions to write about all right there you know I think that writing would be a great tool to use it with still review right I don't just want you want to watch the film I want you to reflect on how you did and described three times when described your positioning in three different cases it just forces players to engage at the highest and most challenging level of cognition writing it is harder than saying it forces a higher level of intentionality and you have to put it carefully into words so I think there's some real potential to do that and I think there are a lot of great players out there who who'd capture most throughout their careers and attribute that level of reflection to their you know their to the elite level I think yeah Torey is a great example of that you know I think there's a guy who sustained his level of play at an excellent level and probably outperformed what people thought he would be capable of he you know as I understand that he you know relentlessly kept a journal on his performances to reflect in writing so so maybe there's maybe it's just there's some potential there how should coaches reflect what's the what's the best way for us to to evaluate a session is it by video in ourselves is it by reflect on the notes or is it the game on Saturday or what's the best ways I think it was a fantastic tool for studying your own teaching you know the bad news is it's incredibly unforgiving and session that you thought was great when you watch it on video you'll see you'll see a hundred little things that's the path forward so I think it's really tremendous you can also audiotape yourself you'd be surprised how much you can hear just you know hearing the language used to players to describe things how precise is my vocabulary how how negative or you know how negative did I sound when telling my players I want to do something different so I think that that you know the most objective form to study your own work is in recording it either on video I think there are other tools that you can use but to me that's the very the most powerful thing I think one other thing that you can think about is most feedback comes at after sessions maybe you invite someone to come watch your session and give you feedback on it even watching your own videos hosted a session feedback feedback to come from a for a session that I can use to improve my session is actually more valuable and so if I got together with a couple colleagues or even with my assistant coaches or with one colleague and shared my session planner and have them give me suggestions and critique grasping hard questions about my session plan of what I wanted to accomplish and I got useful feedback before the sessions and then I can implement in session let's see whether work see if I'm happy to see the difference and I think that's also planning processes training success and then last one Freya what are the the two or three biggest areas that coaches to improve their sessions this week you know give us give us something to to look out a little bit differently or to think of and and maybe it'll create a little bit of awareness right away three quick ideas I think the first one yeah thinking about this ID the idea of checking for understanding which is John wouldn't claim to those what do you not top it and they learned it it's very very easy as a coach to explain something to players have them execute have them execute poorly and not realize it so the first thing I would think about doing is whatever we would call what I call them try and teach like a champion tracking not watching which is not just observing passively but having a data tracking tool a piece of paper on a clipboard on no card in your pocket where you as your players playing observe and take notes on whether they're doing the things that you asked them to do successfully I think what you notice it that they it disciplines you to watch for specific things and that they often are it's less successful it's less successful anything whatever way whatever happens rather than being overwhelmed by the data of watching twenty guys do eight different things at a time you start to notice whether they're accomplishing the goals so track so using an observation track or the gap other data while you're observing ground sessions is a game changer number two I would say I just want to go back to an idea that came up usually during our conversation which is aligning your live feed back to your stoppage feed back when you stopped a training session to say this is important to talk about not everything you say afterwards should be about it but you know six out of eight alive comments by today live comment should say I'm watching to see whether you did what we talked about I'm giving you feedback to help you achieve it successfully and when we talk about something the expectation is that you follow through on it I just think that that very rarely happens and it has a long-term effect of showing that but the things that if the things that I say in stoppage aren't important luck to me for me to remember them two minutes later while they the important layers and the last thing I think is just not coaching decision-making I think perception is hugely hugely underestimated that most many of the times when a player makes a suboptimal decision it's not because they saw all the options and chose the wrong one it's because they didn't see the right they didn't see all the options and that in many cases seeing and deciding are the same thing so when I make a stop which I could ask players what should you do but just as good a question is what should you look at what you do what should you be noticing or where should your eyes go what are the cues that tell you what you should do because in many cases I think the perception is the decision for players especially when they're asked to make decisions quickly and so I just think that's something that we can stress Vernon Vernon doc thank you so much fantastic Gary it's been a pleasure thanks for thanks for taking the time thanks so much the dog for his time and his insight there I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did yeah from a selfish point of view you know I really benefited from that and really enjoy that conversation what I got out of it basically was you know the three different times of it before the session and improving the plan and the preparation stage and not just exercises and looking at sessions but also then planning the rules and responsibilities of staff and I don't think coaches have a problem and and preparing for training sessions for the most part we all get there early enough when we all set the balls we all get the cones out but yeah maybe what everyone is doing and being a bit more intentional with those roles and responsibilities could lead to better practices then improving the execution during the session and a bit more intentional about the problems that we're going to face and maybe forecast those how are we gonna deal with them the questions which we want to uncover a different level of engagement about our level of engagement from our players and and then afterwards improving the review process yeah getting players to reflect getting coaches to reflect how we interpret success during the training session how it interprets accessor staff are we sharing those with the players as well and and just generally making those consistent and effective and improving them every week I think in soccer we measure so much data and analytics but I don't think we're being specific enough in what we want and what we need from every training session and you know as I shared there that's that's the areas that I'm looking to improve and definitely as I get more experience as a coach it's not just getting out there and driving intensity and driving energy and drive and focus it's how to teach or facilitate that in the players and having them taking more ownership of the process as well which invariably involves the coach given up a certain amount of control a large amount of control in some cases now something that we talked with Tony on and a few weeks ago about how he became a better coach says he left more variables up to the players which is more risky and probably makes us very very uncomfortable but it's definitely definitely the way to go so low of that conversation big thanks to Doug and we'd love to hear your thoughts on it at Gary Kernan on Twitter at Gary Kernan on Instagram love talking about Trina and love talking about the coaching during the training session the session design and all that good stuff so yeah we'd love to know what you think as always appreciate you less than cheko total football analysis magazine I will be getting my copy tomorrow so get on that there get the cold modern soccer coach during chat guide have a great week goodbye thank you for listening to the modern soccer coach podcast for more coaching topics sessions and resources head on over to coach Kernan on Facebook or visit the 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