Mark's mission to tap into players' psyches

Mark Jenkins is the U15s lead coach at Weston-super-Mare AFC, a semi-professional club based in south-west England.

Having been ready to keep working with his current crop of players for a few years, Mark was told that he would be given a new group for the 2023-24 season.

It spurred him to start early with his season planning, and give him the best chance of getting the most out of his players.

Soccer Coach Weekly caught up with the Uefa B-qualified coach to find out more about how he is going about preparing for next season...

SCW: You have done a lot of fact finding to figure out what you need to put in place. What does that look like and how have you gone about it?

MJ: "Some of it is known information - things I know to be fact, from talking to coaches and being around the season they are having right now. 

"Some of it is assumed. There are a couple of things where I’ve gone, ‘It’s probably going to be X, or Y’, and I’ll put things in place to mitigate, work around or improve.

"There are the things that experience tells me will probably crop up, and then there are things where I still need to find out specific things about players. I’m just moving into that stage now.

"One thing I did last year, which I’m doing this year, is sit down with each individual player, have a conversation with them and try to find out about them.

"That will round off the fact-finding piece around what does this group and what do the individuals need? I’ve put in a framework of sorts, in terms of the technical and tactical side, but this year I want to do a lot around the mentality side.

"Are there little gaps in the players’ thinking or confidence? What can I do to help boost that? The technical/tactical, we can all do that. The psychological side of things is the bit that is really starting to interest me now.

"Over the last couple of years it’s been a real thing that I’ve tried to learn. This year I’m hoping that I’m going to be in a good place to be able to help the players with that, as well.”

"What are you like when things go wrong? What is you having a bad day?..."

SCW: What kind of questions are you asking the players in these one-to-one meetings?

MJ: "Last year when we did it, I did the thing I do best - talk about stuff I want to talk about. It wasn’t so much about them.

"There are a couple of players I’m coaching this season who are quite quick to go into ’crisis mode’, in terms of their mentality, which completely caught me by surprise.

"I realised I’d never asked them, ’What are you like when things go wrong? What does an annoyed you look like [compared] to an angry, off-the-chart you?’.

"This year, the questions are going to be based around ’What do you look like when things are going well? What’s normal? What is you having a bad day?’.

"But [it’s] also looking at: ’What do you do outside of football?’. I realised, again, I don’t really know a lot in terms of their interests outside of football and things they do.

"I want to get to know the whole person, so I’ve dropped them a couple of online questionnaires that seemed to hit those points around learning styles and mentality. 

"Are there certain players that have a self-confidence issue? Are there certain players who don’t react well under pressure? If I’m pre-warned and front-loaded with that information, I can hopefully help them as the season goes on.

"One of the questions I have included is: ’What is the one thing you need from me?’. They might not know the answer - we’re talking 14, 15-year-old boys who are probably not going to know. But if I can tease that out of them - somebody might say: ‘I work best when I do this’ - there might be something.

"It’s just trying to get a full picture of those individuals. I’m going to keep a profile on each to refer back to as we go through the season, and hope to see growth as well."