What does good coaching look like?

"There’s no point talking all day at training, because, when it comes to the game, they have to make their own decisions.

"As a child is going through 1v1 against a centre-half, there’s little we can do on the sideline in terms of that player’s decision-making.

"It’s affording children opportunities at training to make decisions, problem solve, figure it out, and then they own it. That’s the key, handing it over."

SM: How do you go about trying to create a good environment for your sessions?

SS: "You smile and say hello to everyone by name, for starters. I think it is so important to be relaxed, particularly when we’re coaching children.

“We have to ask ourselves what they need and what they want, not what we need and what we want.

"What’s important now is the children’s development. Give them an environment where we’re not emphasising winning. 

"There’s no research to suggest that children are motivated to play sport to win. Winning is nice, of course, but it’s not the motivation to play sport.

“They play sport for so many reasons -  to meet friends, to develop socially, and to get better at a task.

"That aspect of developing a skillset is important to children - that’s the intrinsic motivation: ’I want to get better at this skill, for me’.

"With that, regardless of the result at the weekend, they probably say to themselves, ’I’m happy with my performance, I put in some good tackles, made some good passes, and some good scores’. 

“There are many barometers to success for children. We can’t just define that by winning only."

SM: How do you find parents impacting on the coaching you’re trying to do? How do you manage that situation?

SS: "I think It starts with defining why you coach and sharing that with the parents. Define what your philosophy is.

"My philosophy would be, when I coach my club team: equal game time and equal opportunity. Everyone knows that.

"If you don’t define why you coach, parents, other coaches, or even children, might define it for you. 

"So be really definitive as to why you coach and what you’re about. You’re about the community, you’re about giving each child an opportunity to play. We should never lose sight of that. 

"I like to think of empowering parents, actually - bringing them in as coaches, getting the paperwork done and creating a little community within your team. That way, everyone owns it."

"There’s no research to suggest children are motivated to play sport [just] to win..."

SM: How do you deal with players in a team that maybe aren’t as engaged? Not necessarily bad kids, just ones that maybe don’t want to listen when you get them in for a talk...

SS: "I suppose there’s no [one] answer to this, because every single child is unique. There’s wo perspectives: the holistic perspective, and the coaching perspective. 

“The coaching perspective is create as many games as possible in small-sided areas where they’re engaged as much as possible. In my experience, a lot of the ’messing about’ will start if they’re waiting for a turn. They’re disengaged in the session.

“We need to look at that and say, ’Okay, how can I do this better so they’re constantly moving, constantly engaged?’.

"If you have 16 children training, you might set up four stations. Station one could be fun games and relay races, station two could be 2v2, station three could be a game around dribbling through cones, and station four could be some shots on goal.

"We’re always moving in those stations, it’s multi-directional decision making. 

“The holistic side of it is [if] you know a child always wants attention, well maybe we should give that child attention.

"Maybe we should just take five minutes, because we don’t know what went on in that child’s school day. We’re not privy to their home environment or how the day went for that child. So we can’t really judge. 

“Traditionally we might say, ’Get them out for five minutes’. Maybe it’ll be far more of an investment to actually give the child time. Have a chat: ’How are you today? How was school? Looking forward to training? You were brilliant last week.’ 

“Catch the child doing well, positively reinforce all their attributes."