Tag: Session Design

Coaching Newsletter #10 – Coaching a team with varying skill levels, older players & low motivation

by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Masterclasses

Last month, I received a great question from a former student of mine, who is coaching their first team of teenagers right now. The players are U15, yet still don't know many of the basic skills to soccer. They just want to have fun, hang out with their friends, and they lack enough sporting experience to know how to handle losses and setbacks. I answered this question immediately, but I think it's valuable for every coach to know and hear. So with that, here is my Coaching Newsletter #10 - for subscribers of the site!

Coaching Craft – Newsletter #2 – Coaching high-performance athletes

by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Masterclasses, Subscriber Exclusives

While coaching ideologies can generally apply across a myriad of ages and abilities, there are a few distinct differences. This includes: A greater attention to detail at the high-performance level. A greater attention to position-specific training. More complexity when adapting activities to add challenge/intensity.

Coaching Craft – Newsletter #1 – Building Logical Session Flow & Rewards

by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Masterclasses, Subscriber Exclusives

Today I returned to the classroom for my Coaching & Leadership course for eighty+ undergraduate students. For the first class of the new semester, I facilitated a European Handball session on 'switching play', which is a session plan I've done plenty of times in the soccer world. Here were some of the key reflections:

Coaching Craft – Chapter 8 – Session Facilitation

by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Masterclasses, Sport Psychology

Chapter eight takes you through how to facilitate challenging & fun sessions for your players, keeping your learning outcomes and principles of play in mind.

Coaching Craft – Chapter 7 – Session Planning & Design

by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Masterclasses, Sport Psychology

This chapter takes you through how to develop optimal sport-specific, game-realistic sessions to support athlete development and long-term growth.

Tactical Coaching & Advanced Techniques for Youth & Semi-Pro – Online Course with Rhys Desmond

by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Masterclasses, Sport Psychology

Calling all football fanatics, coaches, players, analysts and anyone who qualifies as "football obsessed", TheMastermindSite.com finally brings you our brand-new 'Introduction to Football Analysis' course! The course is self-paced and online via articles, videos, email correspondence, and a range of other online materials. Course attendees will get individualized attention from the instructor - Rhys Desmond - one of the industry leaders in website-based football tactics, coaching content, and analysis. The course is for anyone looking to work in football analysis, and/or improve their tactical and analytical understanding. This thorough introductory course will take a deep dive into all aspects of analysis, for the price of just $59.99 CAD - more bang for your buck than anywhere else. To take the course or gain more information, please see the below!

Structuring session plans: GAG methodology vs. linear progression

by Rhys Desmond, posted in Coach Education, Coaching, Most Recent

Like many reading this, I grew up around some great player-centered coaches, but always around ones who prioritized technical skill development over game awareness and tactical IQ. Instead of playing game-realistic activities, we spent a significant amount of time developing isolated technical skills without any link to how those skills could apply to the game itself. Around the time that I started to coach the sport, the likes of the CSA and US Soccer began to make changes that would better facilitate skill development in the context of the game. One of those introductions included what Canada Soccer calls the 'GAG' methodology (game-activity-game), with the pretext of 'let the game be the teacher'.