If I said the word "coach" to you, you'd probably think of a person working in a team environment. But there is so much potential for all coaches, whether they are already working in a team environment or not, to hone in on their skills when working with individuals. Regardless of the coaching context, you must work to tailor your coaching, feedback, and advice to each individual.
As coaches, we must recognize that players have an array of qualities that make them unique on the pitch. We must also recognize that each of these unique pillars need to be paid attention to with dedicated attention and care.
In the coaching community, there's often a discourse around how the technical elements of the game must be prioritized in the early stages of development, typically between the ages of 4-10. But that does not mean that tactics become a mute point. Simply helping to elucidate positioning and roles, and how to perceive space can all be considered "tactical" elements of the game. These can be taught without players needing to have technical foundations in place. Game awareness and game intelligence from understanding basic information around their role, position, and how to react to the space around them, will help a player to perform well on the pitch. This can be taught in combination to the development of techniques and skills. It does not have to be an 'either/or', nor does it have to be a matter of one coming before the other.
Historically, we've tailored our content toward coaches and fans of the beautiful game, attempting to use our content for practical application in the game. But more and more we find ourselves interacting with players wanting to take their tactical understanding to the next level. On the one hand, it's amazing to see players taking initiative, and recognizing the intertwined nature of the tactical side to superiority in all other "corners" of the game. But simultaneously, this points to somewhat of a hole in coaching practice and common dogmas, where the technical and physical components are still prioritized, without enough regard for the tactical elements of football. Here is how to improve your tactical understanding as a player.
The game is deeply rooted in all five aspects of the common coaching model, and in fact, every decision a player makes boils down to all five elements simultaneously. Here's why the technical, tactical, physical and psychological aspects of football are all deeply intertwined.
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