Kategoria BISAC: Sports & Recreation >> Coaching - Soccer

For Pele, futsal was "very important, no doubt." The Brazilian FIFA Player of the Century grew up playing futsal before transitioning to the 11-a-side game. So did many others - from household-name superstars to semi-professionals to Sunday league players.

The benefits of futsal have recently entered the mainstream, with initiatives, facilities, and organisations being created, but there are still coaches who are wary of using the sport to develop footballers. In the ever-changing modern game of football, futsal can give players an advantage over others.

In Developing the...

Successful footballers are typically those who are best able to regulate their emotions, fix their attention, utilise effective interpersonal skills, and remain highly motivated and self-assured in the face of consistent challenges. These behaviours are the hallmark of mentally tough, emotionally intelligent players, and can be grouped under the 5Cs of: Commitment, Communication, Concentration, Control, and Confidence.

The 5Cs, however, are rarely innate - they are a product of a player's long-term psycho-social development and, crucially, they can be coached and nurtured. The aim...

Soccer coaches across all levels of the game share a common and simple dilemma: how best to improve their players. One of the best ways to do this is through improved communication and how we individualize our messages to our players. It's fundamentally important for coaches to provide quality communication with clear detail and, as the FA's Future Game Philosophy makes clear, "Mastery of innovative coaching methods that utilize communication styles is the mark of a gifted coach, and will be an essential requirement for the game of the future."

Examples of good communications that...

Originally developed by VitOr Frade, at the University of Porto, Tactical Periodization is a methodology - popularized by coaches such as JosE Mourinho and Andre Villas Boas - that trains soccer players through a logical process that focuses on four moments of the game.

These four moments are: Offensive Organisation, the Transition from Defence to Attack, Defensive Organisation, and the Transition from Attack to Defence. Through Tactical Periodization, the aim is to develop players to rapidly alter their on-field behaviours according to the tactical context of the match, and what...

Soccer is in transition. There is now a growing trend away from 'drills', towards sessions that are more variable and which involve more decision making. But coaches have one burning question - how?

The "Deliberate Soccer Practice" series shows coaches how to evolve their coaching sessions. It aims to ensure that players are 'cognitively engaged', with all players involved all of the time. It is about offering exercises which have players actively making regular contact with the ball, making decisions, changing decisions depending on what is happening, and moving to adapt to what the...