“I do not want my team to have peaks in performance. I do not want my team to swing performance. Rather than that, I prefer to keep always high levels of performance. This is because to me there aren’t periods or games more important than others.” Mourinho (cited by Amieiro et al, 2006)
Allow me to take you behind the scenes and explain the processes behind the success of CCSC Kariong U/16’s team Grand Final season. I hope by reading this you will understand that the team’s success and the individual performance improvements were no accident.
The CCSC Kariong Under 16’s team season started long before their round 1 match v Terrigal.
Personally, I wanted to find the most effective training method that would take care of all aspects of my players development. I also wanted to work smarter rather than harder. I wanted the players to be a part of a process that would expose them to total training (holistic) and one that would enable them to clearly see the difference between things that are done professionally, as opposed to unprofessionally.
First there needed to be a starting point and this was to assess the general situation and surrounding environments that my team would be placed in. This would give me the platform from which to build.
From there, I could formulate a season plan. I began by identifying targets and objectives (expected results and team development). My primary focus was to put the players learning opportunities above all else and this included having them realise that winning every match wasn’t a priority.
I was of the opinion that the season was long and believed what I was implementing was right and in the end the process would take care of the winning of matches.
I think all players and parents involved in the team can vouch for the fact that there was never a ‘best 11’. Every player had opportunities to play and learn and become better in games.
I constructed a list of fundamental needs and knew that with the network of resources and expert coaching that was available to me at CCSC, my needs would definitely be met.
I engaged and worked closely with our head of Strength and Conditioning, Matt O’Neil. I wanted to ensure the health and development of my players wasn’t compromised.
My targets were to ensure that players did not sustain injury due to avoidable fatiguing, plus I wanted to ensure that we allowed the players bodies to grow and develop.
Training sessions where planned with meticulous care, with the intensity levels of each session pre-determined. This meant the sessions intensity levels were achieved no matter what was being coached tactically.
The players week followed the following format:
Saturday: Match Day
Sunday: Day off
Monday: Active Recovery / Yoga
Tuesday: Technical / Tactical Session with a strength focus
Wednesday: Technical / Tactical with an endurance focus
Thursday: Technical / Tactical with a speed focus
Friday : Match preparation including set plays with an activation focus
I will elaborate on the above.
Every training session dealt with a football objective but included a performance aspect also.
Recovery day: The objective here being to accelerate the recuperation of the players.
Strength day: (Futsal) this day included exercises that promoted acceleration, deceleration and change of direction. This was also be the day I incorporated shooting or finishing into the practice. We achieved this by having the players work in reduced spaces in smaller numbers with the time of the activities short and the recuperation between activities almost equal.
Endurance day: The exercises on this day had to promote effort similar to that of a game. To help achieve this, players worked in big spaces, in greater numbers with longer training phases.
Speed day: All exercises on this day promoted an elevation in speed of decisions, execution and action. The practices here would be performed in variable spaces and with the number of players that I considered necessary to achieve the intended objectives.
Activation day: The objective of this day was to accelerate the recuperation of players. This was a game preparation day, where parts of the match were recreated and executed with less intensity and with longer recuperation intervals.
I then thought about a Model of Play.
This was a collective project that I based the framework for from the National Playing Style. Still, it was a project, and like any other project, was subject to adaptations and changes and really evolved as the season went on. Players had buy-in here.
I would set Principle of Play. Underlying that would be sub-principles, which created tasks for players to carry out on the park. At times when constructing these plans it can all look good on paper but not be relevant in practise, so players would continually give me feedback as to whether their tasks were realistic or achievable. If they weren’t, we needed to solve the problem together so as to either be clear on the role of that player or what the most effective method of solving a particular football problem was.
I discovered by season’s end that giving these boys a voice unearthed a group of players that could definitely transition into the coaching ranks.
I think anybody who watched the team play could clearly see players understood how to play within that system. It wasn’t made up on the spot with players and coaches crossing their fingers and hoping that it would all turn out well. There was a clear direction on how we wanted to score our goals and a clear understanding on how to stop our opponents from scoring against us.
Team Culture. Without it, you’re not a team. I took the players through planned workshops throughout the season. My starting point was team culture. I wanted to create an atmosphere where we were stronger together.
I implemented principles that always kept our values alive. For example, when training was completed, no player left for lunch unless everyone was ready to walk down as a group. Some of the changes in behaviour that resulted were players helping other players with their organisation, rewarding one another for being better prepared rather than criticising each other for taking too long.
Our team motto was the following:
School comes first
The team comes second
The individual comes third.
This was how we approached everything when faced with a decision.
I could go into much more depth regarding the workings of this group and articulate personally how I, as coach, work with my teams. However, I wanted to give just a small insight into how this fantastic group of young men collectively made themselves not just better, smarter footballers, but how they each grew and demonstrated their capacity to be great people.
All parents should be as proud of this group as I am. I truly look forward to working with them again very soon.
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