{"id":13951,"date":"2020-05-12T18:00:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playerdevelopmentproject.com\/?p=13951"},"modified":"2024-01-22T14:06:02","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T03:06:02","slug":"develop-a-feeling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playerdevelopmentproject.com\/develop-a-feeling\/","title":{"rendered":"Develop a Feeling"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article, PDP Technical Advisor, Dan Wright<\/a> wades into the opposed vs. unopposed practice debate. Dan shares his perspective on why this may be a redundant argument if we are to ensure that every player gets the individual support they require to maximise their potential.<\/h2>\n

Each day I scroll through social media and see a similar discussion taking place. Every. Single. Day. The ‘unopposed versus opposed’ debate.\u00a0 Now, very quickly I will attempt to share with you my opinion on this and the context around why I coach the way I do, but stick with me here because I\u2019m going to try and present an alternative view. It’s one that is probably less radical, based on my experience,\u00a0but might help the young people that you work with \u2013 which is often an area overlooked in this argument.<\/p>\n

My opposed vs. unopposed journey <\/strong><\/p>\n

My coaching journey started out as a volunteer in grassroots football before taking paid work coaching all different sports in a school.\u00a0 For context, this inner-city school had 23 different nationalities and a well-worn, small 40 x 30m sand-based artificial turf \u2018cage\u2019 for 30 participants. These children didn\u2019t want to refine technique and they certainly didn\u2019t want coaching points from me.\u00a0 They wanted to play \u2013 to run around and make their own decisions.\u00a0 This fed my bias. As a young player I hated unopposed pre-determined practices, waiting in queues or eternally asking \u201cwhen can we play a game?\u201d.<\/em>\u00a0 The headteacher at the school was fantastic; she wanted the pupils to get a taste of different sports and my task was to guide them through some of the rules by setting tasks or altering the space. Perhaps I would now call this manipulating constraints.\u00a0 I had no idea what that meant at this stage!\u00a0 Here I experimented and made loads of mistakes; I designed games and used engagement as the only metric of success. A successful lesson meant no conflict, lots of ball-rolling time, and groans of disappointment when the end came.<\/p>\n

This period of learning, coupled with my bias as a player, led me to fall in love with small-sided games.\u00a0 I still enjoy designing these sessions, thinking about how the players will interpret the challenge and anticipating what interactions will emerge.<\/p>\n

As my coaching developed, I was able to spend more time exclusively coaching football, which was always my passion.\u00a0 As I progressed, I became wedded to this approach. Everything opposed, everything directional and nothing unopposed. Ever.<\/p>\n

Looking back, I was a radical and I thought this was the only<\/em><\/strong> way to go.\u00a0 This seemed to work, to an extent \u2013 some of the players I interacted with progressed quickly, I felt I was getting somewhere.\u00a0 Players were engaged, they practiced at \u2018match speed\u2019. It was fast and frantic, you had to be skilful to survive.\u00a0 If players needed to work on any individual aspects of their game, they could do that in their time.\u00a0 I felt group sessions helped build game-craft and understanding. My only \u2018individual\u2019 coaching came in 1-2-1 chats or fly-by interventions.<\/p>\n

A few years later, I was given more exposure to a \u2018high performance\u2019 setting and I saw more and more unopposed work, and this was not just in senior football. I was fortunate to interact with elite players \u2013 all of whom undertook some sort of individual or isolated practice.\u00a0 More importantly, these players wanted space during their week to sharpen their strength and round their weaknesses away from the fun-yet-demanding chaos of games.<\/p>\n

I was conflicted.\u00a0 I had never set up a drill or an unopposed session.\u00a0 I felt I was behind and was a bad coach.\u00a0 This challenged me, and I fought it. Was this the only way to go?\u00a0 Was it right for young players? Do you need perfect ‘technique’ to play the game?<\/p>\n

I was less sure than before and with this vulnerability, I developed as a coach. It became all-consuming.\u00a0 I tried to use every resource to challenge my thinking and help me understand more; watching top coaches in action, having dialogue with people who thought differently to me, planning sessions from scratch \u2013 not just copying. I asked questions, read plenty, reviewed and spoke to players.\u00a0 I read more.\u00a0 I became more comfortable with some of the huge concepts like skill acquisition<\/a>, dynamics systems theory, and ecological dynamics.\u00a0 The more I read, the more questions I had.<\/p>\n

Around this time, I became involved with Player Development Project which has allowed me to interact with some experts on some of this stuff.\u00a0 This has been mind-expanding and certainly helped me to challenge and sort some of my thoughts. Even in this space, people have different interpretations of what best practice looks like.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to today and the coaching space is even more extreme and confusing.\u00a0 The amount of content, conflicting points of view, and aggressive dialogue make it harder than ever to see the wood for the trees.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve persevered and the journey has been brilliant, jam-packed with rabbit holes, salesmen, experts, hours of reading, deep questions, and lots of reflection.\u00a0 I am nowhere\u2026and yet I feel I\u2019ve made progress at the same time.\u00a0 I have a better understanding of myself than I did and (hopefully) I\u2019m in a better position to support the players I coach.<\/p>\n

Anyway, on to the point of the blog\u2026I think there is another way to view all this.<\/p>\n

Developing \u2018Feeling\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The unopposed versus opposed argument is dead. It\u2019s certainly boring. It often leads to people working in the talent development space shouting down or belittling their peers rather than serving the needs of the people they coach.\u00a0 Players can benefit from practices at both ends of the practice continuum. This is a model we reference a lot through PDP and certainly something that has helped me in my session design and planning. Where you sit on this continuum might be impacted by things like: the age of your players, the contact time you have, physical loading, game understanding, number of players in the session, or the coaching style adopted.\u00a0 You can (and probably should) move across this continuum from session to session and even in session. The whole-part-whole approach<\/a> is a good example of this.<\/p>\n

It is also important to acknowledge and understand that whatever practice you choose there will be trade-offs.\u00a0 It will be a constant juggle: the amount and quality of the repetition<\/strong>, the realism<\/strong> the practice recreates in comparison to the 11v11 game, and the relevance<\/strong> to the individuals within the practice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Practitioners in this space are often encouraged to use an \u2018evidence-based\u2019<\/em> approach.\u00a0 For some coaches, this can mean experiential – pointing to their success stories but neglecting to acknowledge the failures.\u00a0 For some, it means empirical – highlighting the latest literature to support their rationale and approach.<\/p>\n

Note: clearly, both of these elements are tremendously important but we can be guilty of listening to the key learnings whilst we are criticising or judging someone with a different view of the world. There can be cross-overs in these approaches but too often we ignore the similarities in favour of clashing over the differences. We often miss the complexity and nuance behind the approach \u2013 the context, the culture, the personality of the individual, or the intention of the coach. The aim of the coach is to help both individuals and the collective to get better.\u00a0 Nobody coaches with the intention of failing the players or making them worse. If a coach adopts an approach that\u2019s different from yours but the players are engaged and learn to compete, is this bad? Can we ONLY do this one way?\u00a0 Is taking an approach because the textbook says so or the tradition dictates good enough? Are any of these questions worthwhile or beneficial to the player?<\/p>\n

Where a lot of these discussions fall down is measuring the transfer of learning.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t really matter where you sit on player development models, learning outcomes, curriculums, or plans.\u00a0 You cannot measure their success and what seems to work for one coach, club or federation almost certainly won\u2019t work elsewhere.\u00a0 One approach that worked for<\/span>\u00a0one player will fail elsewhere, but this is a whole separate blog for another day.<\/p>\n

What is important to you?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Throughout this journey, I started to watch and read a lot of what I would call \u2018origin\u2019 stories or biographies on players\u2019 pathways.\u00a0 Although it is fundamentally flawed to think what worked for one individual in one context will work elsewhere for another, I do enjoy hearing about their adversity or climb to the top.\u00a0 I enjoy what people who play the game have to say. You can get fantastic insight from listening or reading about performers who have lived and breathed this.\u00a0 I genuinely waste hours doing this. On one such expedition I came across these two clips from Leo Messi and Paul Pogba.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/playerdevelopmentproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Messi-feels.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel the moment from game to game, feel the moment and play what feels right.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

https:\/\/playerdevelopmentproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/POGBA-Feel.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0“I don\u2019t think the manager can tell you when to make this run there. When you feel the ball will come here. The manager cannot tell you to feel that\u2026only the player can feel that.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anticipate. Feel. Instinct. Know<\/em>. These are all great words for anybody working in sport but incredibly difficult to teach or coach.<\/p>\n

A huge percentage of coaching comes down to your ‘philosophy’ \u2013 an overused buzzword that can be described as \u201ca theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour.\u201d<\/em> These clips really landed for me \u2013 a lightbulb moment.\u00a0 They really aligned with my approach and bias as covered above. But perhaps there was more. In sessions I want players to feel; feel like they\u2019re in a game, feel like they need to compete, feel like the session is helping them, feel like it is creating a need to get better. All of this ‘feeling’ for the game is way more important than opposed or unopposed. So how do we help players develop that feeling, if at all?<\/p>\n

This is a little fluffy and I\u2019m still working it out, but some of the things I\u2019ve been considering;<\/p>\n