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The best method of coaching your principles of play, particularly when contact time is limited, is through game-based practices, writes Hannah Humphreys.
The principles of play are the foundations that support your team, both when attacking the opposition and defending your own goal.
Having a firm understanding of these principles, and how to utilise them within your regular session delivery, is crucial for developing your players as individuals and within a team setting.
When planning sessions, it’s important to consider how game-based practices can be used to strengthen players’ understanding and implementation of these principles, in order to replicate learning from the training ground to matchdays.
There are a variety of practice models that coaches can choose from when planning the delivery of their sessions, including technical practices, skill-based practices, functions, phases of play and game-based practices.
Each of these methods allow players to experience elements of the game in slightly different settings, and each fall somewhere different along the practice spectrum (constant, variable, random), which describes the balance between how repetitive or realistic a practice is.
As a coach, it can be difficult to pinpoint which one of these models is most effective within our session delivery.
"Game-based practices are my favourite when focusing on certain principles of play..."
Unfortunately, as with everything in coaching, there is no perfect answer! Each model serves its own purpose for player and team development, and your coaching context will typically define which is most relevant during different stages of your players’ development.
This decision will also depend on the age group you coach, the ability level of your players, the space you have available, the topic you are delivering and, sometimes, even the weather.
I have used every type of practice with my current group of players; however, game-based practices are, by far, my favourite method when focusing on certain principles of play.
For context, the group I currently work with are a senior team who compete in the FA Women’s National League, tier four of the English women’s football pyramid.
They train twice a week, for a total of three hours, and average between 16-20 players per training session across two-thirds of a 3G pitch.
Although three hours per week may seem like a good amount, it absolutely flies by with the content we need to get through. With this in mind, I use game-based practice a huge amount to address the following issues.
Once you take the warm-up, cool-downs and set-up time off the three-hour period available, we are really left with only a little more than two hours to fit in all the content we want to deliver to the group.
It can sometimes feel like we are always making a sacrifice between ball-rolling time and more detailed coaching interventions, because, although we want players to understand the topics we are delivering, it’s often hard to ensure they get the time on the ball required to keep them ticking over during the week.
With this in mind, utilising game-based practice for us ensures we are placing players in realistic, match-specific scenarios for the majority of the session, while carefully structuring our interventions so we can minimise the impact these have on ball-rolling time.
Game-based practices fall towards the ’realistic’ end of the practice spectrum, as they place players within match-realistic scenarios, allowing them to make their own decisions based on the ever-changing picture in front of them.
The aim of this process is, ultimately, for them to transfer these decision-making skills to a matchday, developing players into independent thinkers who can analyse and assess a game without constant direction from the sideline.
These scenarios also allow players to express their creativity within a relaxed environment, and become aware of when and where certain elements of creative play are best utilised.
Organising game-based practices which replicate the formation you are looking to play on a matchday allows units to build relationships.
This is also hugely important for ’impact players’, those who may spend more time on the bench as a substitute in comparison to others.
Not only does It provide them with opportunities to rotate into their preferred playing position and gain vital experience, it allows you as a coach to keep track of their development and ensure they are prepared for situations on the pitch when they are brought on.
We often ask players to "train the way you play", so it is important for us to create practices which allow this to happen more naturally.
Game-based practices spark a player’s natural competitiveness and allow a coach to set constraints which place players under a similar level of pressure to that they may face within different phases of matchday.
Experiencing this type of pressure is crucial, because players must develop their own individual coping mechanisms in order to perform to their best ability during these situations.
"Players must develop their own individual coping mechanisms in order to perform..."
When these situations arise during a matchday, it is these mechanisms they can lean into.
A good example of using game-based practices to develop principles of play is when trying to encourage your players to be compact out of possession. You can set up a small-sided game with five channels marked out along the length of the pitch.
When in possession, a team is tasked with ensuring they have at least one player in each channel, creating space. But, when losing possession, they have three seconds to get into a compact shape, and only cover three of the five channels – the channel with the ball, and the two nearest channels.
You can then advance the practice to remove the channels, but continue to task players with the same challenges.
You can also implement a scoring system to support your objectives – for example, if a team wins back possession of the ball inside six seconds or three passes, they earn a point.
This gives players the freedom to make decisions and see pictures which are game-realistic, while also encouraging them to think about a key principle of play you are looking to develop.
By making the situation realistic, it should make it easier for players to see the same pictures and replicate them on matchday.
Next time you are planning a session, it’s a good challenge to think about what principles of play your topic relates to, and how you might be able to use game-based practices to achieve your desired session outcomes.
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