Coaching is the method used to help players improve.

You might have a team coach, a fitness coach, a private coach or you might even coach yourself.

Whoever the coach is, you need to make the decision of what needs to be learned, what you plan to achieve, exactly what are your goals?

You then need to identify a method and path you plan to take to achieve those goals.

Coaching should be specific to those being coached. There’s little point teaching 5 year old players the effectiveness of the offside trap.

Here is a breakdown to the Dutch philosophy when coaching football by considering the following 4 key elements:

• – insight into the game
• – who is teaching
• – who is learning
• – how it is to be learned

The main thing is determining what it is that you want to learn.

If it is broadly that you want to become a better player, then you must break this down to all it’s individual components and decide how you are going to achieve learning these.

In these coming pages you will see that techniques can be taught in a variety of ways. To learn the insights into the game of football, the first thing you require is a game. The Dutch philosophy takes the concept of using small sided games. This is so the details of the insight to be taught are effectively magnified.

To  fully recreate the 11 a side game in it’s smallest comparison, we must play a minimum of 4v4.

4v4 allows all the relevant principles of play to be taught. However, if we are focusing on a singular principle or technique then this number may be less.

All of this said, football is a leisure activity, you play because you want to, enjoyment is the primary goal.