Culture Building in Youth Football
The one culture you CAN appropriate!
Good morning! I want to talk about culture building in youth football.
Before we start, please check that The Weekly Rondo is marked as “important” in your inbox. Each week just under 50% of The Weekly Rondo readers open the newsletter from their inbox - that means you aren’t being shown the latest issue in your main inbox.
Neat Reads
Neat Reads is a segment where I share an article or podcast that interests me and relates to our weekly theme.
Here’s an episode from The Diary of a CEO podcast that has David Moyes share his insights and ideas on player-management, creating a “winning culture” and much more. It’s a great listen.
Put the responsibility on the player
I’m sharing an article in more detail about layered learning and player responsibility, so I won’t delve into the idea too much here.
I’ve found that having players review themselves and their teammates has led to them showing more interest in getting better.
A lot of footballers have inflated egos, deservedly or not. So, by giving the player responsibility for their development they become more aware of what they’re learning because they have to.
We can share the responsibility with the players by asking them to do a few things:
Rate their own performances on a scale of 1-10
Rate the game performance for the team on a scale of 1-10
Rate the training performance for the team on a scale of 1-10
If players score themselves or their team low then ask them why and don’t punish them for it. Do the same if they score themselves high.
A high training performance can be that the team is trying to improve despite struggling, trying a new position, making many strong decisions, and so much more.
Players associate a good level of training/playing with goals, tricks and assists. We need to get them to associate a good level of training/playing with reflection, trying to better themselves and pushing each other to be the best version of themselves.
Coaches Corner
Coaches Corner is a segment where I ramble about training this week and answer some questions I get from Substack or Twitter.
Ramblings
An interesting problem I faced when I started working in Malawi was that players across all our age groups, but more notably the ones in our youngest group, were very cocky.
The youngest age group is U12 and is made of players that have either just joined the academy or have only been here for 1-2 years.
We scout the entire country for talented footballers. We only sign the best.
All of our teams are made up of players who were likely the best player on their team before joining us. So, arrogance is inevitable.
This shows in training and in games.
In training the players may choose to embarrass their teammates by doing tricks rather than scoring goals or playing within the conditions of the training exercise.
In games we’ll see some of our newest and youngest players beat their defender one versus one and then turn backwards to go beat them again. It can be frustrating to watch at times.
I think football is more of a performative concept here. Entertainment comes first and that usually comes at the expense of humiliating a defender.
Q&A
Q1: What do you do when your players are not motivated?
I don’t believe motivation is sustainable. So, I tell my players that discipline is what will make them a professional footballer.
Nobody became a professional footballer because they were very “motivated.” it simply comes from coming to training, trying to get better each day and working very, very hard.
So when I see my players discipline start to slip I have a very honest conversation with them and say that they simply haven’t been good enough and that they’re not training at the standards they set for themselves.
More often than not the player agrees.
I would also think about what the player may be going through.
Too much school work?
Family issues?
Friend/partner problems?
These may affect the player and their discipline!
Q2: What do you do when your players constantly shout at each other while on the same team?
When making teams for training I tend to stay away from keeping friend groups together. It may affect the quality of training because players won’t be playing with someone they know as well, but I find that by mixing social groups and forcing them to work together I see less yelling.
Incentivize the training games too. If you’ve mixed a friend group and the team you have created doesn’t like each other very much they will need something to celebrate to make this experience valuable.
They’re going to be annoyed that they’re not playing with their closer friends so give them something to play for that rewards a competitive spirit.
Thanks for the questions Tobi!
Questions can be asked directly through Substack (see the button below) or via Twitter DMs!
Exercise of the Week
Exercise of the Week is a segment where I share some of my favorite relevant exercises I have used in training before.
This week I’d like to share what I look to say in training as I’m developing a culture of success and improvement.
Coaching Points:
Do we need to look up at the goal/target more than once before shooting/passing?
Can we take our first touch towards our target?
Are we fast enough to beat our defender without tricks?
Are we supporting the ball carrier? Which options do they have? Do they know that they have options?
A lot of these are simple questions that won’t win any awards, but by constantly using them I am asking my players to make decisions sooner and to challenge themselves to use their abilities as effectively as possible.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading this week!
I’m always interested to hear your thoughts and ideas so please feel free to send me a message on Twitter or leave a comment above in the Q&A section.
Share this newsletter with a friend or every single person you have ever met.
See you next week!
Where to find me:
Medium: https://medium.com/@cameron-herbert
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CamH___
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-herbert-football-coach/