The Modern Trend
Attending a recent Uefa course run by a well established football association brought about an interesting reflection that warranted the publication of this piece to gauge the views of other coaches. The course was predominantly run online which, given the ongoing global pandemic was understandable. One moment in particular stood out on the course. Coaches when asked to prepare a training session for their coaching assessment had to present it online. The feedback given to the majority of the sessions is what brought about the writing of this piece.
One coach planned his session to begin from the coach whenever the ball left the field of play. Another coach had planned kick ins from the sideline. Another coach had planned that the ball begins from the goalkeeper for all restarts in play. Each of those rule sets had a purpose to them. The coach who planned to restart the ball himself following a breakdown in play suggested that by doing so, it would challenge the defending team to reorganize their shape quickly whilst also keeping the flow of the game going. The coach who asked that play restart from the goalkeeper was coaching a session based on playing from the back, this coach felt starting from the keeper meant more practice on that chosen topic. The coach who included the rule that play would restart with kick ins from the sideline was working on pressing.
In each case the course tutors dismissed the ideas and described those rule sets as quote "That's unrealistic". The tutor in question suggested that the session must reflect the exact rule sets of the game, ie the session have the same rule sets players would have come Matchday. This completely confused and contradicted massively numerous courses attended online by Keepitonthedeck that were run by other associations and organizations.
Different Views
The views of the aforementioned organization above were interesting given a recent experience on a Spanish FA course in which they encouraged the conditioning of training in order to make the training specific and more challenging than the game itself. A reference was given to the FC Barcelona LA Masia concept known as "Superman Concept". What does that mean you ask?.
What is the Superman Concept?
The Superman concept title developed from the famous Superman fictional superhero character. This title first appeared in Football Club Barcelona's famous La Masia Academy and involved the idea of training in difficult training scenario's that challenged players to a high level technically and intellectually. The idea was that training in a highly challenging way would make the actual football games easier for players to make good decisions and have good technical execution. The link of the concept and Superman related to how Superman can perform magnificent feats of strength because Earth's gravity doesn't affect him as much as his home planet Krypton's stronger gravity would, so Superman was able to carry out tasks far more effectively.
How does this concept compare to realistic training?
By demanding that training sessions solely replicate the rule sets of a matchday it completely restricts the potential to create a very demanding, challenging and focused topic for a session. The days of courses claiming to know all are going, but sat on the recent one mentioned above, it reminded us that still ego exists in the ideas of some associations who insist that their own way is gospel. Whatever the truth of it all, one thing is for sure. The rate of development of footballers never lies, and we would back environments that challenge growth no matter what rule sets are put in place for training.
Summary
It is absolutely absurd to demand training sessions replicate the exact rule sets of a match if there is a specific reason for rules or constraints that will aid an environment focused on challenge and growth.