I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen a coach spend three weeks trying to teach a kid how to hold a defensive line, only to watch the whole thing crumble the moment a striker puts a bit of shoulder into them. They think it’s a tactical failure, but it’s usually just a physical
I’ve sat through enough coaching seminars to know that most people treat set-piece design like they’re trying to crack a government code. They’ll show you fancy heat maps, iPad animations, and spreadsheets that look like they belong in a bank, but they’ll never mention the fact that your winger is too exhausted to sprint and
I’ve sat through enough “leadership seminars” in drafty community halls to know that most people treat a complete guide to team culture like it’s something you can buy in a glossy brochure or manufacture with a few motivational posters in the changing rooms. They talk about “synergy” and “core values” as if you can just
I’ve spent more Sunday mornings than I care to count standing on waterlogged touchlines, watching coaches treat their wide players like they’re playing a game of chess rather than football. They get obsessed with “expected assists” and fancy heat maps, convinced that if they just find the right magic trick, they’ll finally understand how wingers
I’ve spent more years than I care to admit watching young players walk into the weight room with the misplaced confidence of a professional athlete, only to see them dragging their feet through the final twenty minutes of a Saturday match. They’ve been fed this nonsense that more is always better, chasing heavy lifts and
I’ve spent thirty-five years on muddy touchlines watching people try to solve simple problems with over-complicated, expensive nonsense, and I see the same thing happening in the world of elder care. You’ll find plenty of glossy brochures and “expert” seminars claiming to offer a complete guide to managing parents, but most of them are written
I’ve spent thirty-five years standing on sidelines where the wind cuts through your jacket like a knife, and if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that most of the “expert” advice on how to coach communication on the pitch is absolute rubbish. You see these fancy tactical manuals telling you to implement “verbal cues”
I’ve lost count of how many “tactical gurus” on the internet try to tell you that knowing how to use a target man requires a complex web of geometric passing lanes and high-level spatial awareness. It’s absolute rubbish. I spent twenty years watching coaches try to implement these fancy, theoretical systems, only to watch their
I was standing on a touchline in mid-November last year—the kind of afternoon where the wind cuts right through your waterproofs and the pitch is more mud than grass—watching a lad’s U14 side dominate a game with 65% possession. On paper, they were the superior team; in reality, they were just passing the ball in
I’ve spent half my life sitting on damp plastic seats in coaches that smelled of stale Lucozade and broken dreams, trying to get a squad of teenagers to a fixture three counties away without someone losing a shin guard or their temper. Most of the rubbish you read online—those glossy, over-produced “complete guide to away