Thought this might be of interest to some. I met a lad I used to coach with for a coffee yesterday. He is a lot younger than me, but we formed a decent little team for a while. He is still coaching now and it is his profession. Our little combo was me and my relatively old school approaches to player development, and him with loads of smart new ideas. We bounced off each other well and lads did ok with us. I havent coached for over a year now, in all honesty lads like this were just much better at it and I started to feel old. He was telling me about how tech and in particular AI is becoming more of a thing to help coaches. There is a computer chip you can strap to your boot which will track how you play or train (fifa approved for in game wear apparently). It tells you if players have kept the ball long enough or got rid of it too soon. Quality of pass from different parts of the foot etc. Mind boggling stuff, but it can spit out some personal training programmes for players. Also AI systems now for tactical analysis. Google deep mind is one Liverpool use apparently, specifically for corners and making them better. I cant remember the name of it, I was glazing over at this point He even showed me a video of some skills session where a player was basically keeping the ball away from some mini robot thing, and supposedly it was learning his movements and adapting to be more challenging. It makes me wonder though, about the future. I wouldnt survive in it in any way I am sure. My idea of player dev is to watch them and decide how they can get better and show them. Then drown them in the experiences that will make it happen. All too simple. I carried about 20 core sessions around in my head, all adaptable to make them work in different ways and for different levels of players. I suppose in reality coaches will always need to be human as the most important part is communicating and adapting as the session progresses. One thing my mate did say, which made me smile, was he still keeps some of my 'wisdom' (his sarcastic word) up his sleeve for the older players. I used to tell him he was too soft and at times you need to tell them to get stuck in more. I used to say 'give him a rattle', as in put the foot in, let him know you are there etc. No idea where I got that phrase from now. This coach loved it. I gave him a daft little scrap book when he went off to bigger things which was a series of photos of players getting stuck in. Souness, Whitehurst, Pearce, Gattuso, Gentile etc. Also had Cattermole standing over you know who in it. He still has that daft little scrap book in his possession and brings out the phrase when no other grown ups are in earshot Bit of a ramble, sorry. I just hope coaches arent losing too much faith in their own judgement of players needs...
Good post mate. Interesting, but God Himself knows where it will end up! Players are humans though, and it will always take another human to see them, understand them and motivate them. Some things will never change, and that applies to other fields of work too. Mind, if Liverpool are using a computer to help them with corners, someone should tell them to plug it in!. They always look seriously vulnerable when they are defending them.
There will always be space in football for the kind of coach you are, in terms of highly technical analysis based on data from algorithms, that will likely always be available to more professional set ups, but there is a lot of space for personal interactions that can develop the young mind, putting your arm around a young lad and gaining his trust, basic advice that seems simple and obvious but can be missed, there are all kinds of personality types, some are more academic and will enjoy the data, others will prefer a more personable approach with simpler and more direct instruction.
