Coaches given free pass to the Barca game

[MegaBonus]

Coaches given free pass to the Barca game

CRAIG FOSTER
January 24, 2010 .


As you read this, I will be midway through a session with a superb educator from FC Barcelona, Ruben Della Morte, as part of a four-day coaching seminar in Lismore, northern NSW.

Actually, there are two excellent educators in Lismore this weekend. The other is national assistant technical director Alistair Edwards, who is spending two intense 10-hour days teaching the principles of the new national curriculum to about 70 coaches from the North Coast region. And the standards Edwards has brought directly to the grassroots fills me with hope.

Hope for the game, that after decades of groping in the dark a light has been switched, we now have someone who has trained with Louis van Gaal, spent the last year shoulder to shoulder with Han Berger, and has a deep understanding of space, football mathematics and geometry, and how to teach these core concepts to youngsters.

The value of the 4-3-3 system for young players - and this is what it is being used for - is that it teaches the concept of space, and spacing, and, for the first time, offers an integrated approach with a vision of the game, a system to express this vision, and an entire methodology behind this to teach every principle of play.

Playing out from the back? Sure. Here are the sessions, start with the simple, build the complexity, add some resistance and there you go.

Movement in attack? No sweat. Here you go, come back next week.

This is what we have been crying out for, football detail, not nebulous concepts that leave the youth coach to find his or her own practical material, but the whole shebang.

A system of play with every compartment organised, teachable and available, and the results are magnificent.

In the space of three hours, Edwards improved the passing of a group of healthy, willing and strong young boys by 25 per cent, and had them organised zonally, and starting to recognise the proper use of space and angles. And there was not a single ball kicked from the back to the front of the team.

Everything short, every pass on an angle, players passing and moving in a systematic way. This is what can be achieved, Australia!

Don't let anyone, ever, tell you that an Australian child cannot play outstanding football - our youngsters simply need to be shown how. If the football is poor and vertical, the educator, or coach, is always to blame.

The difference with this course, aside from Della Morte and Edwards, and Berger making a whirlwind visit yesterday afternoon, is that it is free. Four days, 10 hours a day, at a beautiful venue, with methodology never before seen in this country, for nothing.

Thanks to the support of the Lismore City Council, no coach has paid a cent, although participants were asked for a gold coin donation for the tea and biscuits.

A single gold coin to learn concepts that took some 30 years of work by other countries; methodology worth, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why, then, if a country area can provide free education for their coaches, does our national body still charge for the privilege?

When there are few paid jobs available!

And when a country council is only too happy to support the game, how can our largest states not organise themselves to provide free education? It's a national disgrace.

We should be paying coaches to attend, such is the importance of getting this new material out into the football world.

A prohibitive fee only strangles the growth of understanding.

A gentleman from Spain, who has agreed to travel to Australia for a second time to help us understand football is, as you read this, showing a group of impressionable and hungry Australian coaches how to develop a child player from the age of six through the critical first few years, when technique is built that will determine the player's ultimate level, in order to later play the football of Barcelona.

The chance to see Australian kids play beautiful football is really worth much, much more than a single gold coin.

[Željko Jurin]

Please come to SA !!!!!

[bert]

please,please come to S.A. im sure it would be appreciated by many coaches.

[Squizzy]

please,please come to S.A. im sure it would be appreciated by many coaches.

How do we get this to the FFSA? Perhaps they can assist with getting them over here?

[Bresciano]

Theres hope

[the REAL one]

any video footage?