Becoming a real football manager

Instructions, mentality: attacking, passing style: short, tempo: quick. Ohh hang on a second, I can do this for real now.

Last weekend I completed my Football Federation Australia junior coaching license, so am now a ‘proper’ football manager. Sure I’ll be coaching under 12’s, but thats not what counts, I can pretend to be educated about the game, shout at my young winger to take more shots, and go to official FFA conferences. WOO!!!

But actually, it was great fun. The junior license was a two day course, 9 to 5, something I thought I’d struggle with considering it was my first day of holidays. But really, it was just playing football.

I arrived, sat down, and looked at the imposing FFA folder. Ohh crap. This is going to be a long day. As is inevitable when you get twenty football lovers together in a room, it didn’t take long for the football banter to start, but then our ‘coach’ for the next two days walked in. His name was Pat McCann, and it turns out he used to play for Yeovil Town. But at the time all that mattered was that I was going to have to spend the whole weekend listening to him talk about little kids running around. Borriing.

But no, he soon explained that the majority of the two days would be outside, playing football :). After some short theory, we were soon out on the pitch running through some drills. And bamm the day was gone. The second day was slightly more stressful, as we had to run a training drill under the eyes of an ‘assessor’ but it went smoothly, and the assessor liked my dribbling to beat an opponent exercise. Soon we had parted ways, after yelling “see ya in the dugout” at each other, and we were all now proper football coaches. The 16 hours had passed in a heartbeat, and whats more, it was great fun.

But why am I telling you this? Two things (well maybe three). Firstly, I would greatly encourage all of you to get out to your local football organisation and do a coaching license. It took two short days, was mostly spent on the pitch playing football, and overall was great fun.

Secondly, it taught me so many things about football that I never knew. I’ve been playing for eleven years and every training session go for a run. But according to our instructor, this is a waste of time and we should warm up on ball. I always static stretch before a game, but apparent this is actually bad for our muscle elasticity, something needed during a game (instead you should static stretch at home and dynamic stretch before the game). In two days I learnt more about ‘body shape’ then I had in eleven years of playing. And after just sixteen short hours, I now look at football in a completely different way.

Ohh and thirdly, who doesn’t want to be coaching our next generation of World Cup winners. So get out their, have some fun, coach some kids, train your countries next football saviour! Get involved, get coaching and become a real football manager!

If your in Australia, visit FFA to enrol in a course. If not, find you local organisation, and get coaching!