I’ve been fortunate enough to watch two excellent Arsenal vs Bolton games in the last week. Already Bolton under Owen Coyle look like a team who want to be more careful with the ball and play football on the ground. But in honour of Arsenal returning to the top of the Premier League I’m posting [...]

Amongst the myriad responsibilities we soccer coaches face at every training session, one of the most basic yet crucial jobs is to make sure every player has the correct equipment for playing football.
Fortunately the few items of essential gear are fundamentally the same no matter what age or gender your players, and irrespective of where [...]

The start of a New Year is a great chance to reflect on our coaching and a perfect opportunity to improve our soccer coaching practice. Here are 10 top tips for making 2010 your best year of soccer coaching yet.
1) Specify And Write Down Your Soccer Coaching Philosophy – your philosophy helps you in every [...]

Gilterlan Ferreira is a professional fitness coach at Brazilian league side Mossoro, in Rio grande do Norte. He is a graduate in fitness education and post-graduate in sport training.
I asked him about the player development system in Brazil and how his country managed to create so many top-class footballers. The answer is perhaps not as [...]

Andy Hilton is the Head of Football Development at Sport Trafford and a youth talent scout for Manchester United FC. Over 20 years of coaching he has led training sessions for players of all abilities, from U5 beginners to preparatory camps for U16 trialists.
Here are some of the key points from our extended interview:
On Inclusive [...]

A Better Football subscriber recently emailed to ask if I had any suggestions for a long passing session that he was planning.
I had a think about it and put together a simple session plan. I thought I would share it with you here:
Long Passing – Soccer Coaching Session Plan
Set up a pitch approximately 40m x [...]

If, like me, you’re being asked what you would like for Christmas on an almost daily basis, then you could do a lot worse than to request a couple of soccer coaching books to fill your stocking with.
And because in the last five years I’ve spent nearly #1000 on soccer coaching books, DVDs and software [...]