IT’S EARLY EVENING on the west coast of Ireland when I pick up the phone to ring Anthony Hudson, New Zealand’s current trail-blazing international manager. Having taken the reigns in late 2014 in…
Tag: coaching
IT’S JUST AFTER LUNCHTIME WHEN WE FINALLY GET CHATTING, and Kevin Nicholson seems eager to get stuck in. Intelligent, assertive and approachable – three traits that have helped him become one of the…
DURING THE LAST FEW WEEKS, I have delivered coaching development lectures to students at Penn State University and at a small club in south-western Ontario, Canada. The students at Penn State University…
IN GLOBAL FOOTBALL, THE NARRATIVE NEVER STAYS THE SAME. Success on the pitch is not defined by population density and landmass. Footballing excellence does not grow from dry, unfilled fields left stagnate…
This feature is part of The Academy Way THE TRULY ICONIC FOOTBALL CLUBS ARE DEFINED BY THEIR ABILITY to dominate on and off the pitch. Perhaps no other enterprise is as results-driven…
FOOTBALL HAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE a game of contrasting styles, evolving philosophies of play and trendy paradigms that captivate the world only to be emulated, bastardized, found out, and written off as…
I HAVE THIS MEMORY of my father showing me a clip of Pelé juggling a grapefruit when I was a boy that reminds me how simple the game really is. Like any young…
PART OF WHAT MOTIVATED ME IN FOOTBALL was the drive to improve. Growing up, I was afforded an unconventional footballing education, one that took from the gritty and talent-rich leagues of south San…
THE MODERN FOOTBALL COACH IS LIKE A HOME BUILDER. While not an architect, they are tasked with the construction, organisation, and management of several pieces that must align to complete the overall project…
WHEN THE LAYERS OF COMPLEXITY ARE REMOVED, football is, primarily, a science of preparation and execution. Players train on a daily basis for the challenges that await on the pitch so that when…