A perfect example of this tension can be seen in the debate among football coaches about the efficacy of traditional drills versus the modern focus on small-sided games. Advocates of the latter often argue that all football drills are outdated and ineffective. They claim that players can learn everything they need through real-game scenarios, where decisions must be made under pressure. While this perspective has its merits, dismissing all drills overlooks the potential benefits of a middle ground, where both approaches can coexist and contribute to a player’s development.

Take, for instance, the most basic form of a football drill: a single player kicking a ball against a wall. This simple exercise teaches crucial skills—technique, ball control, touch, and eye-foot coordination. There’s no denying the benefits of such repetition, whether it’s juggling a ball, chipping it into a bin, or navigating through cones. These foundational activities are often labeled as “boring” or “not enjoyable,” especially when framed as coach-guided practice focused solely on weaknesses. Yet, the definition of what is “fun” varies from participant to participant. If players are engaged and thinking about what they are doing—if they are solving problems in their practice—then these repetitive actions can be rewarding.

Critics of traditional drills often advocate for small-sided games as the ultimate teaching tool. Yes, these games can effectively force players to make decisions in real time, but this argument often overlooks the context of the player. Many advocates focus their teaching on players who are already competent in the basic skills of receiving and passing the ball. They often ignore beginners—whether they are children or adults—who still need to build foundational skills through focused, repetitive practice. For these players, drills provide the necessary repetition and structure to develop their understanding and execution of essential techniques.

Even at the highest levels of football, you can find players who struggle with basic skills. Many professional athletes can only receive the ball with their dominant foot, which limits their effectiveness in various game situations. Drills can help players develop their weaker foot, improve their receiving skills, and learn how to position themselves appropriately—all without the pressure of an active game. These micro-lessons are crucial for developing a player’s overall competence and adaptability.

As Mark White emphasizes in his interviews, football is filled with micro-lessons that build upon one another. It starts with mastering basic skills like ball control and passing. From this foundation, players can begin to learn how to pass and move under pressure, all while making decisions in real-time. The problem arises when the discourse around coaching becomes overly dogmatic, with certain coaching philosophies imposed without consideration for the individual needs of players. This trend often involves taking quotes or ideas out of context to support a narrative, typically one that serves a specific agenda or sells a product.

The idea that football drills are entirely obsolete is a dangerous oversimplification. While no one advocates for outdated practices—like 20 players standing in a line kicking the ball to a lone player at the other end—there are countless ways to design drills that teach real, game-relevant movements while focusing on the fundamentals of biomechanics and muscle memory. Coaches should remain open-minded, finding what works best for each individual player in the moment.

In conclusion, the debate between drills and small-sided games should not be framed as an either/or proposition. Both approaches offer significant value depending on the player’s level and the skills being taught. The real problem lies in the stubbornness of individuals who cling too tightly to their opinions, ignoring the rich middle ground where both traditional drills and game-like scenarios can coexist and complement one another. Only by embracing this balance can we foster a more effective and holistic approach to developing well-rounded football players.

If you want to explore this further, I recommend the discussion on Dan Abrahams podcast “The Sport Psych Show” here:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/308-johnny-gorman-reflections-on-being-released/id1434313037?i=1000678115259

Berlin, October 2015.

Sean Dyche on managing egos & why basic manners mean everything | High Performance Podcast

Success is the ongoing pursuit of meaningful, well-defined goals. According to Locke’s Goal-Setting Theory, setting clear, specific, and challenging goals greatly increases motivation and performance. So, how do we effectively set and achieve our goals? Start by working backwards.

1. Define Your Ultimate Goal: Begin with your overall aim—whether it’s winning a football match or mastering a skill. In football, the ultimate goal is simple: score more than your opponent. But to do that, you need a plan. Locke’s theory emphasizes that goals should be specific and challenging but achievable. A vague goal like “play better” won’t help much. Instead, aim for “improve ball control to reduce turnovers.”

2. Break it Down into Smaller Goals: Once you know your ultimate goal, break it down into smaller, more specific goals. This approach aligns with Locke’s theory, which stresses that setting smaller sub-goals helps maintain focus and motivation. For instance, if your ultimate goal is to win the game, smaller objectives might include:

• Learning how to create scoring opportunities
• Perfecting your shooting technique
• Developing strategies to regain possession
• Practicing defensive tactics to stop your opponent

Each smaller goal contributes to the larger goal, giving you clear, actionable steps to follow.

3. Increase Commitment Through Challenge: Locke’s theory highlights that the more challenging the goal, the more effort and commitment it inspires. For example, when you focus on something specific like “improve accuracy in shooting with your weaker foot,” you’re challenging yourself, which increases your investment in reaching that goal. Make sure your goals stretch your abilities without being unrealistic.

4. Use Feedback to Adjust: Another crucial part of Locke’s theory is the importance of feedback. Regularly check your progress on each small goal. Are you mastering your defensive positioning? Are you consistently creating goal-scoring chances? Feedback from a coach or self-assessment helps you adjust and stay on track. Coaches can help you prioritize and refine your goals, making sure you’re always moving toward your larger objective.

5. Write it Down for Clarity: Locke also notes that writing down your goals enhances commitment. When you see your goals on paper, you visualize them and stay focused. This helps to maintain motivation as you work through each stage of the process.

By breaking your ultimate goal into manageable steps and following Locke’s principles of specific, challenging goals with regular feedback, you’re more likely to stay motivated and achieve your desired outcome.

In football and life, success is about clarity, consistency, and progression. Whether you’re on the pitch or pursuing personal growth, setting clear, well-defined goals will keep you moving forward toward your bigger dreams.

Here’s a useful tip: Do not tell unnecessary people your goals, tell only people who will encourage you to commit to the goals you set out to achieve.  (see the video below)

In 2007, I came across a business management book that would change the way I would approach football team management on a personal level.

There are plenty of resources for actual coaching of tactics, principles of play etc, but there is very little out there that will help you to get your players to gel, to get on with one another and find that little bit of magic that turns a group of players into a team.

In LAX airport I picked up a copy of Patrick Lencioni’s “5 Dysfunctions of a Team”, by the time a touched back down in Hong Kong I had a new approach to the teams I was coaching and to be honest, many people that I had any kind of working relationship with.

In his book, Patrick Lencioni outlines 5 dysfunctions and then the methods of righting those wrongs, to create a harmonious, productive team. You can see what these are from the pyramid image above, working from bottom to top.

Let me simply summarize this for you now.

Members of teams with an absence of trust…

• Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another
• Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback
• Hesitate to offer help outside their own areas of responsibility
• Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without attempting to clarify them
• Fail to recognize and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
• Waste time and energy managing their behaviors for effect
• Hold grudges
• Dread meetings and find reasons to avoid spending time together

Member of trusting teams …

Admit weaknesses and mistakes
Ask for help
Take risks in offering feedback and assistance
Appreciate and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
Focus time and energy on important issues, not politics
Offer and accept apologies without hesitation
Look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group

Overcoming the absence of trust …

Personal histories exercise
Team effectiveness exercise
Personality and behavioural presence profile
360 degree feed back
Leader role

Teams that fear conflict…

• Have boring meetings
• Create environments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive
• Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success
• Fail to tap into all the opinions and perspectives of team members
• Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management

Teams that engage in conflict …

Have lively, interesting meetings
Extract and exploit the ideas of all team members
Solve real problems quickly
Minimize politics
Put critical topics on the table for discussion

Overcoming Fear of Conflict …

Acknowledge that conflict is productive, and that many tend to avoid it.
Team Members must occaisionally assume the role of a “minor of conflict”
(someone who extracts disagreements in the team to sheds light on them.)
Team members need to coach one another not to retreat from healthy debate. Remind them what they are doing is necessary.

A team that fails to commit…

• Creates ambiguity among the team about direction and priorities
• Watches windows of opportunity close due to excessive analysis and unnecessary delay
• Breeds lack of confidence and fear of failure
• Revisits discussions and decisions again and again
• Encourages second-guessing among team members

Teams that are committed …

Have clear directions and priorities
Are aligned around objectives
Develop an ability to learn from mistakes
Seize opportunities before the competition
Moves forward without hesitation
Changes direction without hesitation or guilt

Overcoming lack of commitment …

reformulate action plan
Set and honor deadlines, including interim milestones
Worst case scenario analysis to remove the fear from mistakes
practice quick decision making with limited analysis

A team that avoids accountability…

• Creates resentment among team members who have different standards of performance
• Encourages mediocrity
• Misses deadlines and key deliver-ables
• Places an undue burden on the team leader as the sole source of discipline

Teams that are accountable…

Ensure that poor performers feel pressure to improve
Identify quickly problem by questioning one’s approach without hesitation
Establish respect among the team who are held to the same standard
Avoid excessive bureaucracy around performance management and corrective action

Overcoming avoidance of Accountability …

Publication of goals and standards: no one can ignore them and we know who is responsible for what
Progressive review : team members should comment on their peer performance against objectives and standards
Reward team instead of individuals
Do not relegate accountability to consensus approach: shared team responsibility with individual responsibility

A team that is not focused on results…

• Stagnates/fails to grow
• Rarely defeats competitors
• Loses achievement-oriented employees
• Encourages team members to focus on their own careers and individual goals
• Is easily distracted

A team that focuses on collective results …

retains achievement-orientated employees
minimizes individualistic behaviours
enjoys success and failure acutely
has individuals who subjugate their own goals for the good of the team
avoids distraction

Overcoming inattention to results …

public declaration
the team must make results clear
have results based awards
reward only those behaviors and actions that contribute to those results.
They must be careful not to get sidetracked to tangential action items.

Teamwork ultimately comes down to practicing a small set of principles over a long period of time.  Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.

“The 5 P’s” is a handy acronym often used in the British military, designed to help you remember a key idea:

Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

This serves as a reminder to players that training isn’t just about the here and now—it’s about preparing for something bigger. It also keeps everyone aware that there’s always more to focus on as we train.

In addition to the core 5 P’s, we can consider five other P’s that are directly related to how our team plays football:

Passing, Possession, Position, Pace, Pressure.

Let’s break them down:

1. Passing

The ball always moves faster than any player. The team that passes quickly and accurately will almost always have the upper hand. Since football is played with our feet, ground passes are the easiest for teammates to control. With defenders constantly closing down space, the most successful pass is typically about 10 yards (9.144 meters).

This is a distance that, with practice, every player should be able to complete successfully 100% of the time. That’s why I emphasize short, quick passes to keep the ball moving and maintain control. Being confident to be able to pass and receive is incredibly important.

2. Possession

The ball is your most valuable asset. With it, you can win the game; without it, you can’t. When we have possession, it’s crucial to use the ball wisely—make decisions that are in our favor, and don’t panic. Keep possession when needed, and be ready to move quickly when an opportunity to attack presents itself. We should never give up possession of the ball cheaply. We can do this by understanding the attacking principles of play. 

If we do lose the ball, we must act quickly to get it back, showing both focus and determination.

3. Position

Based on our formation, what phase of play we are in (ie: do we have the ball or not) and where we are on the field in relation to our teammates, the ball and the opposition. When we have the ball, positioning is all about creating angles and opportunities for the teammate with possession. It could mean moving to a position to receive a pass or moving to draw a defender away to open up space for others. Again, all based around the attacking principles of play.

When the opponent has the ball, a player’s job may be to press an opponent, or to fill space in ways related to our team’s formation or our collective team philosophy at any given time. Again, this is often based around the principles of play, but often players can have specific instructions, while other players may need to adapt to what is happening in the moment. Communication is key here—players should talk to one another to ensure everyone knows where they need to be.

4. Pace

Pace isn’t just about speed—it’s about timing. A pass should be delivered at the right moment, just as the receiving player arrives. It also applies to how our team reacts as a whole. For example, if the opponents have everyone packed into the final third (near  their own goal), we may not want to rush. Instead, slow down, pull them out of their defensive shape, and strike with pace when the moment is right.

Want to see this in action? Watch how Brazil plays Argentina in this futsal match. Brazil holds possession while Argentina defends efficiently. When an Argentine defender breaks rank, Brazil seizes the opportunity to attack swiftly.

5. Pressure

Pressure is created when there are more players in a smaller area of the pitch. You can easily demonstrate this during a training session, by reducing the size of the area that you play in. Less space means a higher concentration of players in the space, increased pace of passing and movement of players to maintain possession. 

The application of pressure is predominantly the requirement of the defending team, or the team without the ball. Pressure can be applied to try and win the ball back, and more often is created in areas of the pitch that would provide the opponent a high chance opportunity for scoring or creating a goal (such as in Zone 14!).

When we lose the ball, we often immediately press to regain control of the ball, by reducing the opposition’s time and space to make decisions and ultimately force errors that transfer possession of the ball back to us.

When we have the ball, we might be seen as putting pressure on an opponent by following our attacking principles and moving the ball into their half and closer to their goal. This forces our opponents to defend/compress nearer the ball (which creates the pressure). We try to make them do this in areas of the field that ultimately creates more space (reduces pressure) in the other areas of the field that we actually want to attack, like those in front of the goal (zone 14).  If the opposition does a good job of applying pressure on us that might cause us to lose the ball, we can release the pressure by playing the ball back into our half — where having more space and time allows us to regroup and keep possession.  (Again, you can see this in the Brazil v Argentina futsal video)

All these principles reflect conversations I had with Michel Bruyninckx, the Academy Director at Royal Standard Liège Football Club, whose insights helped shape my approach.

Michel uses the acronym MAT to guide his players: Movement, Angles, Timing. These ideas align with the 5 P’s but specifically focus on attacking play. Michel encourages players to move the ball with their first touch, which changes the angles on the field and forces the opposition to react. This allows us to dictate the flow of the game.

Michel also shared a simple but powerful insight that will change how I coach 1v1 situations:

In a 1v1, you dribble to attack space, not just to “take someone on.”

The key point is that when you’re in a 1v1, moving forces your opponent to move, which opens up new spaces to exploit—either by passing or dribbling. It’s not about flashy moves; it’s about controlling space and time.

Football isn’t just a series of individual battles—it’s a game of evolving space and moments. Understanding this makes all the difference in how we play.

After each activity, or during intervals, I often tell my players to “go and get a drink.” Surprisingly, some of them respond, “I don’t need a drink!”

When I hear that, it signals to me that they might not fully understand the importance of hydration for peak performance (understandable for little ones, but it’s important still to teach them). Staying hydrated isn’t just a break—it’s a vital part of performing at your best. It’s about ensuring that you’re always ready to give 100%, rather than settling for less. In Hong Kong temperatures, dehydration in it’s worst case could even be fatal.

Sometimes, I think some of my players, regardless of age, believe that these hydration breaks are just for me to set up the next drill. So, I want to clear that up, with some information from Peak Performance and sports medicine experts.

Here’s why hydration is so important for athletes:

When we play or train, we aim to perform at the highest level. If we allow our performance to drop, we’re not improving at the best possible rate. Even mild dehydration can have significant physiological effects. For example, losing just 2% of your body weight (around 1kg for a 50kg person) can make everything feel harder and reduce performance by 10-20%. Losing 3-5% of body weight in fluid affects aerobic performance, reaction time, judgment, and decision-making—all crucial skills for footballers at their peak.

Essential Rules of Hydration from Peak Performance:

1. Start hydrated: Drink 10-12 ounces of water before you begin exercise to kick-start the process. It may feel like a lot, but practice makes it easier.
2. Stay hydrated during exercise: Aim to drink 3-4 sips every 10 minutes or 5-6 sips every 15 minutes to keep your body functioning at its best.
3. Water is sufficient for short sessions: If you’re exercising for less than 60 minutes, plain water will do the job. Longer efforts may need a carbohydrate boost.
4. For longer activities, aim for 5-7% carbohydrate in your drinks. You can mix this yourself by adding five tablespoons of sugar and a small pinch of salt to a liter of water.
5. Don’t be fooled by expensive sports drinks: A 6% sugar solution is just as effective as fancier options.
6. Temperature of the drink: Cold drinks aren’t absorbed faster than warm ones, but they often feel more refreshing, making it easier to stay hydrated.
7. Drinking doesn’t cause stomach problems: In fact, dehydration is what causes discomfort during exercise, so keep drinking!

What Happens Without Proper Hydration?

When you exercise, your body generates heat. To prevent overheating, your body cools down through sweat. But if you don’t replace the fluids lost through sweating, your blood volume decreases, leading to dehydration. This makes your heart work harder, increases your body temperature, and can lead to serious issues like heat stress, collapse, or even more severe consequences.

So now you know why I always say, “Go and get a drink!” It’s not just a break—it’s a crucial step in staying sharp and performing your best.