Coach developer · Valencia
A session that cannot name its principle teaches nothing
Twenty years thinking about how the game is taught. The principles are free to read. The sessions, and the reasoning underneath them, are for members.
The chain
Three principles, nine sub-principles, and nothing else. A model with thirty principles is a model nobody on the pitch can hold in their head at 3–2 down.
Three of them, free to read in full. If the thinking does not convince you, the sessions will not either.
Progression
Break the first line, then find the free man
- Nobody receives facing their own goal
- The third man is the outlet, not the pass
- The full-back releases, the centre-back invites
Pressing
The first defender decides, the rest obey
- The trigger is the backward pass, not the whistle
- Cover arrives from inside, never from behind
- Six seconds, then we reset — we do not chase
Rest defence
Prepare to lose it before you lose it
- Two behind the ball before the cross, always
- The counter-press is a shape, not a sprint
- When we cannot press, we delay and drop together
Tagged by age and by the principle they descend from. Two of these four are free.
The 4v4+3 that actually teaches the third man
Descends from: The third man is the outlet, not the pass
Pressing trigger: the backward pass
Descends from: The trigger is the backward pass, not the whistle
Rest defence in a 6v6 with two jokers
Descends from: The counter-press is a shape, not a sprint
Receiving on the half-turn — the only version that works
Descends from: Nobody receives facing their own goal
The pattern does not change week to week. That is not a lack of imagination — it is the entire mechanism. A player who cannot predict Thursday cannot arrive ready for it.
Coaches
Three of them, including the one who read the free half four times before paying anything.
We replaced our whole U10–U14 curriculum with this. The change was not the sessions — it was that the coaches can finally say why they are running one, which they could not before and did not know they could not.Curriculum design · 34 coaches
I read the free principles four times before I paid anything. I subscribed because I wanted the reasoning, not the drills. I have plenty of drills.Member since 2023
The only methodology site I have used where the free half is genuinely useful. That is a strange thing to hold against somebody and it is why I trusted the paid half.Member · club rate
Why your possession drill teaches nothing
A rondo with no direction trains a skill the game never asks for. Here is the version that does, and the one line you have to add.
The model with thirty principles is not a model
If your players cannot recite it at 3–2 down with eight minutes left, it is a document rather than a model.
Coach less in the first four minutes
The most reliable improvement available to almost every coach I watch, and it costs nothing but the discomfort of standing there.