Where do coaches acquire knowledge from in developing their Model of Play?

Coaches Andy and Sergio remind us that the internet is used by many people to look for content knowledge in coaching. Coaches look for knowledge in soccer coaching related documents such as The England DNA (England DNA, 2015b, 2015a; The FA, 2015), which presents principles as descriptors of what one should expect at the foundation stage (5-11 years old), youth development (11- 18) and performance stage (18-23) (Ray).

In generating knowledge to develop their Model of Play and brush up their PoP, coaches consider coaching education (Cushion et al., 2010) as the first formal option (Andy). Besides providing content knowledge explicitly, coaching courses contribute to widening one’s horizons (Paul).

As Côté and Salmela (1995) explain, the ‘self’ (the coach himself/herself or his/her philosophy), hence intrapersonal knowledge (Collinson, 1996; Côté & Gilbert, 2009), is a catalyst in the generation of knowledge (Paul). This includes the way the coach sees the world and people, and how he interacts (Sergio). The coach’s experiences gathered from daily situations, such as a chat with the players, are also one of the main sources for knowledge generation (Paul). The self is very influential in the development of the Model of Play and its informing principles. Coaching experience is also seen as influential in the understanding of the game, and in the ability to deal with every possible scenario (Brian).

I would know how I want to play; I would know how I want to use my players. I think I can quickly identify the players at my disposal and within my philosophy adopt the strategy and style of play that suits my players. (Brian)

Hugo agrees that “theoretically [the coach] knows how to solve everything beforehand”, hence he agrees that knowledge can be generated within the self.

In the way, I see the training and the way I conceive the game, and, in the way, I have segmented it in my head, when that moment occurs, it's already archived in the phase of play in the moment of the game in the game situation (in my mind). So, when I do a general exercise I am thinking on a situation (present or anticipated problem) and work on

possible solutions (which might be switch play) and not thinking about a solution (switch play) without the situation in itself. (Hugo)

Coach Fannar continues to strengthen the position of the self. Although he watches a lot of games to learn from, he allows his own philosophy to influence his learning. Perhaps in contrast to his previous admiration to certain parts of Guardiola’s game at Manchester City (2016-2017), he states, “I do not agree with Guardiola because he has too much pride in his playing style”. He shows the importance of his philosophy as a coach, and it influences his knowledge generation. He says that differently from Guardiola, if the opponents are

pressing with six players, he would “just play the ball over the first pressure and you are through”. On the other hand, he shows approval of Jurgen Klopp and his pressure style, when he tells me “I adore it”. He concludes by telling me, “yes I [learn] many things from many coaches”, ‘but only those things that fit well within my own philosophy as a person and as a coach’.

Coach Paul adds to explain that the search for knowledge finds its space not only in what s/he knows but also in what s/he does not know. “I always start with what I feel is my strength - not that you would not know other things, but you'd know the strengths” he explains. This shows how both the self and the surroundings may catalyse a process of knowledge generation.

Mullem and Mullem (2014) found that 66.1% of coaches in the United States use trial-and-error to generate knowledge. This method was also found to be important by coaches participating in my study. “Being ok to fail is

sometimes important as it allows the coach to learn” (Ray).

Watching other coaches’ training sessions (Sergio), looking for

knowledge from colleague coaches (Ray), coaches ‘outside’ your immediate environment (Brian), and coaches coaching other teams (Brian) is also a way to generate own content knowledge. The bringing together of like-minded people, and the sharing of information (Trudel & Gilbert, 2006) creates a community of practice which contributes to coaches’ learning and development (Cassidy et al., 2009; Cushion et al., 2010; Kirk & MacPhail, 2002; Kolb & Kolb, 2008).

The immediate world like “your own team” can be an important source of knowledge (Ray, Paul).

Sometimes, you go to the players, ask the players… boys we have a problem, I am giving this solution, but things are not going well, what do you think, what solutions would you suggest? (Joseph)

Referring to Ken Robinson, coach Hugo mentions the importance of being “’in your element’, in your zone, doing something you love”. He explains how this results in the coach:

…being with people who share the same love, so you end up discussing soccer less as a fan but more as a coach. Then when you are trying to think something, you find it here (in your brains).

The coach links the community of practice to informal learning, as he explains that they “do not have a defined (official) coaching discussion. It is just that [they] have 3/4 coaches watching a soccer game and discussing it”. Coach Joseph reminds us that the community of practice (Wenger, 2000) can be as close as your own technical staff. He believes in having people of trust, with whom the coach can discuss and analyse, and through whom feedback can be collected and then acted upon. Coach Brian explains how one may find new knowledge during games when the coach needs to adapt his game to outplay the opponents.

Coaches obtain knowledge from a more distant world, like history and tactical changes, from the Barcelona of Guardiola, from Mourinho winning everything and from Arrigo Sacchi changing the game in Italy (Sergio).

Watching games is the obvious knowledge source (Sergio, Joseph) for coaches (Carling et al., 2005). Coach Fannar manages to draw a distinctive continuum of the different realities of watching games. He watches his own team playing and through the analysis of these games, he acquires knowledge, or he identifies knowledge gaps that need to be addressed. He also watches other teams playing, “premier league, champions league, 16-year olds playing”, and from these games, he tries to “see something they are trying to do” which he can apply in his Model of Play (Fannar). Coach Mark emphasises the importance of watching the best in the world:

If I were an author, I would need to see what the best writers are doing... now we have Conte, we have Klopp we had Leicester playing 4-4-2 with

counter attacks and winning the league. That is where I get the knowledge from.

Looking at successful teams is exactly what one needs, in order not to get static as a coach (Brian). Coach Mark continues to clarify that when looking at

successful teams, we need not focus only on the big teams, but those who are closer to your club’s reality and are successful in their approach. He gives an example of “Bournemouth or Southampton who manage to stay there although they lose three to four players every year”.

I was surprised by coach Hugo saying; “I do not really watch many games” (Hugo), but he corrected himself clarifying that “…although I say I am not watching soccer games, I am” (Hugo). He acknowledges the fact that when he was an academy director in Braga for three years, he was watching a lot of games, and all with a coach’s perspective. In an informal approach, he was intentionally learning by allowing the club’s Model of Play leading the learning process and looking at it to determine if it was being fulfilled or not and to see what problems they needed to tackle (Hugo). He only watches ‘big’ games a few times when for example “people are talking so good about the zonal defence of Napoli”, and wants to check that out. This is once more an informal but intentional manner of looking for knowledge. This time, his Model of Play would not be central as he would allow himself to look at the game, and then try to identify the important knowledge that might be forming part of Napoli’s Model of Play. In acknowledging the importance of watching games, coach Hugo set a target to watch a top game per week from different leagues. He continues to express that reading was an important source for knowledge generation. Despite him saying that he did not watch many top level games, he concludes that watching games and analysing them, no matter which games they are, will make a coach better in seeing “the ants crossing the pitch” (Hugo). He says that the main problem with this is that visualisation, seeing things happening in the case of soccer coaching is very important. However, he also believes that not watching so much soccer, can explain why he thinks outside the box. He explains this nicely, saying that:

Everybody wants to put the number 6 (HM, 4 in certain countries) playing back next to the CB now because Guardiola did it to play in a 3-4-3. And sometimes I am wondering if the number 6 (4) can receive the ball in

front of the strikers, why is he coming down? Why do we have one man less in our build up? Why are people doing this? Sometimes I think most of the coaches do it because it becomes a trend, not because it makes sense for them. (Hugo)

In conclusion, as coach Paul expressed “I do not think that soccer is found in a book. It is in a lot of books” (metaphorically speaking and not). It is then up to the coach to see how to adopt the knowledge found according to his/her own philosophy and adapt it to the needs of his/her athletes in view of the context they are working in (Côté & Salmela, 1995). This leads us to the question addressed in next section.

5.7.3.4 How do coaches acquire knowledge – in developing their