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0:01 Hello coaches. Welcome back. Coach KW here today with a slightly different sort of video hopefully. I like to always say that if we expected our kids to get better, then the kid should
0:11 expect us to get better and to do some work off the field as well to be better coaches. And I have a whole video on online and in-person coaching courses.
0:19 If you can take a few of those courses, especially the inerson ones, I think it just makes you a better coach because it helps teach you the science of teaching,
0:27 which is really what coaching is all about. I do have a background in education and I found it so invaluable.
0:33 But today, what we're going to take a look at is a whole bunch of books. Books out there that you can find from sort of general fish sort of interest in soccer
0:42 history down to very sort of scientific uh research papers about how the brain works. And I've got a whole bunch of them. I've got a few a bunch in person
0:52 and a bunch on Kindlebooks or whatever your electronic version is. All the links to the books will be down below in the description. Um, and let's just go
1:01 through them because I think some of these books that are out there are really interesting. They really can give you some really great and innovative ways of thinking about
1:10 how to coach your players better.
1:12 Whether that's just general history of the game, so you just have a deeper sense of knowledge about it down to some of these scientific almost psychological understandings of how the
1:23 brain works. It's all part and parcel of becoming a better teacher. So, let's take a look at some of these now. Okay.
1:29 So, the first three are a little bit more general purpose. So, they're a mix between perhaps historical and just interesting. And then they start to get into more things about the game that
1:40 might be as a coach be really interesting in terms of technical and tactical histories. So, the first one I have here is really strictly just if you're a Premier League fan and you want
1:49 to know how the Premier League came about, this is the book to find. This basically talks about the creation of the Premier League, how it came out of
1:56 the original first division, what was the idea behind it and things like that.
2:00 So, it's really kind of more of a general history book, but it is an interesting one again to learn a little bit more of the history of how these
2:07 clubs that we all know and perhaps love or hate uh came to be in what they did.
2:13 So, that's the first one there, the club. The second one starts to blend that mixture of history and technical and tactical. And this is called the mixer by Michael
2:23 Cox. So this while it focuses on the first division and and Premier League, it starts to talk a little bit more about the historical changes in the
2:33 tactics and it kind of goes in a chronological order through the 20 or 30 years uh of cycle of the Premier League up to date and talks about in specifics
2:42 both players and coaches managers and their ideas and you start to get a history as to where some of the things that we hear of as either in coaching or
2:51 on TV when we're watching games have come from. So, this is a fun book as well that starts to get into more of where did that tactic or technique come
2:59 from. So, great one to go with. The next one goes even further. So, this one is uh extremely popular. Inverting the pyramid by Jonathan Wilson. This goes
3:11 back to the very beginning, the very roots of soccer in the 1800s.
3:15 Association football to separate it from rugby. Uh association football is how we get the word soccer. Believe it or not, it's not an American creation. It is
3:23 actually an English creation and uh they explain all of it in here and this literally goes from the very beginnings of what formations looked like. If I
3:32 told you that one of the most common formations early days was one keeper, one defender and 10 forwards. Yes, you heard that right. Fascinating book.
3:42 Takes you all around the world.
3:44 Different innovations on formations and thoughts and ways to organize the game.
3:51 It's an amazing historical document. A lot of times what's old is new again.
3:55 You know, Man City and some others have been playing this uh three box three or the 3223 as this sort of new thing and you'll find that actually it comes from
4:05 the 50s and 60s. They used to call it the WM if you look at it. Um so really fascinating sometimes the things that come in and out of Vogue in the game all
4:14 in this book. A fantastic book. Now a couple of more specific things. If you coach young players, uh, prek through first, second grade, even older, but, uh, what this primary focus
4:27 at is more the younger ones, I cannot recommend this highly enough. This is David Beard out of Scotland. Uh, he's got a website, some YouTube stuff. He's
4:37 very he he does a lot of stuff in person, traveling around. This is called Scoreboard Soccer, uh, creating the environment to develop young players.
4:44 And it's a fascinating technique on how to basically, as he likes to say, catch players doing good and reinforce those behaviors. And so he has a whole bunch
4:55 of games where when a game is going on, some sort of small-sided game, you also have some sort of smaller activity to the side. So that when a player does
5:03 something right in this smallsided game, whether that's a they score a goal, make a great pass, or do whatever it is that you're asking them to try and do, you
5:12 reward that player by pulling them aside to do this extra challenge on the side, which is working on some specific skill you want them to work on and getting
5:21 them back in the game. So the game itself isn't where the score of the game comes from. It's on the sideline when you're having them do that special task.
5:31 That's how teams win or lose. And it really changes the incentives for your teams and your players to do the things you're asking them to do because you're
5:38 rewarding them for being good, whether that's behavior, performance, or effort.
5:43 That's what you do. So fantastic book website um that you can go to. I'll have the links down below as well. Another one that I don't have in person, I only
5:53 have an electronic version is this one here. It's um Tom Byer Soccer Starts at home. So really interesting story behind it. He was asked to go to uh
6:03 Japan/China to help them after a particular bad World Cup series where you know the the national team just they didn't have what they needed to do. And
6:13 so he started this whole process basically his little pamphlet that went around and it really the concept behind it is at even the youngest ages having a
6:21 ball in the house for a kid to manipulate and to work on with it in literally every room of the house. It's a fascinating book if you have young
6:29 kids or you coach young kids or you yourself, you know, have are expecting kids and hope that they love soccer.
6:35 It's a fascinating book to take a look at some of the concepts and theories behind it and also just the practical stuff that he did. It's a really fun
6:43 read. Another book I can't recommend highly enough, especially if you coach girls. Whether or not you even have girls of your own, which I have too, and
6:52 I coached both girls and boys, including girls varsity, this little book is a lifesaver and eye opening. How to coach girls by I'm not even going to try Mia
7:02 Wenzhen and Allison Foley. It's a great little I mean little little. It's tiny, right? That's the size of my hand. It's a great little book with just tons and
7:13 tons of little nuggets about how girls think, how they work socially, how they work differently from boys, and how you can maximize those pieces of their psychology to get the best out of them.
7:26 Uh, it's a really, really great read whether you're dealing with the youngest pre-teens through high school and college. Uh, it's a great book. I recommend it highly if you're going to
7:35 coach girls at any level. During this process, I've realized I'm missing a whole bunch of books because I looked through my uh purchase history and found all these books that I remember having
7:44 and I can't find them. So, either I've lost them or more than likely I've let somebody borrow them. So, hey, if one of my friends is watching, give me back my
7:51 books. Okay, this book here is more geared towards parents, but it is an interesting take to take a look at. It basically is talking about the inner
7:59 drive for players to want to get better and what they can and should do if they're in that sort of mindset. So, it's more for a player. It's a pretty
8:07 decent book. I'd say preview it if you can before uh recommending it, but I think it has some good nuggets in it in terms of for players who are
8:17 self-motivated and want to get to the next level. It does have some good ideas in it, but again, players need to be self-motivated. Your the parent can't
8:26 make them want to do it if they really want to be good at it. Now, Dan Blank is a pretty famous uh soccer coach and author, I believe, in North Carolina uh
8:35 women's college. Uh he's got a whole bunch of books out there, and honestly, some of them are better than others. The number one book I think that somebody
8:43 should read is this book here, Soccer IQ. Every chapter is less than three pages long. That's how short. And each one has a little tiny nugget of wisdom
8:53 that honestly there's more than half of this book where you go, never thought of that, but I can apply that. Like off the top of my head, one of his chapters is
9:01 about the three-step rule. And I use it all the time. Basically, it means if you're if a player makes a pass, they need to take three steps in some
9:09 direction to create a new passing angle.
9:11 Such an easy way to think about it. And this book is full of little little clips like that, little comments and thoughts in the process. It's great for players
9:20 and coaches to use. He's got a bunch of other books as well. I find them to be hot and cold depending. He did teach coach competitive college girl soccer.
9:31 So, sometimes some of the book content goes towards more into the winning mentality, which there isn't anything wrong with that, but sometimes it leans a little too far. Some of them also a
9:41 little bit older. some of the thoughts perhaps stereotypes that are in there sometimes might read the wrong way for a modern sensibility. A couple I have this
9:51 one here is about possession. It's a little bit more for coaches here. It just talks about some of the processes around how to develop possession in your
9:58 teams. It's a good sort of general book for that. And then this one's a little bit more specific. Again, there might be some things in here that might be a
10:06 little problematic in the late 2020s uh versus when it perhaps was written, but it does have some good concepts in terms of some of the things in this book
10:15 really do speak to some of the gender biases that happens with girls growing up and playing soccer and some of the things that perhaps, you know, girls
10:24 aren't exposed to or aren't encouraged to do. And those elite players, those players who want to go on need to sometimes have to break some of those
10:32 learned behaviors and thought patterns to become super successful because of the stereotypes and the sort of gender norms that sometimes go around with girls in sport. This is a great book to
10:44 highlight a lot of those things. He has a bunch of other books. I have a bunch of of them, but these are the ones that I kind of like in my collection I think
10:51 of before I think of the other ones.
10:53 Okay, this next one isn't so much a book, but it's a perk of being a member of United Soccer Coaches. So, they create these pre-season books every fall
11:02 and ship them out to you. It's about this big. And basically, if you take a look in there, it's just a whole pile of exercises going from U6 all the way to
11:13 college. And so, while you might not be able to use everything in the book, you get one every year about August, September, which is fantastic timing.
11:22 and it just has a wealth of information.
11:24 I go back to these all the time just looking for ideas. I have probably five or six years worth of these books and uh they're just fantastic resource. They uh
11:33 and honestly the membership is fantastic. Uh you get a whole bunch of perks including a ton of their e- lessons. If you look at my uh video way
11:42 back on, you know, coaching courses and stuff, they have so many good ecourses that as a member you get for free or reduced price. totally worth the price
11:50 of admission, whatever it is nowadays.
11:52 All right, these last four are a little bit more um heavy if you want. Uh although you know some of they go from theor theoretical to academic. Okay, but
12:04 again if you're interested in becoming a better coach that might be right up your alley. So the first one uh is this one.
12:10 This football's principle of play by Peter Pricket. Um, you can only get this on Amazon UK, I believe, but the link still works even if you're not in the
12:19 UK. Basically, what he does here is he takes the standard five and five principles of play, the attacking and defending principles of play, you know, penetration with uh all those sort of
12:31 things. And he gives references and talks about the basics behind where they came from and a little bit of the history and the background of them. And
12:39 then he also now adds on the modern take that a lot of different clubs and systems and ideas of play come from and now talk about some other alternative
12:49 ways and other principles of play that are used around the world. It's really interesting and he's got example um he's got example sessions or at least layouts
12:59 to look at all the different ones. So again, it gives you a really great idea of, hey, when I want to approach this problem with my team, what's some of the
13:08 vocabulary and thought process behind it? And then what's this example or two that I might be able to use to create some more sessions or go look for
13:15 sessions out there? We'll go straight to the super nerdy, super deep, and that's this book here, Coaching with the Adolescent Brain in mind by Dr. Perry Walters. He is uh he's got a masters in
13:27 educational psychology and PhD in education from the University of Bristol. So real real heavy science stuff here, but really talks about how the adolescent brain is different
13:41 than it's in that state that there's so many things going on. If you coach kids, let's say ages 12 through 19, and you really want to understand why they do
13:51 certain things and how they process the world, this book is fantastic. There's actually a second edition that's been updated recently. Uh this is a little bit harder to come by because it's
14:00 through one of those uh sites that provides uh has a whole bunch of coaching education books. If you really really want to get nerdy on things and
14:08 you really want to find out why or perhaps even if you're a parent and you've got pre-teen and teens and just want to know what the heck is going on
14:15 inside their brain, this is a great book, but it relates all to playing soccer. I promise that was probably the nerdiest one. This next one here I've
14:23 gotten recently uh by Marcus D.
14:25 Bernardano. He's a uh college and club coach. Uh he's got a whole website that I found some very interesting things on here. But this is all about uh learning
14:35 this concept of ecological dynamics. Uh to put it simply, it's the idea that your environment can change the way you train in terms of soccer or other
14:45 sports. So think of uh games where you've got constraints. You're locked in the zones or you have extra players or you do certain things. And this book
14:54 talks about first half of it talks about the theory behind it. And then the rest of the book has whole bunches of sessions in different topics that give
15:01 you ideas of how those constraints can work for you. It's such a great book because being able to just go and play a game, a simple setup, and then be able
15:11 to change one or two elements to focus on whatever it is you want to focus on.
15:15 Uh it's a great a great introduction to this concept. If you didn't know the name of it, but you did those sort of activities, well, now you know. Find
15:22 this book. Here's one more in the coaching coaching sort of thing. It's a really interesting one. This essential practices for player development by Carl Wild. He has a really great premise
15:32 here. He has 10 basic setups. And in that 10 basic setups, he uses those same field setups to design practices amongst up to 14 different principles. So you
15:46 could have the same field setup with the same cones and then use that for anywhere from most of his examples have anywhere from 8 to 12 different
15:54 principles of play that you can practice in in that same setup which is a great idea. You can teach your kids a few basic setups of the field and then use
16:05 that basic setup to teach lots and lots of different components of the game.
16:10 It's fairly thick. It's got a lot of good content, a lot of good ideas. And then in between some of the ideas, he has some chapters just on certain
16:18 principles of design and everything else. It's a really cool book to learn about session design and again going along with those ecological environment uh design book that we I showed you. Uh
16:31 it's another great one along those lines. And the last one, this book I'm reading right now, uh the coach's guide to teaching by Doug Limoff. uh he also
16:40 has a very famous book for teachers and he then applied his thoughts to soccer sport in general but soccer is the sport he knew the best and he's done a whole
16:51 bunch of work with the USSF you could tell I'm reading it right now because I was in the car and just needed a bookmark and stuff it in there. This is
16:59 all about the science of learning and it's really a great book. I'm only uh one and a half chapters through, but I've skimmed through a bunch of the rest
17:07 of it. And I I can't wait to get through it because there's so many things in here that resonate with me as having an education background in sort of teaching
17:15 and now applying this to soccer and the things that work and don't work, but it's also opening my eyes to different ways of doing things. And again, if
17:23 you're serious about being better as a coach, this might be a great book just to start with just because again, it talks about the science of teaching and
17:32 learning. And that's what we do as coaches. Uh if if you if you can't understand how your kids are perceiving the world and how they intake information at whatever age they're in,
17:43 you're not going to be successful as a coach or at least you're going to hit a plateau. And so this is one of the great uh books uh recommended actually from my
17:51 instructor in my DLE uh Dlicens course.
17:54 Uh and it's been already I'm just absolutely hooked on it. So highly recommend. So there you have it. Uh there's probably a dozen or so books there in general talking about, you
18:05 know, big picture soccer or just history and ideas down to some very nerdy sort of scientific level things. But again, maybe one or two of these books will
18:15 speak to you to help you get a leg up to become a better coach. I really I I stress it all the time. Again, folks, if you're expecting your kids to practice
18:23 and get better, they should expect the same from you. So, I hope you found this useful. If you have any books or resources that you really like that I
18:31 didn't have on this list, please get them in the comments so we can share with other people, maybe you found something that was really useful to you.
18:38 We'd love to hear it. So again, into the comments, share, like, subscribe. I appreciate all of you. Until the next time, I hope you're having a great
18:45 season. Bye-bye.
