Long Term Player Development and Coaching Ujjal Chatterjee

Long-term Player Development

1.0 Introduction:

Coaching children can be an affluent and enjoyable experience. Furthermore, it is also a wonderful
responsibility. So coaches can play a pivotal role in the development of children’s different children’s
basic motor skills and their long-term attitudes to, and passion for, sport and physical activity (Sports
Coach, UK; 2006).These are the basic and most important things for children in relation to long-term
involvement and achievement in sports and physical activities. Countries like Australia, United
Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Germany, etc; which are successful in sports have put
maximum efforts on talent identification and youth development. So, it is very much necessary for
each and every country to have a long-term development plan for coaching children.

2.0 Long-term Player Development (LTPD):

For being a successful performer at the highest level, one should need to start a routine process
which starts very early ages of a child and take more than ten years (Bloom, 1985; Ericsson et al,
1993). It depends on the children giving importance and enjoying the practice of physical activities.
That’s for all the people like Coaches, Teachers, parents, etc. all play a vital role in the early stages of
development. This section focuses on different models of LTPD. In every sport children need to go
through some common stages of development where sports specification is irrelevant. This article
will describe those Long- term Player Development stages with little bit focuses on football.

2.1 Long-term Athlete Development model:

According to Bayli’s model which is known as LTAD model have two versions. The model had been
developed over the years. There are two types of models; one is for early specialisation sports and
another one for late specialisation sports (Bayli and Hamilton, 1999).

Early Specialisation Late Specialisation

FUNdamental
Training to train Training to train
Training to compete Training to compete
Training to win Training to win
Retirement/retaining Retirement/retaining
(Bayli, 2001)

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There are very few sports which fall under early specialisation sports, so in most of the cases late
specialization model is taken as the standard model for talent development.

2.1.1 Fundamental stage:

Gender Age (years)

Male 5-10
Female 5-10

In this stage coaches or trainers need to implement fundamental movement skills. There is one
subdivision of the stage, which is learning to train and use in the age group between 8 to 11 years (
Bayli and Way, 1995).

2.1.2. The Training to Train stage:

Gender Age (years)

Male 10-14
Female 10-13

In this stage young athletes gain knowledge of one specific sport and basic skills and expertise. They
also learn how to train themselves in order to get little mastery on that specific sport. Athletes are
introduced to new training regime with warm up, recovery, cool down, motivation, nutrition, etc.

2.1.3 The training to compete stage:

Gender Age (years)

Male 14-18
Female 13-17

This stage is more goals oriented as athletes train themselves for competition. In this stage ratio of
athlete’s technical, tactical and physical development training and competition specific training is
50:50.

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2.1.4 The Training to Win Stage:

Gender Age(years)

Male 18+
Female 17+

This stage prepares athletes to compete at elite level. Athletes became more tactically, physically,
technically and psychologically sound as they reached their optimum level.

2.1.5 The Retirement / Retraining Stage: This is the last stage of athlete’s career.

2.2 Bloom’s Three-stage Model:

There are three stages as per Bloom talent development model. The model focused on
characteristics of athletes/performers, coaches and parents/carers (Bloom, 1985).

Early years Middle years Later years

Performer  Joyful  Wider perspective  Obsessed

characteristics  Playful  Committed  Responsible
 Excited  Identity linked to  Consumed
sport
Coach  Kind  Strong leader  Successful
characteristics  Cheerful  Knowledgeable  Respected
 Focused on  Demanding  Emotionally
talent bonded
development
process

Parent/Carer  Model work  Makes sacrifices  Limited role

characteristics ethic  Restricts own  Provides
 Encouraging activities financial
 Supportive  Child-centred support
 Positive
(Sports Coach, UK; 2006)

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2.3 Cote’s Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP):

Where Balyi’s model is more based on biological or physiological, Cote’s three stage model of
development more emphasize on psychological aspects of the athletes. Cote and Ericsson (1999)
and Cote a Fresher-Thomas (2007) developed the Bloom’s model which is described next,

(Collins et al, 2010)

3.0 Times and issues involve in Long-terms Players Development: There are mainly four aspects
which a coaches, teachers or parents should care of early age athletes. According to Craig Simmons
(2003) of The Football Association (The FA), Technical, psychological, physical and social is those four
aspects which coaches, teachers and parents should look after very carefully. This four corner model
part of talent development in English football, which adopted from Bayli and Way’s (1995) LTAD
model. The next part of this essay will discuss about each and every aspect in details.

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Simmons LTPD model for football development, The FA

(Simmons,2006)

3.1 Technical / Tactical issues:

In the early ages technical issues are very important in relation to how coaches/trainers structuring
their coaching sessions. Coaches/trainers need to focus on basic learning skills and movements of
different sports. Children aged 5 to 8 years old plays the game of their choice with fun; in this case,
coaches/trainers need to focus on small sided game (4v4, 5v5, 7v7) which allows them more time to
improve their basic skills. Playing different types of sports for fun can also develop their different
movement skills. On the other side by group practice and rotation of positions, develops their
tactical skills in such a young age. From 8 to 11 years old athlete should need more time on their
basic skills and techniques (Simmons, 2006).

3.2 Physiological issues:

Human has six phases of growth when it comes to physiological aspects of human. Phase 1 is called
Chronological age (0-6 years), phase 2 is age 6 to the onset of the growth spurt (GS), phase 3 is from
onset of GS to PHV, phase 4 from PSV to slow deceleration, phase 5 from slow deceleration of
growth to cessation of growth and the last phase is cessation of growth. First 2 phases are very much
important as proper physical activities can make a huge impact to the young athletes. So,
coaches/trainers need to take care of proper physical activities. Thus, fundamental movement skills
are very important in this stage. In the very early ages coaches need to focus on locomotor skills like
running, jumping and manipulative skill like throwing (which is called RJT). Other fundamental skills
like catching, kicking (CK) is also need to develop for future practice. Age 9 years to 12 years is very

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important as children develop more fundamental skills based on agility, balance, coordination and
speed (ABC’s) (Balyi and Hamilton, 1995; Rushall; 1998; Viru et al., 1998).

3.3 Psychological issues:

Psychological issues are very important part of young learners’ development. Coaches/trainers
should always create a safe and enjoyable environment to keep young players motivated in the
game. Coaches/trainers should involve progressive group activities and progressive mental skills in
order to create teamwork and better communication among young athletes. Children should receive
easy information from coaches/trainer so, children can feel enthusiastic. Coaches/trainers should
always be supportive as different children have different abilities to learn. Coaches/trainers need to
let children take their own decision, by these young players can learn from their mistakes and have a
better understanding of the game for the future (Simmons, 2003).

3.4. Social issues:

Coaches/trainers should always consider social issues or background of the young athletes, so they
can take appropriate methods to develop the young talent. There are so many different things can
come under social issues like, athlete's family and their environment, friends, self –esteem, parental
support, communication and interpersonal skill, health, etc. Family is a very important tool to
consider for coaches. A young athlete can be affected from parents, siblings or even sometime
diverse situation of the family (Collins et al, 2010 cited from Kay, 2003). Parental support is another
very important social issue for coaches/trainers to deal with. There are some kinds of parents who
can make negative impact on their child. Coaches/trainers should identify those different types of
parents with following behaviour towards their child.

 Parent who are uninterested

 Parent who criticise too much
 Parent who screams from outside
 Parent who over coach their child
 Parent who over concern about their child (Collins et al, 2010 cited from De Knop et al,
1998)

Coaches /trainers also need to work with those young athletes who don’t communicate too much
and socially very disconnected. Those athletes may lack self-esteem so; coaches/trainers need to
encourage them by supporting. There can be some athletes have some health issues as well, in this

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case Coaches/trainers need to motivate them by treating them equally with others and sometime
stand beside them and protecting them from discouraging people.

4.0 A LTPD model adopted by German Football Association (DFB):

Germany is one of the most successful football nations in the world. They won three World Cups and
three European cups till date (German Football Association Official website, 2013). The following
table is a model of long term player development in football in Germany.

(Bischops/Gerards, 1999)

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5.0 Conclusion:

Developing youth is very time effective, but once it has done scientifically, it can be a fruitful one as
well. With proper implementation of Bayli’s LTAD model, organisations can achieve a sustainable
development in youth development. Now, so many countries and organisations are using LTPD
model, in return, they are getting positive results as well. The English Football Association, the
Canadian Olympic committee already using this model for years now. Most of the successful
countries in sports emphasize on youth development. This is simple, the maximum effort with
optimum results. According to LTPD model coaches really need to work tirelessly on technical,
physical, psychological and social issues. Not only coaches or organisations, parent/carers also can
play important part by involving themselves. The foremost thing is developed kids or youth talents;
secure a golden future for the country.

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References:

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Bischops,K;Gerards,H (1999). Junior Soccer: A manual for Coaches. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Meyer &
Meyer Sport. p13.

Sports Coach UK (2006). How to Coach Children in Sport. 2nd ed. Leeds,UK: Coachwise Business
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The FA (2007). Level 2 Coaching Handbook. 3rd ed. Leeds, UK: The Football Association. p46-53.

Journals:

Bailey,R. Collins,D. Ford,P. MacNamara,A. Toms,M and Pearce,G. (2010). Participant Development in
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Balyi I. (2001) Sport System Building and Long-term Athlete Development in British Columbia.
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Balyi, I. and Hamilton, A (1999) ‘Long-term Planning of Athlete Development’, FHS (now coaching
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Balyi, I and Way, R. (1995) “Long-Term Planning of Athlete Development. The Training to Train
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Simmons,C. (2006)’Long-term Player Development Model’,The FA Coaches Association Insight

Journal, Summer: 14-19

Whitepapers:

The FA white paper, 2009

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