Free tips for coaches

Full chapters, taken from our 34 courses — not summaries. Read, apply at your next session, and if you want the rest, it's waiting for you.

Tactics

How to play a 4-3-3 — The role of every position, the strengths, the weaknesses — and the players you need to make it work.
How to play a 4-4-2 — The system with the simplest reference points: what it offers, its weakness in midfield, and how to fix it.
Which formation should you choose? — The comparison table: what each formation gives you, what it costs you, and which squad it suits.
Positional play explained simply — No jargon: why positioning matters more than the number of passes.
Defending in a low block: structure and reference points — Holding twenty minutes without cracking: the distances, what you protect, and how to get the ball out.
How to press effectively in football — Triggers, counter-pressing, PPDA: pressing together instead of running for nothing.
Gegenpressing (counter-pressing): how to get it right — Winning the ball back seconds after losing it — and knowing when it's better to drop off.
Corners in football: routines that score — The zones to attack, the runs that free up space, and how to install the routine.
How to defend corners properly — Zonal, man-marking or mixed: who takes the posts, who marks, who deals with the second ball.
Scanning in football: seeing before you receive — The best player isn't the quickest: he's usually the one who has already looked.

The pre-match warm-up in football — Duration, intensity, order of the phases: the method to have your team start the match at 100%.
Football warm-up drills with a ball — No equipment, just balls: enough to start a session on any pitch.
Planning the training week (the microcycle) — From the day after a match to matchday: how to organise your week so you're fresh on Sunday.
What is tactical periodisation? — Building your whole training week around your model of play, split into four moments.
The rondo: football's king of drills — One of the most used drills in the world — and what it really develops when you set it up properly.
Small-sided games: what size for what format? — Dimensions, durations, sets: one calibration card per format, from 1 against 1 to 8 against 8.
Training the goalkeeper in football — Explosiveness, footwork, distribution: preparing him even without a goalkeeping coach at the club.

What should you eat before a football match? — What to eat, how long before — and what to do when kick-off is at 10am.
Recovering after a match: the protocol — Straight after the match, the next day: what really matters when you have no ice bath and no physio.
The 11+: the injury prevention warm-up — The most studied prevention programme in football, explained step by step for the amateur game.
Where and why do footballers get injured? — A third of injuries are muscular, the thigh first in line: where to focus your prevention.
The cruciate ligament in women's football — 2.8 times more common, nine times out of ten with no contact to the knee: understand it to act on it.
Knee prevention: the programme that has proven its worth — Five building blocks, twice a week, all season long: the protocol best supported by research.
Reading training load with RPE — A score from 0 to 10 after the session, and you finally know whether you're asking too much (or too little).

The pre-match team talk: how to get it right — How long, what to say, in what order — and what serves no purpose at all.
The parents' meeting in football — What you announce, what you set out: the meeting that can save you three difficult months on the touchline.

8-a-side football: pitch dimensions and rules — Dimensions, goals, ball, offside from the halfway line: all the official reference points of 8-a-side.