Title: Brain Training And The English Coaching Issue
1BRAIN TRAINING AND THE ENGLISH COACHING ISSUEÂ
2This is an interesting view on the way we think
about what kind of development we prioritize to
our players from when they are academy players
all the way until they reach the peak of their
professional careers.Over the last 10 years UEFA
A Licence coach Michel Bruyninckx has been
training young players with a concept of Brain
Centered Learning and to remarkable effect, some
players he has coached has come out of his
program a new player and being able to achieve
techniques they were never able to do before such
as the story of Faris Haroun, who was sent to
work with Bruyninckx and the Belgian
International returned to his club being able to
use his left foot with enough ability his club
thought he was a natural left footed
player. Based on the premise that the brain is
at least 1,000 times faster than any computer,
Bruyninckxs intention is to make sure the young
players he trains are programmed to take full
advantage of the bodys hard disk and become
more skilful and intelligent footballers (John
Sinnott- BBC NEWS)
3Many reasons have been given for Englands
failures in major tournament and their lack of
credibility to compete on the world stage. In the
summer of 2010 there could have been a million
reasons and every English man,woman and child had
an opinion on Englands downfall. Questions have
certainly been asked and for the first time in my
life in which i can remember past tournaments i
saw and still see a collective disbandment of
belief in England in tournaments, people get
worried when we play Algeria and there is a new
culture of a thought process that defeat and
underperforming is the accepted characteristic in
English football and i find it hard to disagree
as we build ourselves up in our minds and through
the media to be the all mighty all-conquering
world-class England but in actual fact we are
decades behind any other half decent national
team, outplayed by everyone in the world cup and
the germans with a new team of youngsters
humiliated our national team. Michel Bruyninckx
believes that England have a lack of a football
brain which hinders our ability to move with the
modern times of world football and that the old
belief in England of on your head son is now
culturally detrimental to the state of the game
in this country.I t is no surprise that
Bruyninckx has had so much popularity recently
when he has Barcelona as his personal
bibliography and the way they play using his and
professor Wolfgang Schoellhorn learning policy.
England apparently develop physically strong and
quick players but they arent very clever players
or receptive to phases of play in games which
means they miss opportunities in those phases and
their brains dont allow them to see those
creative opportunities where as Barcelona,Mainz
and other european nations adopting this modern
training will be able to see those opportunities.
4With his methods endorsed by ex-Belgian national
coaches Paul van Himst and Robert Waseige,
Bruyninckx estimates 25 of the 100 or so players
that he has coached have turned professional or
are in the womens national squads.Compare this
one-man Belgian football academys success rate
to England where, according to the Professional
Footballers Association chief executive Gordon
Taylor, of the 600 boys joining Premier League
and Football League clubs at the age of 16, 500
are out of the game by the time they are aged
21. (John Sinnott- BBC NEWS) We need to stop
thinking football is only a matter of the body,
the 59-year-old Bruyninckx commented.
Skilfulness will only grow if we better
understand the mental part of developing a
player. (Michel Bruyninckx -BBC
NEWS) Cognitive readiness, improved perception,
better mastering of time and space in combination
with perfect motor functioning. (Michel
Bruyninckx -BBC NEWS)
5Bruyninckx points out that in Spain there is no
11-a-side football before the age of 15. He also
believes that if you want to produce technical
footballers then forget the idea of
competition.I create players that can play to
win at the right moment, but firstly you have to
explain that learning is more important than
winning games (Michel Bruyninckx -BBC
NEWS) The reason I have put this last quote in
Bold is because I think that is a very important
aspect for us to remember and if you look at my
coaching theory and go down to small sided games
you will see that this is something I believe
very strongly in. I think we have been massively
let down by the FA as far as this is concerned.
Children should never be thrown into competition
at the ages that they are in this country and its
been a fundamental structural issue since the
beginning of organised football in England.
Football should always be a small sided until
they reach 15 this is where they learn to deal
with certain phases of play and the improvement
of their technique before boring them to death
with tactical formulas I believe there is one
main reason for Englands failure in tournaments
and the failure to produce enough players with
ability to be world-class in order to win
tournaments and that is the fact that the
standard of coaching in England and the structure
and hierarchy is appalling.England is far behind
other European nations in respect to coaching
standards, i am not sure whether it is pure
arrogance from the heads of the FA that govern
the coaching qualification procedure or whether
it is incompetence to have let us get into this
dire situation, but you will never hear that from
the top they will always tell you it is being
worked on and things are looking up but the stats
and the facts behind the disaster and failure
speaks for itself.
6There are 2.25 million players in England and
only one Uefa-qualified coach for every 812
people playing the game. Spain, the World Cup
favourites, have 408,134 players, giving a ratio
of 117. In Italy, the world champions, the ratio
is 148, in France it is 196, Germany 1150 and
even Greece, the Euro 2004 winners, have only
180,000 registered players for their 1,100
coaches, a ratio of 1135. (Matt Scott The
Guardian) This statistic provided by do my
assignment service is pitiful and as a coach
fighting to achieve mine , and that is what it
feels like a fight to get that in England i can
assure you it is tough, it is even tougher when
the instructors dont turn up. In the last few
months i have heard of countless stories where
instructors have not shown up for key parts of
modules leaving no explanation, a friend of mine
who was due to take a Futsal coaching course
through the FA didnt turn up and then when they
have finished the course the applicants arent
hearing feedback and then face another fight to
retrieve their certificates which they have paid
for and earned. This malpractice is huge in
respect to the reason why our ratio is so poor
when it is so very difficult to climb the ladder
here. three years ago an official report
concluded that coaching is the golden thread
leading to international success, but new Uefa
data shows that there are only 2,769 English
coaches holding Uefas B, A and Pro badges, its
top qualifications. Spain has produced 23,995,
Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France
17,588.Between them those four nations have
provided eight of the 12 finalists at all the
World Cups and European Championships since 1998.
England, meanwhile, have not appeared in a
tournament final in 44 years. (Matt Scott The
Guardian)
7This is atrocious reading for people are trying
so desperately to gauge a career in the game, to
know that if they were in any other european
country they would be at the top of the game
right now.What this has done is drive aspiring
coaches to leave England myself included i am
looking to leave and go back to the USA or
anywhere there are more coaching opportunities.
The price is also an issue, considering we have
one of the weakest numbers in B Licence coaches
why on earth do we pay so much more for ours ?,
you would think they would be dropping the price
and the ridiculous pass rate.The fact is european
nations have B Licence coaches creating programs
for their children and their local communities
giving young children an avenue from the bottom
to the top to train at an elite modern level and
the children of England get the Jose Mourinho
wannabe on a sideline kicking a ball in the
middle for an hour and shouting at young children
teaching them to be rude with the language they
use rather than intelligent and progressive
sports people.Now i dont mean every coach is at
that standard in England but the trouble is all
of those B licence coaches are at professional
clubs and those professional programs arent
available for the normal local community so how
are we supposed to develop a team capable of
winning tournaments when we cant even have the
intelligence to accept the structure is wrong and
needs changing. Because of the above issue id
tend to believe that it is the neglection of
football development in this country rather than
we possess unintelligent footballers which is the
reason for our downfall although that doesnt
mean that i dont think Michels Brain training
is essential as it is a new modern development in
coaching and one we should adapt too and who
would argue with his references from the way
Barcelona play.I will leave you with this
revelation