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Football for the Brave – John Cartwright
Athlete Centred Coaching – Developing decision makers.
Jed C Davies – Coaching the tika taka style of play
“Ajax, Barcelona, Cruyff: The ABC of an Obstinate Maestro”
Frits Barend, Henk van Dorp
Bloomsbury Publishing
“MOURINHO, ¿POR QUÉ TANTAS VICTORIAS?”
BRUNO FÉLIX MATEUS OLIVEIRA
Editorial: MC SPORTS
“El juego de posición”
Dani Fernández, RCD Espanyol
Twitter: @DaFdez
Here’s one I’m currently reading: For Love of the Ball
The author is a Catalan who coaches kindergartners/elementary students in Seattle area. He does exactly what Brian and Gary outline (Set Tactical Training, rondos, etc.) with really young kids. I haven’t finished yet, but it’s a good read so far. Practical, but also educational: delves into history of Barcelona and La Masia a bit. Might be a good book to put in the hands of parents…
Also, Jed’s book is one of my prized possessions. I highly recommend it, too.
I like “How Soccer Explains the World” for looking at soccer in a larger, global context and it’s role in different countries
http://www.amazon.com/How-Soccer-Explains-World-Globalization/dp/0061978051
Soccernomics is also an interesting read as well. Like the title suggests, model after the “Freakonomics” set of books.
http://www.amazon.com/Soccernomics-Australia-Turkey-Iraq-Are-Destined/dp/1568587015
For a book that relates more to coaching/on the field topics, I like “Developing in Game Intelligence” by Horst Wein. While it provides drills and practice ideas, it goes into greater depth on a lot of topics, with explanations of why things should be done a certain way (with an emphasis on creating technically strong and tactically smart players)
http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Game-Intelligence-Soccer-Horst/dp/1591640717
Coaching related:
Legacy by James Kerr – looks at the All Blacks (rugby) – so many great little starting points of info to lead you researching after! Great for leadership and team building issues.
The Power of Habit – you’ll start to understand automatism in football if you don’t quite get it alreadyOthers of similar narrative covering a wide range of theories in sport:
Flow by Csikszentmihalyi (check spelling)
Bounce by Syed
Talent Code by Coyle
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Kahneman
Gladwell’s books– they’re all highly recommended and have a similar story telling technique that keeps you interested and a lot of really great metaphors for understanding of more complex issues.
Just read two books on Athlete Centred Coaching by Lyn Kidman – very interesting for anyone who wants to fully understand how the All blacks coach and Martinez approaches coaching. Kidman has been very much involved with rugby coaching methods in NZ.
Most recent was a book called ‘learned optimism’ (Martin E. P Seligman) – well worth diving into – a little heavier than those listed at the beginning but leaves you full of ideas. Theres a great youtube video on learned pessimism/helplessness if you’re not familiar with it – not too difficult to see how this could be placed in a footballing context – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmFOmprTt0 – I’ve actually ran a session using the Roberto Martinez condition A and B pitch with 2 stooges who would constantly use negative language/positive language to look at the impact of shots on target created/conceded during that time. You’d be very surprised with the outcome – safe to say the players understand the impact of their language on the field now – even heard one lad of a youth side I guest coached explain to his parents why he shouldn’t use negative language on the side lines like ‘don’t ‘no!’ ‘poor’ ‘bad’ etc etc. (tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I might remember, involve me and I’ll understand – this is the philosophy for this sort of coaching method – running the ‘experiment’ and for players to find the conclusion – which by chance you already know as the coach designing the session!… shaping mindsets). Worth looking into Bargh’s experiment in 1996 on the affects of words on behaviour (probably more relevant to my language experiment ran on positive and negative language) – something on Bargh’s work – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI0fFEffDd8
Edward de Bono on creativity – 6 thinking hats and Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity
Current area of research: Incidental Learning – so if anyone knows anything on this that would be great! Struggling to find any books worthwhile…
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This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by
J D.
Jed, have you read this book by Raphael Honigstein?
“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Englischer Fussball: A German View of Our Beautiful Game”
I found it quite revealing. How fair a depiction would consider it to be?
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This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by
Nuno Ferreira.
Nice insight on one of possession football early pioneers:
http://clarkeysfootball.wordpress.com/jimmy-hogan-prophet-or-traitor/
Jed, David or anyone else, have you read the original book?
It seems it would help understanding the early dynamics of the different national styles and identities but it seems to be out of print:
“Prophet or Traitor – Jimmy Hogan”
by Norman Fox
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This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by
Nuno – I bought a copy of “Prophet or Traitor” from the UK and got through about 7/8ths of it. It’s merely ok, which is unfortunate because I think Jimmy Hogan is, as you say, a pioneer. My biggest problem with it is the author, on multiple occasions, uses Hogan’s story as a screed against English anti-intellectualism, I felt it got WAY too preachy, and unfortunately left a lot to be desired.
For those uniniated – Jimmy Hogan was a former English footballer who, as a child, put a lot of practice into his technique, and felt the technical side of the game was far too under-utilized in the English game. After a decent but injury plagued career, Hogan took to coaching, first in Britain, but eventually he made a move to Holland, then to Austria and Switzerland, demonstrating his technical abilities to his players. He was stuck in Europe during World War I and taken as a prisoner of war, but his ‘punishment’ was to coach MTK of Hungary, to five domestic titles and lighting the spark of a nation whose national team would eventually come 2nd in the 1954 World Cup and become the first side to beat England on home soil in 1953. He was first, and foremost, a teacher, and is revered on the continent, especially in Austria (where he worked with Hugo Meisl and the Wunderteam of the 1920s), Switzerland, Hungary and Germany (where he spent time teaching his technical tools to players, amateur and professional). He spent the end of the 1930s back in England, coaching Fulham and Aston Villa, but his ideas never really caught on in the English game.
I would suggest reading the appropriate sections on Hogan in Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid, and this as well: http://equaliserblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/1-hogan/
Sorry for the double post – didn’t see the reply button earlier.
Nuno – I bought a copy of “Prophet or Traitor” from the UK and got through about 7/8ths of it. It’s merely ok, which is unfortunate because I think Jimmy Hogan is, as you say, a pioneer. My biggest problem with it is the author, on multiple occasions, uses Hogan’s story as a screed against English anti-intellectualism, I felt it got WAY too preachy, and unfortunately left a lot to be desired.
For those uniniated – Jimmy Hogan was a former English footballer who, as a child, put a lot of practice into his technique, and felt the technical side of the game was far too under-utilized in the English game. After a decent but injury plagued career, Hogan took to coaching, first in Britain, but eventually he made a move to Holland, then to Austria and Switzerland, demonstrating his technical abilities to his players. He was stuck in Europe during World War I and taken as a prisoner of war, but his ‘punishment’ was to coach MTK of Hungary, to five domestic titles and lighting the spark of a nation whose national team would eventually come 2nd in the 1954 World Cup and become the first side to beat England on home soil in 1953. He was first, and foremost, a teacher, and is revered on the continent, especially in Austria (where he worked with Hugo Meisl and the Wunderteam of the 1920s), Switzerland, Hungary and Germany (where he spent time teaching his technical tools to players, amateur and professional). He spent the end of the 1930s back in England, coaching Fulham and Aston Villa, but his ideas never really caught on in the English game.
I would suggest reading the appropriate sections on Hogan in Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid, and this as well: http://equaliserblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/1-hogan/
The Sport Gene – Gladwell Gives a science view of nature over nurture.
Soccer By Arpad Csanadi
It’s a technical and practical breakdown of the body mechanics used in football. It’s an old book (early 60’s) and some parts can seem a bit dated, it uses reference pictures of the great Hungarian players Puskas, Hideguti etc.
But I think it’s a mistake to be fooled by it’s age, its analyses of the proper techniques used in playing football are timeless. Laureano Ruiz, the coach who invented the Rondo, called it the single most useful coaches book ever.
I have to say I agree.
For good footballers, (which should be what we’re trying to develop), the fundamentals of technique must come before philosophy, choreography or tactical systems can be properly implemented.
Anyhow I think this is a really practical reference book for coaches, especially ones who may not have had a vast experience of actually playing the game. It deals in depth with the basics of good football technique : kicking, heading, control etc and breaks them down them down into how-to’s.Here’s a nice read by one of the members:
Have read recently two books on soccer psychology by Dan Abrahams:
soccer tough – addressed to players but think is very useful for coaches as well. Liked a lot!
soccer brain – for coaches. Little bit harder to read but also good.
Jed’s book on tiki-taka is great for understanding the nature and roots of possession soccer – inspired a lot of thoughts.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by
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