Functional Football Podcast

In Episode 13, we speak to William Vazquez, former Central Coast Mariners U20s coach and Youth League Assistant Coach. Will discusses the importance of developing relationships with players, patterns of play vs decision making, the process of preparing for a game and the pre-game routine.

In Episode 12, we speak to Jess Ibrom, UEFA A Licensed Coach who has 19 years experience as an Elite Youth Developer, National Coach and High Performance Coach. His roles have taken him from working in his homeland the UK, to the United States, Mexico, New Zealand and the Cook Islands. Jess was an Academy Coach for the Wellington Phoenix of the Australian Hyundai A League, has worked with the Houston Dynamo FC of the Major League Soccer as well as working with Chelsea FC of the English Premier League. In this episode, Jess discusses developing youth players, setting up an Academy, accelerating Academy players to first team environment and adapting to different footballing environments when coaching abroad.

In Episode 11, we speak to Mark O’Sullivan (@markstkhlm), youth coach at AIK Stockholm in Sweden. Mark is a coach educator, a consultant, completing a PhD and founder of the footblogball blog. Mark chats about designing learning spaces from an ecological dynamics perspective, where tasks are representative of the game, where perception and action is coupled, using repetition without repetition and promoting an external focus of attention. Mark discusses designing sessions where players search discover and exploit gaps and space using football interactions. Sessions that move away from theme based sessions and give more autonomy to the decision making of young players. Mark also outlines the importance of the relationship between player and the learning and the interactions within the learning space.

We chat to Danny Beauchamp, Technical Director of Women's at Northside Futsal Club. Danny discusses the benefits of futsal, challenges in developing the game and why some football coaches tell players not to play futsal.

We chat to Germán Cabrera, a former professional player, who now runs G10 Fitness & Futbol, where he provides elite performance training for youth, semi-professional and professional players. In episode 9, Germán discusses his journey as a player, 1to1 and small group sessions, football fitness, improving player confidence, mentoring players and how he uses social media (Instagram), to engage with players and other coaches.

We chat to Kory Babington, Director of Football at the famous Westfields Sports High and former Assistant Coach for Western Sydney Wanderers Academy National Youth League team. We talk to Kory about the High Performance Pilot Program run with Football Federation Australia, the use of individualised Performance Plans and why the school has been so successful, with graduates such as Aaron Mooy, Mathew Ryan and Harry Kewell.

In Episode 7, we chat to Jordi Fernandez, who is the Technical Director or Project Director of the Barca Academy Sydney. Jordi discusses his ideas on self organised learning, developing a style of play, technique and how it can be trained, winning vs development, as well as coach and parent education.

We speak to North Shore Mariners WPL Head of Performance Phase and 1st Grade Head Coach Drew Taylor. We chat to Drew about his master of education research study on the effects of multi-task and cognitive effort training on decision making. We also talk about his mentors, self improvement, coach development and getting out of your comfort zone.

We speak to Dave Mitchell, a former Socceroo and A-League Coach. Dave discusses sacrifices he made to get to the Professional level, issues you have to deal with coaching at the professional level in dealing with players and the man management strategies he used. He also discusses his role as a scout for Feyernoord in Australia and Asia, some of the issues facing Australia football at the moment and offers advice for young coaches.

In this episode we talk to founder of GameShaping, Grégory Hallé Petiot. We talk about the importance of playing games in training, the value of context, how tactics are influenced by the individual and their understanding of the game and that football is like a chocolate cake. You can contact Grégory on Twitter @ghpetiot or @GameShaping, or through his website, http://www.gameshaping.info/

We talk to Co-Founder of T3 Australia, Ehsan Popal about Grassroots Football. Ehsan discusses how football development starts at home, engaging parents to help with this journey, T3 and their relationship with Tom Byer, as well as developing a football culture.

In episode 2, we speak to Ed Ferguson, Community Football Manager at Northern Suburbs FA (NSFA) and U15s Head Coach at Northern Tigers FC. Ed discusses the importance of grassroots football, some of the initiatives NSFA are implementing to improve the grassroots experience for players, coaches and parents.

We chat to Isaac Guerrero, Technical Director of the FCBarcelona Football School in Barcelona and Jordi Fernandez, Technical Director of the FCBarcelona Football School in Sydney, Australia for Episode 1 of the Functional Football Podcast.