A soccer player is more than the sum of his parts: endurance, speed, shooting technique, passing technique, and many more. All of these factors need to be turned into one system to create good players. Traditional training theory doesn’t achieve that because each skill is trained individually. This is why the concept of Tactical Periodization has become the preferred training theory for many of the current most successful soccer coaches: Pep Guardiola, José Mourinho, Diego Simeone, André Villas-Boas, and many others train according to these principles. By creating match-like situations in practice, players learn to link their technical, tactical, and athletic abilities to match intelligence. They will learn to transfer their skills to soccer matches and they can improve endurance, technique, and tactics all at the same time while enjoying the practice sessions more. For this book, the author has evaluated and analyzed hundreds of training sessions and has tailored exercises to specific demands. All exercises are performed with a ball so that players learn to apply each skill to the game. Every coach will find numerous exercises in this book to help them create better and more efficient practice sessions so they can improve their players’ and the team’s performance. With Tactical Periodization, your team will become better and be successful on the next match day!

Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho are probably the two best coaches in the world. But they are not just coaches, there is much more to them than that. There are already dozens of books about their tactics and training methods. Instead, this book explains why they are different from all others from the perspective of their leadership, communication, emotional intelligence, talent and team management. These factors make the difference between winners and losers.

Match analysis in soccer has become more and more important in recent years. Nowadays, no professional soccer club plays a single match without having analyzed their own and their opponents’ matches to find the best possible match plan and maximize their success. In this book, Ian M. Franks and Mike Hughes explore soccer analyses and use the results to develop realistic, progressive practices to improve the performance of the individual players and the team. Research from human decision making and motor skill acquisition is directly applied to the coaching process and technical and tactical practices are designed to accommodate these findings. Not only is the players’ behavior during practice and matches analyzed but the coaches’ as well. This helps evaluate different coaching practices to find your ideal coaching style. Any coach reading this book will find help in developing and improving their coaching. Anyone who wishes to delve more into the science of soccer analysis will find ample material as well as a comprehensive bibliography to better understand the science of soccer!

The Coach’s Guide to Mind Mapping is a tool that will help you become an expert coach. Although this particular learning resource uses soccer examples, it is a technique that can be universally applied within any sporting context. Because the current demands of modern-day coaching require coaches to know and deliver a greater deal of knowledge to players, the mind-mapping technique aims to support the coaching process by helping you to identify and develop your ability to recall technical and tactical knowledge from memory. Additionally, the resource can be used to help facilitate the knowledge acquisition process as you journey through your coaching qualifications while developing key learning skills. This book focuses on developing how you – the coach – can remember, organize, and deliver the technical and tactical information that your players need. It contains guidelines for developing, creating, and evaluating the impact of the mind-mapping technique. Familiar soccer themes are used to help you follow the mind-mapping examples with ease. Interactive exercises help you to practice the mind-mapping technique, reflect on your development, and set personal targets. So go ahead – learn, coach, develop!

Street soccer is exciting, creative, and fun. But even the most creative players need a good coach to realize their potential. This guide to street soccer coaching, written by the founder of the International Street Soccer Association (ISSA), is an informative, practical, and easy-to-use handbook for coaches of all levels. The best way to nurture creativity is to have an optimal learning environment. The ISSA has spent decades developing the best and most efficient coaching methods to create such an environment and shape better players and teams. In the book, these methods and strategies are detailed for every street soccer coach, whether they’re coaching a grassroots team or a professional club. Street Soccer: The Coaches’ Guide contains 50 games—small sided and 1-v-1—that coaches can try out with their players in order to become more successful and still have fun. This book is informative, easy-to-use, and enjoyable. It will help everyone become a great street soccer coach and learn a creative, efficient, and dynamic way to coach the beautiful game.

Soccer players and coaches alike admire the German national team for their combination of individual qualities and teamwork, leading to some of the most creative soccer being played during the 2014 World Championship. The roots for the German team’s success can be found in the youth training practiced in German soccer clubs. Most professional soccer clubs in Germany have their own youth academy where the next Bundesliga stars are formed. Of the 2014 World Cup squad, only Miroslav Klose was not trained in one of these academies. In this book, the system used for German soccer youth development is explained with particular emphasis on the different paths that young players can take on the road to success. World Champions and rising star players present their individual stories and some of the exercises that improve their strengths and remove their weaknesses. This book contains many interviews with former Bundesliga stars, soccer experts, and youth and professional coaches as well as an overview of the youth development program of an ambitious amateur club. Some of the star players interviewed include Marco Reus, Manuel Neuer, and Shkodran Mustafi as well as rising stars Sebastian Rode and Maximilian Arnold. This book is for everyone who’s interested in the German Soccer Association’s talent nurturing and different perspectives on the preparation of young players for a professional soccer career.

This book provides analysis of Simeone, Guardiola, Klopp, Mourinho and Ranieri's tactics. Michail Tsokaktsidis is a UEFA 'A' licence coach and has used this analysis to produce 23 full sessions (98 practices) including transition games, game situations and small sided games.