Mayo native, live in Galway. Secondary teacher. Coach Field Hockey & Soccer. S&C/AD coach. Head Coach Galway Utd FC MU17
Galway Ireland
Joined June 2013
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Gerry Heaney retweeted
The tilt from verticality to diagonality is perhaps the most obvious shift in attacking football’s direction of travel.
Vertical play has been championed for a long time, during which defences became primed to oppose it.
Intentional diagonality exploits this dynamic.
Wie Italien die diagonale Leiter nutzt, um die Türkei auszuspielen:
In unserer neuen Szenenanalyse zeigen wir, wie Mancinis Team durch relationistische Prinzipien gegnerische Defensivstrukturen strapaziert. 🇹🇷🇮🇹
spielverlagerung.de/2026/10/…
Gerry Heaney retweeted
amzn.eu/d/0elmZ5nI
@Carra23
Check this out!
FOOTWORK AS A SKILL NEEDS TO BE COACHED MORE!
USING ALL SURFACES OF THE BOOT IS A SUPER POWER!
🤖 Made with AI
Gerry Heaney retweeted
@Carra23 check this out!!
amzn.eu/d/0elmZ5nI
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Simple steps:
1. First you develop a wide range of movement skills...(pre-adolescent years)
2. Then you refine movement via speed and agility training along with strength development... (late pre and adolescent years)
Gerry Heaney retweeted
A 4-phase plyometric training progression model
Here's how I think about progressing plyometric training beyond just "extensive vs intensive".
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Not everything that develops an athlete has to look like hard work.
#LTAD
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Kids haven't changed. Adults have forgotten what gets kids excited.
If kids seem lazy, unmotivated, or uninterested, maybe the first thing we should look at isn't the kids.
Maybe we should look at what we're asking them to do.
Is it fun? Is it challenging? Does it allow them to explore, compete, create, and solve problems?
Or are we expecting kids to get excited about things that only make sense to adults?
Before we question a kid's motivation, maybe we should question the environment we've created for them.
Gerry Heaney retweeted
A CLUB SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER:
What football do we want to play?
What type of players fit our identity?
How do we want those players to be developed?
What does our academy stand for — and what should it produce?
What behaviours do we expect from our players and coaches?
What short-term setbacks are we willing to accept for long-term growth?
And most importantly…
How much time are we willing to give the process?
Because when results don’t arrive immediately, the real test of a club begins.
If the first reaction is:
“Change the coach.”
Then maybe there was never a strategy.
There was only a reaction to results.
A genuine football strategy requires clarity, alignment, consistency and patience.
The coach, the academy, recruitment and leadership must all be moving in the same direction.
Don’t just build teams that win today.
Build a club that knows why it wins tomorrow.
Gerry Heaney retweeted
📜New Blog: Best Practices in Coaching/Training the Emerging Talented Adolescent Athletes: Insights from experienced practitioners @ltadnetwork @jamesbaker_8 @johnnyparkes1 @TheHillAcademy
🔗joeeisenmann.substack.com/p/…
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Youth athletes need specific plyometric progressions-said no kid ever!
Give kids lots of different opportunities to interact with the ground and let them figure it out.
Gerry Heaney retweeted
The amount of data produce in the CMJ is overwhelming.
Where do you even start with your analysis?
Here is a 5-step approach to CMJ analysis
All outlined below 👇
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Wolfsburg are coached by one of the most promising managers in German football, Tobias Strobl, whose core principle is the diagonal🧠🎥
▫️Diagonal
▫️Diamonds
▫️Getting close to combine
▫️Getting in behind the marker
Wolfsburg are undoubtedly one of the sides to follow this season, as is the career of Tobias Strobl⚽️
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Football ‘Principles of play’
Penetration - Creating space -
Movement - Support - creativity
Delay - Compactness - Cover & Balance - Pressing - Control & restraint
An accepted guide for coaches for many years but do they really focus coaches attention accurately enough? 🧵
Gerry Heaney retweeted
If your child aspires to play a sport like football, where bodies are flying around at high speeds in unpredictable, chaotic environments, wouldn't it make sense to expose them to activities that develop those same abilities when they're young?
Running, jumping, tumbling, wrestling, chasing, falling, rolling and learning to control their bodies in unpredictable situations.
You can't expect kids to become comfortable in chaos if they've never had the opportunity to experience it.
And the best part? These experiences can come from games and play, long before organized football ever enters the picture. ##LTAD
Gerry Heaney retweeted
One of the key skills in practice design is being able to take a complex game and create a simpler version without losing what makes it the game.
Think about it as taking a slice of the game
Here are 5 steps I use when designing these activities 👇
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Brian Kerr: The people of Gaza are living in rat-infested tents or being exterminated by the IDF - that's lose-lose! 👏👏👏
A passionate speech from the former Ireland boss saying it as it is.
#StopTheGame
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Club football has been ruined by money, leaving international football as the purest form of the sport at the highest-level, or at least it should be.
This deliberation by the Ireland players over whether to play Israel is the perfect example of why football is important and not just 22 millionaires kicking a bag of wind around for an hour and a half.
Some things are bigger than sport. Sometimes footballers can be icons and inspirational in more than just the way they kick things in a certain direction at a certain speed.
We all know a genocide has happened in Gaza. The UN has confirmed that for us. No state should be allowed to use sport as a propaganda tool and then call foul when anyone pulls them up on it. No state should be allowed to murder innocent children.
Everyone should try to do what is right. Always.
#StopTheGame
Gerry Heaney retweeted
Reactive Strength as a moderator of speed development
New paper from @willhugs is worth a read
Max. strength as a moderator of response to power training is well established. But max strength is not associated with response to speed training.
So what is?
Some thoughts 👇
