John Sullivan

The longer I spend around coaching, the more I realise that coaching isn't a machine. We can sometimes drift into treating it like one through a repeated cycle of command, response, instruction and compliance, where order begins to replace curiosity, decision-making and the space players need to work things out for themselves. Plans, frameworks, pathways, objectives and outcomes all have a place, although the actual experience of coaching happens between people and is shaped by far more than what appears on a session plan. It can be found in a coach trying to understand what a player needs, a child working through a mistake, a conversation at the side of the pitch, or a moment when giving someone space proves more useful than offering another instruction. Those moments are difficult to capture on paper because coaching is rarely as predictable as the plan suggests. Dick Bate once said: “Coaches should be able to define three things they value that can be seen in each of their sessions.” What makes that quote useful is that it shifts the focus away from what we say we believe and towards what players actually experience when they are with us. A coach might say they value decision-making, although the real test is whether players are regularly trusted to make choices and experience the consequences of them. Creativity may appear within a coaching philosophy, yet its actual presence is better judged by whether players feel able to experiment, explore different solutions and occasionally get things wrong without fearing the reaction from the coach. The same applies to responsibility, if we want players to take greater ownership of their game, they need genuine opportunities to solve problems rather than being immediately given the answer whenever something becomes difficult. Players are capable of learning through: → Observing others → Experimenting → Solving problems → Making mistakes. ⛔ That does not mean the coach becomes passive or unnecessary. ✅ Creative coaching still requires us to shape the environment, introduce appropriate problems, provide useful information and recognise when an intervention might move the learning forward. The difference is that we leave enough space for players to think, explore and arrive at some answers themselves.The aim is not to produce players who simply become better at following our instructions. It's to help develop independent problem-solvers who can recognise what is happening, make decisions and adapt when the game presents something we never prepared them for. Our value is not simply in being present or giving players information. It is in helping them make sense of what they see, experience and discover for themselves. Good coaching is not about: → Avoiding instruction → Removing structure → Leaving players to work everything out alone 💬 Instruction can be valuable, especially when it is timely, clear and appropriate to the person in front of us. The challenge comes when intervention becomes our automatic response to every problem and players begin looking towards the coach for answers they might otherwise have discovered themselves. 🧠 Children arrive at football with different personalities, experiences, motivations, confidence levels and reasons for playing. An approach that helps one player may frustrate another, while a challenge that feels exciting to one child may feel overwhelming to someone else. Even the same mistake can mean something different depending on who made it, what happened beforehand and how secure that player feels within the environment. That is why coaching cannot simply become a process of delivering information and expecting predictable outcomes. Structure should support the people within it rather than asking every person to fit neatly inside the same structure. • Are players trusted to make decisions? • Do mistakes appear to be treated as part of learning rather than something requiring immediate correction? • Is there space for questions as well as instructions? • Can you see different players being supported according to what they need? ❤️ Coaching becomes more meaningful when the aim is not simply to control what happens next, but to help people understand, decide, adapt, belong and gradually become less dependent on us. That, for me, is where coaching stops feeling like a machine and starts feeling like what it really is, a human relationship built around learning.