Inside the Minds of Coaches: Uncovering Player Profiles, Development and Talent ID
Image Courtesy: Alberto Frías.
It’s no secret that in football, player profiles, player development and talent ID are important parts of building high-performing teams and nurturing talent.
As a casual observer, you watch your local team play and think, well this is just twenty two players on a field. I can put together a team and get them playing cohesively. No big deal right? Wrong, it’s not as easy as that.
Beyond the surface, there’s a foundation that many football teams and academies rely on to make sure there’s a pipeline of talented players with a good understanding of the game coming through their ranks.
To get a good understanding of how these elements work together, I’ve drafted in two of my friends and youth football coaches Toni Orebamjo and Mide Adedo. Each of them will offer a comprehensive look into how they use these elements in their coaching.
Toni Orebamjo is a National C licensed soccer coach for Nepean Hotspurs Soccer Club’s Men’s Competitive Division Team. He’s played the beautiful game for love, learned to win, and is now learning to teach and teaching to learn.
Mide Adedo started his coaching career in 2018 with Aris FC in Nashville, Tennessee. He currently coaches Aris FC 2010 (U14) 9V9 Game model and 2013 (U11) 11v11 Game model girls teams. In addition to that experience, he’s Head Coach of the Spartan Soccer Academy training program for players between the ages of 5 to 13.
Understanding Player Profiles
Player profiles vary from position-specific traits like speed and agility to strength and aerial ability. There’s also the use of data and performance metrics to make informed choices on player profiles.
Q: What’s your perspective on the importance of player profiles? What traits or attributes do you prioritize? What do coaches typically look for?
Toni O: In my view, there isn’t a single attribute or set of attributes that coaches look for or prioritize when it comes to scouting a player. Generally, as a coach, you look to add elements to your team that are missing (be it physical, technical, or mental).
In the professional game, however, more and more top clubs are making the mistake of judging players solely by their stats instead of their skills and attributes.
Just because a player scores 15 goals for team x, doesn’t mean he will score the same number for team y. By the same token, a player who gets multiple assists for one team, won’t necessarily do the same for another. Primary attributes and raw data points tend to be more transferrable across teams and leagues (for example, shots per game, dribbles/carries per game, aerial and ground duels won, which all indicate a consistent ability to separate when competing against an opponent).
You have to look at what that player does well and assess if your team is set up to take advantage of that skill set. The best teams at recruitment take this approach. It’s not an exact science, but it’s a much more logical approach.
Mide A: Great question. The world of football is evolving with innovation and technology that has created new ways of seeing abilities in players that we may not have known a decade or two ago—this combination of data and human intelligence helps coaches see hidden abilities of players and know what areas to enhance.
As I gain more experience as a coach and observe the demands needed for consistent performance, there are multiple traits I look for based on my style of play and systems on the ball, off the ball, and in transition.
I typically look for communication, leadership, technical level, tactical awareness, physical qualities, mental strength, and decision-making.
The Player Development Journey
Player development is a journey that isn’t linear. There are different stages with each stage requiring a different type of focus. From a coach’s perspective, let’s learn:
Q: What training techniques do you use to develop players’ skills and physical abilities?
Toni O: If we’re looking at things from a Player development standpoint, then we have to divide the development into three main windows.
The first window is the pre-13-year-old window. At this stage, the priority is developing the player’s technical base. How do they pass the ball, how do they receive it, and how do they manipulate it when shooting, finishing, dribbling, and generally ball striking? The general estimate for a player’s technical ceiling to be established is by the age of 14 or 15, after which you spend the rest of your playing life looking to raise your floor to get as close to your technical ceiling as possible. This means that the developmental focus for grassroots players (players under the age of 13) is technical. Technical! Technical!! Technical!!!
However, during this window (especially between the ages of 9 to 12), basic principles of applying pressure and understanding the importance of numerical superiority during offensive and defensive transition, as well as understanding the principles of dispersal when in possession and compactness when out of possession are also introduced into the players’ tactical education.
The second window is from the ages of 13 to 18. During this window, puberty becomes a big factor in a player’s development. Players might suddenly find a loss of coordination during this period which can have an impact on the player’s ability to execute technical skills they had mastered before. This is why technical repetition remains just as important during this stage. Athletic development (quick strength, speed, acceleration, flexibility, aerobic and anaerobic work) during this period is also very important and begins to become more of a focus. As a result of the increased load and physical demands on the players, recovery (and recovery time) between sessions is very important, and both injury prevention education and physical core work are introduced as a routine for players to develop as a habit. This mid and post-puberty window is what makes anticipating a player’s potential level before the age of 12 near impossible, no matter how physically proficient at the time. A player with a very strong technical base but a weaker frame can suddenly find himself transformed post-puberty as his physical level suddenly catches up with his technical ability.
In addition, this stage sees an increased demand for the player’s mental and tactical education. The understanding of how to master the four moments of the game (attacking, offensive to defensive transition, defending, and defensive to offensive transition) is developed further, while a greater competitive incentive is introduced to the players to better understand game management towards winning.
Toni Orebamjo giving instructions to his team during preseason.
The final window is the U19 to U23 window. I call this the train to win-window. This is the window where players are introduced to a lot more complex tactical situations while continuing their technical development. In addition, an even greater emphasis is placed on improving their general knowledge of the game and understanding more complex positioning for different game models. In addition, as the athletes are closer to full physical development, an even stronger emphasis is placed on physical development (anaerobic work, strength development, muscular power, and maximum and resistant speed). This window also sees a greater influence of external factors on the development of the player, with it being the responsibility of the coach to provide as suitable an environment as possible for the players to succeed (minimizing distractions where possible and focusing on the end goal of becoming professional/senior footballers.
Mide A: It’s important to first understand the player’s age and experience and adapt as a coach to the level of the player to help them develop from that level.
It’s also important to make it simple at first and then advance based on the understanding and comprehension of the player.
Mide Adedo giving his youth players instructions on the bench.
Certain training techniques that I’ve used include:
Making decisions based on what they see/scanning
Creating an environment for players to make mistakes and learn from them
Creating a game-like training environment
Repetition
The freeze-play method which includes pausing the game and teaching in-game
The self-titled ‘Mide Method’ where players sprint in patterns in passing drills (no ball), then use 2, 4, and 6 balls during passing drills then add chasers in passing drills to add pressure
Using open-ended questions and answers
Allowing the experience of the game to teach decision-making
Q: How about the mental and psychological aspects of player development? How do you foster these aspects?
Toni O: The mental and psychological developmental demands of players vary greatly depending on what age/stage of their development they are at, but the most important thing to establish all across the different stages are the standards and non-negotiables. Players will always break the rules they’re allowed to break.
When the players are younger and in their pre-professional stage of development, as a coach you have a responsibility to try and instill fundamental standards that players adopt and even establish in their regular lives. Be it general decency, time-keeping, or responsibility for the collective. This culture of responsibility continues throughout their professional/senior development with similar ideologies all shaped through the image of the coach who sets the tone.
Mide A: It’s important as a coach again to learn to adapt to the players based on their age to meet them at their level and bring them up. It’s also important to be more observant of players and interactions, and behaviours to see and understand their mentality and be able to help them improve praise them when they do well. This helps to boost their internal confidence and empowers them to do things they couldn’t do before.
Talent Identification: How to Spot Future Stars
Talent ID is part art and part science. There’s a balance that’s struck between the two when identifying players with high potential.
Q: I imagine spotting talent isn’t as easy as getting scouting reports on Football Manager. How do you identity promising talent? When you identify them, how do you nurture and set them on a path to success?
Toni O: As I stated earlier, player’s technical ceiling is established at a very young age so that’ll typically be the first thing that gets noticed. However, there’s a lot of extrapolating when it comes to the physical and mental development of a player. Most times, scouts or even coaches will try to have conversations with close friends and families of the talented player, one to get an idea of the environment the player is developing (as well as a sense of what the player is like off the field), but sometimes, also to have a sense of what the player’s physical potential could be (meeting the players parents or siblings could give you an idea of what their physical future could be.
Once identified, coaches will do their best to create an environment to set the player on the right track, ensuring technically the decisions are made to create a pathway to success but it’s always worth remembering that only the top 0.1% make it. At the highest level, the biggest separator is often not a technical or physical one. It’s usually those who are able to keep their eyes focused solely on the prize in the midst of several factors constantly distracting you from the end goal.
Mide A: As a coach, the more you experience the game, and understand different styles and systems, you start to notice players and their potential to fit into those systems or the ability to adapt.
I identify talent using the attributes I mentioned earlier: communication, leadership, technical level, tactical awareness, physical qualities, mental strength and decision making. In addition to those, the ability to adapt is also a good indicator of future success. When nurturing talent, it’s important that they’re coachable and willing to learn. That’s where there’s an opportunity to talk and be transparent on what they did well and what they can improve on—commend, recommend and encourage.