More than 500 coaches attend FA Euro 2016 webinar

More than 500 coaches attended a special FA Education coaching webinar on Tuesday night (21 June), marking one of the highest attendance figures…

Presented by County Coach Developers, Darran Bowles and Jody Caudwell, the hour-long session was open to coaches of all levels (1-5) and used the theme creating opportunities against compact defences - one of the prominent early trends that has featured in the Euro 2016 coaching discussion series produced by Peter Glynn - as a backdrop.

This discussion series is available now on TheFA.com, with the following four articles used as reference points throughout the webinar:

>> Coaching discussion: Spain 1-0 Czech Republic

>> Coaching discussion: France 2-1 Romania

>> Coaching discussion: Portugal 1-1 Iceland

>> Coaching Discussion: England 2-1 Wales

Together, Jody and Darran explored the theme in further detail, examining why it has emerged as one of the key early trends of the Euros before providing practical guidance for coaches around how they can equip their players and teams with the creative skills to break down deep-lying defensive blocks.

With content relating to each of the age-phases – 5-11, 12-16, 17-21 – they showcased example practices for coaches to implement in their coaching sessions while also making the connection to the coaching fundamentals and philosophy of the England DNA.

Following the webinar, both Jody and Darran spoke of their delight at how it went "It was a really enjoyable activity to take part in. The aim was to make that link between what coaches are seeing during the Euro 2016 tournament and their work on the training field," explained Jody.

"Already this tournament we've seen attacking teams - such as England, France and Spain - needing to find their ways through stubborn, deep-lying defences.

"Of course there have been times where they have done this successfully and times they have found it more difficult - so we wanted to show how coaches can use these real-life scenarios to inform their coaching practice design and equip their players and teams with the skills and knowledge to solve similar problems on the field.

"I think we managed to succeed with that objective."


Meanwhile, for Darran, the fact that the webinar received such strong attendance figures was something to take note of.

"To see more than 500 coaches sign up and attend was fantastic. Not only was it the highest attendance for an FA webinar, but it also showed that there's a real thirst out there among coaches to use these major tournaments as a source for informing their own coaching practice.

"And one of the really positive features of this webinar in particular was that we were able to make clear links with content that has been produced on TheFA.com, FA Licensed Coaches' Club website and on The FA Coaching Community, meaning coaches could get even more information about this topic away from the webinar."

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