'Coach education is key'

By Mark Chaplin in Noordwijk

UEFA's desire to ensure that football coaches are given the proper training highlights a 'snowball effect' in football - whereby well-trained coaches will go on to nurture good footballers and teams, and improve the quality of the game throughout Europe.

Winning habit
The 15th UEFA Course for Coach Educators opened in Noordwijk near Amsterdam on Monday and is focusing on the theme of 'winning' - among other things, how coaches can develop the mentality of a winner, and how they can also install the winning habit in their players and teams.

Associations represented
Each of UEFA's 52 national associations has sent delegates to the conference, and will be going home on Friday with a wealth of experience and ideas that will not only assist in the education of student coaches, but will also keep qualified coaches in tune with what is happening on an overall European level.

Coach education
"Coach education is very important for UEFA," the European body's technical director Andy Roxburgh told uefa.com. "If you educate good coaches, they in turn produce good players. So each country is enthusiastic about the training of its coaches."

Annual course
UEFA's football development division under Roxburgh holds a variety of events to assist the leaders of the European countries' educational programmes. "We bring them together on a regular basis," Roxburgh said. "Every two years the technical directors meet, and we run a coach education course every year."

'Exchange ideas'
"The idea is for them to exchange ideas and be exposed to interesting sessions that they can use in their own context. We provide them with as much material as we can - videos, DVDs, books, etc."

Nature and nurture
Good coaches will help talented players develop. "There's always an argument as to whether good players are born, or whether they are made," Roxburgh explained. "The answer is probably a combination of both - if someone has a talent for playing the piano, the piano teacher helps them to progress, and it's the same with coaches."

Latest developments
"The people who are here [for the course] deal with the training of student coaches and also try to keep the practising coaches up to date with developments," he added.

'A legend'
The course began with a moving half-hour tribute to Rinus Michels, the great Dutch coach who died in March. Delegates watched a film which highlighted Michels's career and immeasurable influence as a player, coach and developer. "Rinus was not only a legend in his own country, but he was a leading light in coaching all over the world - he was also a very close colleague of all of us at UEFA," said Roxburgh.

'Dutch influences'
"We will dedicate this event to him, which means the course will be full of Dutch influences," he added. While in Noordwijk, the coach educators will watch the Netherlands national team in training for their coming FIFA World Cup matches against Romania and Finland, and senior Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) coaches will be making presentations on various aspects of coaching.

Guest speakers
The conference features theoretical and practical sessions, and guest speakers include Roxburgh himself, the newly appointed Olympique Lyonnais coach Gérard Houllier, KNVB coaches Wim Koevermans, Ronald Spelbos and Bert van Lingen, and Frans Hoek, a specialist goalkeeper coach for AFC Ajax and FC Barcelona.