GIS Insight Series: Industry Experts Discuss Talent Identification and Coaching Practices

Hosted by Mark Clemmit, GIS recently recorded the latest session in our Insight Series, where we take a look at the ever-changing sports industry through the lens of industry-leading professionals.

This time, Mark spoke to Dr Matthew Andrew, a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, where his research focuses talent identification in elite female football.

Also on the panel was Skye Eddy, founder and CEO of Soccer Parenting, an organisation aimed at improving the youth soccer experience by providing resources and education given to parents and coaches.

To begin with, Skye spoke about how and why she got into her current role. A former college goalkeeper and state champion track athlete, she mentioned that she fell into the idea of Soccer Parenting through her own children’s experiences in youth football. She said, “it became acutely clear to me that more collaborative, trust-filled relationships with my children’s coaches would be in the best interests of their development.“

“I didn’t believe my children’s learning environment was the best it could be, and I was struck by the fact that other parents and coaches didn’t realise this,” she added.

“My work now is global, and we’re seeing the same patterns everywhere.”

This insight gave her both a business opportunity and a way to help improve the grassroots football experience for kids like her own around the world.

As for Matthew, he described his career path as slightly ‘non-traditional’. With an undergraduate degree in sports and exercise science, he initially wanted to be a PE teacher. However, he was offered the chance to interview for a PHD in psychology. After working in a more clinical area, he eventually found his way back into sport in his current role.

Now, he conducts research that focuses on the women’s game, and this interest came from a suggestion from one of his two young daughters. 

“For every ten scientific papers that are published in ID and development, only one focuses solely on females. 

“Rather than publishing scientific journals that sit on shelves that no one ever reads, why not bring my research to people that will see the value in it and implement it? I’m not counting how many scientists cite my work, I want to see how many people use it in the real world.”

Some of his research explores the differences in development between elite and non-elite female footballers, such as the amount of time spent playing “peer-led” football (recreational play). Elite female athletes spend 200-300 hours a year playing football just for fun between the ages of 5-12, while non-elite players only play for 50-100 hours in the same period.

Matthew’s research also looked at coaching, where he said, “we want to understand what activities coaches use, their behaviours, and how we, as academics, and coaches can meet in the middle for science application.

A large part of Skye’s role involves helping coaches improve, particularly in their relationships with parents.

“Foundational to our work is trust. We want to establish trust between coaches and parents,” she said.

“We do a lot of work with coaches on best practices around parent engagement and establishing trusts with parents. We’ve developed an education platform for parents, that clubs are buying access to for their parents, which clubs can buy access to for their parents. Currently, 240 clubs in the US are partners of ours.”

This trust and these best practices are something that, as mentioned earlier, Skye was surprised to find out it wasn’t common knowledge. She emphasized, however, that football associations around the world are making changes and aiming to reform how they approach grassroots football, an area that, in her view, has much room for improvement.

“Youth football is not working. What we’ve been trying to do in terms of supporting children needs to be rethought,” she stated.

Matthew, too, has observed some of these outdated approaches through his daughters’ playing experiences, agreeing with Skye that some parents take youth football too seriously.

“The first thing I say to my daughters when they come off the pitch is ‘did you have fun?’ he shared.

“Unfortunately, we see it too often where many parents live vicariously through their children and want them to succeed. While that’s great, they sometimes take it too seriously. It’s about helping parents understand the impact this has on their children.”

Understanding the female game as distinct from the male side of the sport is vital, he continued.

“We need to understand the female game. Its a different sport because it’s played differently, and the pathways are different.“

“One of the difficulties is that the game is advancing so quickly that we have to keep up with our research. There are also differences between the US and the UK in terms of pathways, so it’s hard to transfer some of that research too. It would be easy to say ‘here are developmental activities that apply to every female player in the world’, but it doesn’t because the environment is different.”

Part of the differences between the two countries is the funding, with the US government not having a ministry of sport that provides resources that the UK does, resulting in a pay-to-play system

Mark then moved the conversation to ask Matthew what skills GIS students studying coaching or talent development should focus on to improve.

“Soft skills, especially how you present your data,” Matthew said.

“Coaches don’t want to see graphs everywhere, they want you to get to the point. How do you deliver your message? How do you feed back the data? How do you present it? Theoretical skills are important, but that doesn’t really come across when you speak to coaches. Your knowledge needs to be there, but you need to be able to communicate effectively.”

In addition to these communication skills, Matthew stressed the importance of analytical and performance analysis skills.

“I know Connor McGillick is on the call, and courses like his create good craft skills. The understanding of the game too is really important and the environment of it,” he added.

To read more about the course led by our lecturer Connor McGillick, click here. To learn about other courses we offer, click here.

Article by Zakaria Anani