Practice Design and Coaching to Support Learning in Elite Youth Soccer Players: Recommendations From International Coaches, Coach Educators, and Researchers

Abstract

Providing optimal learning support is a major challenge within talent development settings. To accomplish this challenge, practitioners’ decisions, and actions should be informed by a blend of practical experiences and academic knowledge. This study explored experts’ recommendations on how to facilitate learning in elite adolescent soccer players during practice. Special focus was dedicated to why certain practice and coaching approaches were recommended to better understand experts’ justifications. Eighteen semistructured interviews were conducted with international experts representing three complementary groups of expertise (i.e., six of each soccer coaches; coach educators/developers; and researchers in talent development, motor learning, or coaching pedagogy). By employing a reflexive thematic analysis three themes were constructed: (I) differentiating overarching learning goals to address players’ individual needs, (II) designing purposeful training sessions with the game in mind, and (III) coaching interventions to support player learning within a group environment. Overall, the experts recommended the complementary use of different practice and coaching strategies to address individual learning needs. While some strategies may be associated with conflicting theoretical paradigms and established pedagogical approaches, the findings inform a purposeful integration of those different approaches in practical work. Therefore, participants’ recommendations can be discussed by integrating interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives.