Specialist role coaching and skill training periodisation: A football goalkeeping case study

Abstract

<jats:p> In sports like association football, professional teams are increasingly devoting resources to the role-based development of individual athletes and sub-groups. By employing ‘specialist coaches’ into athlete-support structures, clubs aim to facilitate individualised athlete training programs to enhance performance preparation as well as skill learning and talent development. Here, we discuss how contemporary pedagogical training approaches, like Nonlinear Pedagogy and the Constraints-Led approach, can enhance effectiveness of specialist role-based athlete development programs to facilitate performance functionality. We argue the need for a model of specialist role-based coaching practice in high performance sports organisations, based on a unified theoretical rationale, such as ecological dynamics. To exemplify the nature of specialist role-based coaching, a case study addresses how Nonlinear Pedagogy and Constraints-Led approach are being used for training professional football goalkeepers in an U23 years age group. Integrating key concepts from ecological dynamics, allied to principles of Nonlinear Pedagogy and the Constraints-Led approach, common skill training principles for specialist role coaches are highlighted. These illustrate the use of the recently introduced ‘Periodization of Skill Training’ framework for specialist role coaching, practically exemplifying a way to harness opportunities for performance enhancement and individualised talent development in the football goalkeeping context. </jats:p>

Specialist Coaching Integrated into a Department of Methodology in Team Sports Organisations

“…For example, gaps perceived in defensive lines may invite opportunities for attackers to exploit and penetrate in rugby union, whilst the positioning of defenders closer to the hoop may afford more three-point scoring opportunities for an offensive team in basketball. As such, an important challenge for coaches and sport scientists is to coordinate activity and ideas on designing affordance landscapes in practice to challenge individuals and teams, based on performance information [1,3,4].…”

“…Recently, Otte et al [1] proposed that specialist (role) coaching is an area of growing importance in highperformance sport. With increasing resources in sports organisations being allocated to the development and preparation of individual athletes and sub-groups with specialist roles, the work of coaches and support staff needs to be integrated with functional coherence.…”

“…Access to sport science support and coaching can be administered by staff in a Department of Methodology (DoM), where service unification is guided by principles of ecological dynamics [3,4]. Yet, little is known about how coaching and sport science support can be provided for athletes with specialist roles [1]. Here, underpinned by principles of ecological dynamics, we propose how specialist coaching can be situated in a DoM in highperformance team sports organisations.…”

‘Knowing as we go’: a Hunter-Gatherer Behavioural Model to Guide Innovation in Sport Science

“…While within practice, although there may be an extensive range of specialist, discipline-based sections structured into sports organisations to support athlete development and performance (e.g. strength and conditioning, high-performance, performance analysis, and coaching departments), their functioning is often driven by isolated, silo-based thinking, limiting their capacity to integrate activities to fulfil organisational objectives [ 11 , 12 ].…”

“…For example, Glazier [ 10 ] argued for a Grand Unified Theory of sports performance based on the constraints framework introduced by Newell [ 17 ]. Further, Rothwell et al [ 11 ] conceptualised how a Department of Methodology (DoM) could underpin applied sport science to avoid ‘system capture’ and promote greater transdisciplinarity in practice by removing siloed and insular thinking (also see [ 12 ]). Accordingly, sport science appears to be on the cusp of a new way of thinking, one that promotes ‘upward, outward and collaborative’ inquisition, encouraging the search for ways to navigate beyond the path dependant and traditional confines that have led to this point [ 7 – 11 ].…”