If we all do the same drills, what is the magic? What is the secret sauce over in Eindhoven?
As you may be aware, BFCN recently took a trip to PSV Eindhoven to have a look inside this world famous, incredibly successful academy. It's likely you will have seen previously how bewildered we were at just how open and candid PSV were. They showed us everything, and kept nothing off limits. This wasn't a token trip with a few shallow presentations and a tour of the facilities. This was an immersion into one of the top talent factories in world football, and we are all better for having seen it.
It will hopefully come as no surprise to you that they don't do different drills or exercises at PSV compared to anywhere else. If this does come as a surprise, perhaps you've been barking up the wrong tree on your quest for the holy grail of coaching. It's a point I've heard made by many American players who have completed pilgrimages to Europe. "I was surprised. They do all the same drills we do. I was expecting something different. They don't do anything we don't do, they just do it faster and better."
The sentiment at PSV as to why they can be so candid, and show all who enter the not so secret formula, is that nobody can do it better than them. "You can't be better than us, because you're not us." Which I can completely get. I could study Floyd Mayweather for years and copy all his moves, but I don't think I'd be getting anywhere near him in a fight. It sounds pretty arrogant on the surface to say you'll never be better than us, but this is where we get to the first piece of the puzzle at what makes PSV such a successful academy...
People
Boards and screens provide great learning aids.
It's that simple. They bring in good people and quality coaches. Give me Pep's session plan and I back myself to run a half decent session, but I'm not Pep. Pep would even run my session plan better than me. Better coaches make better observations, provide better feedback, apply better challenges, and create better environments. If the view is that a coach is like a doctor, applying remedies and treatments to cure illnesses and injuries, better doctors are better at identifying faults, flaws, patterns, judging risk, and can typically draw on broader and deeper experiences to solve problems. Likewise, they may do the same drills, but a better coach will run the drill better. A better coach will engage players for longer, push and challenge the players harder, and run the drill closer to optimal than an inferior coach. Better coaches tend to have an eye for detail, that is often neglected by others.
Most coaches can look at a session plan on Twitter, or watch a video on YouTube, and copy what they see. Often to a fault. Good coaches can run with the idea, and adapt it to suit the needs of their own players.
4v2 (6v4) Rondo
Take the above exercise. It's a rondo within a rondo. The Blues v the Reds in a 4v2 in the inner box. If the Reds win the ball, they can play to the outer Reds, making it a 6v4 in the bigger square. It's a decent exercise, and most coaches will have used a variant of it. Hopefully though, you've not copied it verbatim, and implemented it exactly as you see it, without thinking about what your players need. One of the worst exercises for this is Pep's infamous 4v4+3 rondo. It looks great when it gets going, and he's used it frequently with many of his teams. Coaches will like the way his teams play, and see a connection between that exercise and the tactics used on the pitch, coming to the logical conclusion that if they use the 4v4+3 rondo with their team, it will help them play like Pep's team. It does make sense on paper, but that's if you neglect certain other factors.
Good coaches will see something useful in a drill, and will deliver it or adapt it in a way to suit their players. Let's use the STEP principle to see how.
Space: If the space is too big, it will be too easy for the attacking team. Who are you trying to challenge? I may do the inner box in a 10x10 area, but you may have players whose touches aren't brilliant, or are slower decision makers, so may decide to do it in a 12x12 box. Or you've got different numbers, and have had to play 4v1 or 4v3, in which case the size of the inner box needs to be adjusted accordingly.
Task: Perhaps the coach you have observed has done the above rondo with highly motivated, switched on players. Maybe those players don't need a goal or a challenge on top of the drill itself. Their motivation is to impress the coach, to improve as players, to get into the team on Saturday. But with other players, who might be a long way from pro football, without a way to win or score points, will they play with the same intensity and concentration? We want to work on keeping the ball, but to some players, that is boring. What makes it less boring is points or goals. Can we give them some mini goals to score in? Can we award points for passes? Do the players need a way to win, or points to encourage certain behaviour?
Equipment: The coach you observed used flat markers to make the lines for the inner box, as not to interrupt the ball or trip up players, like cones might. Do you have those? Maybe you like the drill in principle, but think it's a little easy, so want to add some interference. In which case, you chuck a couple mannequins in there to make congestion and block some passing lanes. Or you like the idea of goals to give points, but your brand new Bazooka Goals haven't arrived yet. What should you do? End zones perhaps? Or a target player? Using small cones would be no good, as they won't stop the ball.
People: Maybe you think 4v2 is too hard for your players, so you change it to 4v1 to create a higher likelihood for attacking success. Or you might introduce some neutral players, as you don't want one team to be defending the entire time. How about the range of abilities within the group? What's the gap between your strongest and weakest player? In an academy or pro environment, every player there will be capable of competing within that group. In a grassroots environment in particular, the variance in abilities can often be so vast that it kills drills. Is there a way you can manage that with restrictions like touch limits, or area limits that only affect some individuals? What do you do, as often happens, if you planned for ten players but only nine show up? How do you manage your players? Can you hone in on what element of "keeping the ball better" that you want to improve? If it's support angles, perhaps support players need to be unopposed or locked in areas? If it's movement, perhaps you condition the exercise so that players can't receive in the same space twice?
Watching the above Pep 4v4+3 rondo, could your team do it? It looks cool, but could your team do it in that space? At that speed? Can they make decisions that quickly? Is their touch as good as the Bayern players? Do you need to make it longer? Make it wider? Add or remove some players?
Coaches will make the mistake of copying the 4v4+3 exactly, and quickly become frustrated as teams can't string more than two passes together. Then the constant turnovers and stopping of the drills leads to disengagement from players. It's too hard. It's not in that Goldilocks Zone of challenging enough. Is it the drill that's wrong? No. It's the coach's implementation of it.
Better coaches are more detailed and specific in what they want to see. "Keeping the ball better" is a very broad topic. Players might need more specificity. Consider the elements or concepts that need to be worked on. Will that come out in the drill in its replicated form, or does it need to be modified somewhat?
Coach Development and Education
"Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to." This was not something that was expressed at PSV, but you can feel it to be true. It would be almost impossible to not learn and develop as a coach in this environment. Multiple sessions per day, on the pitch pretty much every day of the week, coach meetings, training analysis, match analysis, and their own in-house coach education via their online coaching academy.
For those who are interested, PSV have actually opened up their Coaching Academy for coaches of all levels around the world. Not only can you learn their philosophy and methodology from your laptop or phone, but it's also possible to go over to Eindhoven and be trained in person by PSV staff. Football is a competitive industry, and we all want to coach at higher levels. So why not learn from one of the best academies in the world?
Coaches, Equipment, Facilities
Observation towers next to the training pitches.
Quality of coaches, both as educators and people, isn't the only reason why PSV aren't scared we'll be copying and exceeding their methods elsewhere, although it is likely the biggest. In part, big clubs are protected by a catchment area. They would not be worried about us copying their secrets and starting a rival club in Eindhoven, because we won't have the financial backing, facilities, space, reputation, pro pathway, and everything else that is required. If anything, it benefits clubs like PSV to improve the level of the coaches around them. The PSV player pool for their academy will largely come from a part of the world between Antwerp and Dortmund, Rotterdam and Liege. So if you and your friends start your own club that copies PSV verbatim in China or Australia, how could that possibly impact them negatively?
Having the same knowledge and experience as the PSV coaches aside, most of us still don't have all the other tangibles. The vast majority of us are coaching our teams once or twice a week, on half or a quarter of a pitch, with a few mismatched balls, some odd bibs, and a stack of cones. How much more would your players benefit if there were four coaches? We've likely all seen grassroots teams with four or five Pep wannabes shouting nonsense, but I'm not talking about dads living vicariously through their unfortunate offspring. What if your team had four coaches, who were highly qualified, often with a specialist like a goalkeeper coach, and were all well-versed in the same philosophy?
How would you even structure it? One coach to lead and three to float to provide feedback to individuals? Split your team into smaller groups and do a carousel? Do phases or full matches with coaches working with different units? Have one big group working, while occasionally sending a small number of players to work individually with coaches on their own specific, tailor-made individual development programmes?
How would you organise coaches during your training matches? Head coach and assistant coach per team? Rotate players out for individual feedback with the coaches on the bench? Have one coach as the referee? Place coaches around the field in different areas to see different parts of the game? With the amount these teams train, it's possible to utilise several of these methods within the same week.
Where you train, do you have the correct sized goals for your age group? Do you have different goals available to you for different activities? Can you use smaller goals when playing 5v5 or 6v6? Can you use Bazooka Goals when playing 1v1 or 2v2 activities? At a top academy, you have all of this available to you. This greatly aids the specificity that is possible to include within certain drills. I like to have transitions or rewards for defenders in my drills. It's not always possible with some clubs or facilities.
2v1 + 2v1 Rondo
The above is a standard 2v1+2v1 transfer rondo. The two blues have to send the ball across the middle to the other blues, and the reds have to stop them. Typically, coaches will run this exercise with the game stopping when the reds steal the ball. The defender will hand the bib over to the blue that lost the ball, and the game will start again.
The problem is that that is not entirely realistic. The game doesn't stop when you lose possession. And without a way to get points, or to win, players are often not putting in the most effort possible. What can we do? We can maybe ask defenders to dribble over the endline if they steal the ball, giving the reds a chance to press and win the ball back. Perhaps we can count total passes between the blues, transfer passes, or even split passes. And instead of switching defenders every time the ball is lost, perhaps we can have players in pairs defend for a timed minute, and compare the points earned by the pairs during those minutes.
Real football is full of rewards and punishments. There are consequences to mistakes and bad decisions, and those are not always present in training exercises. So what if...?
What if... we add goals for the defenders to score into? How much more effort will the defenders put into their pressing, marking, tackling? 10%? 20%? Perhaps enough to make the difference, making this exercise operate at a game speed where learning transfer can occur. With an abundance of equipment available, top coaches can manipulate the constraints of an exercise to even greater levels, providing more realism and specificity to the players during training.
Have you ever tried to work on patterns or shadow play with some players, and found their enthusiasm to be non-existent, or for the ideas to not transfer to real, competitive situations? I'm not going to have the discussion about opposed practice v unopposed practice just yet. What I will say is that if you had a squad's worth of mannequins available to you, allowing you to paint realistic pictures, would that help? Perhaps, but that's not the only thing...
Amount of Training
For those who train once or twice per week, what if we could make that three or four? Here are the most frequent complaints from coaches:
We don't train enough.
We don't get consistent attendance.
We don't have enough space to train.
Let's now obliterate that. Your full squad is turning up four times per week, attendance is 95% minimum, and you get an entire pitch just for your team. That's in addition to the four coaches being there each session. And to take it a step further, these sessions will be filmed. The sessions are then analysed by the coaches, with feedback for coaches and players. The players also have access to these videos, which are regularly tagged and clipped, or are accompanied by examples from professional football.
It's hard to compete with PSV, unless you're a club like PSV. Which is why they don't mind us coming in and observing what they do. And also why the choice of drills and exercises is only a small part of it. If you were a U14 boys coach, and you copied every U14 boys session plan from PSV, what would it actually do? Are most coaches experienced or knowledgeable enough to interpret what they would see on a PSV session plan, and know how best to utilise it?
Depth and Focus
How many of you coaches reading this feel like your good work is undone by other coaches? You may have a Saturday grassroots team, and you encourage dribbling and playing out from the back. Several of those kids also play on a Sunday team, where the coach screams at them, insisting they get rid of the ball, banning backwards passes. You feel like you get good work done during a game or session, but then it's undone by the next time you see those kids, due to the "coaching" they've been receiving elsewhere.
Are you spinning plates, or putting out fires? Either way, you keep encountering roadblocks along your path to progress. The kids can't play out from the back well enough because their passing isn't accurate, so should you work on passing? But they also don't know where to position themselves, so should you prioritise that? And when they do create superiority, they fail to exploit it, because their 1v1 skills are poor, so should you work on dribbling? And you keep seeing great clips online of ball mastery, and those kids look great, so should you fit some of that into your session?
In an hour a week at your grassroots club, it's hard to know what to prioritise. Or, in other words, which fire to put out first. What if you had the time, coaches, space, facilities, and equipment to work on all of it? Training at PSV allows for them to work on all of it, while going into much greater depth.
Ebbinghaus' Forgetting Curve
With the frequency at which the PSV Academy kids train, they tend not to have time to forget things. And covering the same concepts again, and again, it allows the coaches to go deeper each time. With one session a week, and lots to work on, what do you devote your time to? Ball mastery? Pattern play? Small sided games? Full matches? Should it be more about technique or tactics? With four sessions a week, you don't need to worry about fitting it all in.
How about other sports and activities? There's a growing trend, particularly in the USA, towards multi-sports, and getting a healthy balanced diet of physical activity, not just football. PSV make sure their academy players become well-rounded athletes, as this not only helps with injury prevention, but also their ability to learn new skills, and improve the ones they have. Agility, balance, and coordination are at the core of all movements. This hall has equipment for games we know and love, like basketball, futsal, volleyball, and badminton. It also has more isolated games and activities, as displayed by the colourful boxes on the floor and the walls.
Inside the cupboards are equipment to adapt and modify any sport or activity to have a more specific focus. One game we played was a modified version of badminton. It was 1v1, hitting the shuttlecock over the net, but each player had two plastic spots on the ground; one in front of them, and one behind them. You weren't trying to win by smashing the shuttlecock into hard to reach areas. We were supposed to return the shuttlecock to our opponent in a way that would allow them to return it to us with ease. The difficulty was that after each shot, we had to run forwards or backwards, and touch the nearest spot with our foot. You lost the point by failing to return the shuttlecock. This mimics so many agility drills out there, but we didn't know we were working on SAQ, as we were all too busy having fun playing badminton.
The life of a professional football is physically demanding, and academy life replicates that. The players will spend ample time in the gym, overseen by S&C specialists, taking the players through their own individually tailored regimen. The players will be at different stages of fitness and physical development, so cannot all work on the same programmes. Injury prevention is crucial, with some of these players going pro in the near future. A bad injury could mean they miss their shot, and a chronic injury could hold them back from ever reaching their full potential.
The schedule for English Premier League teams is becoming more and more ghastly with each passing season. If these boys are likely to play in Europe's top leagues, they have to be able to handle the physical demands.
Ultimately, these injuries lead to points being dropped, league positions being missed, and clubs receiving less prize money and less sponsorship money. Football is a big business, and these players need to be in top shape to compete.
PSV Is Not The Ceiling
With the ability to boast big names, their proven record of success inspires the next generation.
As a player, you know you're in good hands when you look at the long list of top players, both Dutch and international, to have walked through the doors at De Herdgang. The entire club is aware that there is more to life outside and beyond PSV. The club wants to compete on the big stage, winning leagues and cups in the Netherlands, with deep runs into European competitions, but they know the state of the game is that the big clubs from the top five leagues are able to outspend anyone else. Therefore, players moving on from PSV to European giants is a metric of success. The club are very proud of that record, and youngsters know where time at PSV can take them.
This helps to attract the best talent around, as they know they will get their shot. Not only does a move to PSV provide top coaching, top facilities, and opportunities to play with and against the best, but PSV also provides a platform. You will be seen. The PSV name carries weight, due to the reputation they have built.
Whether it's the home grown talent, or those from further afield looking to make their way into the European game, PSV also attract the best young players from other clubs too. The American trio of Mark Tillman, Ricardo Pepi, and Sergiño Dest (on loan from Barcelona) have gained plenty of experience in the 2023/24 PSV side that has won the Eredivisie with a record-breaking points haul. Wherever their careers take them next, this season has certainly boosted their footballing CVs.
The Drills: Details Matter
Let's look at the drills they use at PSV. This is a 6v2 rondo. Nothing ground-breaking, right? You've probably seen and done exercises like this more times than you can count. PSV, like the rest of us, love rondos and possession games. So why aren't your players getting signed by Champions League clubs?
Do you have a stack of balls at the ready, being fed in by the coach every time the ball leaves the area? Rather than wasting time retrieving balls between reps, the exercise can continue, becoming a more efficient use of time.
Do you have two coaches observing and offering feedback?
Are you allowing players to play around the outside, or do you encourage them to find spaces to receive in the middle?
Oftentimes when I observe rondos done by other coaches, they can be quite slack regarding things like the ball in and out of play, players being lazy and not moving. I'll see the ball go a foot past the cones, and play will continue, or players will position themselves outside of the area to receive a pass. Are you strict enough with your players? Do you let concentration slip? If the standards drop, like any drill, it becomes pointless.
But what else do you notice about that above 6v2 rondo?
PSV do their rondos in rectangles, while most of us do them in squares (or put little thought into the shape of the area at all). The width and depth cannot be the same, just like in real football. In a square, the defence can have a uniform coverage of the space, but in a rectangle, there will always be a weak point in that defence, there will always be space to exploit. Attacking players need to create and exploit space, and the shape of the area influences to what extent they can do that.
They don't want players hiding in the corners. You're too protected, as you can only be pressed from one direction. There's also only 90⁰ to play with, rather than 180⁰, thus limiting your options in possession.
PSV encourage players to move into the space in the middle. You first have to spread out as a team to create the space, then individuals can arrive into the space created, looking for a split pass between defenders. The word "attract" is used frequently. Perhaps the ball carrier can hold onto the ball for longer, attracting a defender, drawing them out of position and creating more time and space for others. Or it is the movement off the ball by the attackers that attracts a defender, creating space? Can you look for a bounce pass in the space, condensing the opponents, before moving the ball out quickly?
PSV use a lot of transfer games, such as the above, which is almost like two combined rondos. Big deal, right? We all do that. Is that enough? This is where you can layer in some conditions and challenges, which PSV often utilise.
Condition examples:
Play 2 touch
Ball below knee height
4 Pass minimum before switching
Switch via third man (as in the example, there has to be a set pass before switching)
Two things they frequently encourage:
1. Third man. So hard to mark and to track. Play the ball, shift the defence, third man appears in the space created, often on the blindside of the defence.
2. Proximity. We're always taught to spread out. However, what PSV are asking for is lots of close connections around the ball, and then one player further away to switch to. The modern game is being played in tighter spaces. Proximity also aids pressing upon transition.
From Man City to Leipzig, regardless of style of play, modern professional players have to play in tight spaces. Proximity allows for one and two touch combos, and moving the ball faster. This requires a high degree of technical ability, something PSV excel at developing.
This exercise was a 6v3. Two teams versus one team. Black + Blue v Red. The colour that loses the ball instantly becomes the defending team. Transitions are frequent in this exercise, and allows for instant pressing, putting the intensity level very high.
Next is this 4v4+3, but with several variations. The inclusion of mini goals made it directional, but not to begin with. First, the team had to make 4 passes before scoring in any goal. It became directional when passed to a target player, meaning you had to score in that goal.
There were several variations, demonstrating the versatility of the exercise. You use these to match the needs of your players. One variation was to remove the pass limit, but you had to play to a target player, before scoring at the other end.
Next was this 3v2 transition game. Kind of a wave practice, but if you score, you stay on. If the ball goes out of play, the last player to touch it leaves the field, making a 3v2, and simulating a counter from a transition.
But there are players waiting in line? Sure, but it's necessary due to the intensity. Work to rest becomes 1:1, meaning the level doesn't drop, as players get a brief rest between turns. This allows them to catch their breath, and perform at game speed.
Lastly, we have this matched up, directional 5v5. A normal SSG, with one twist. There are two target players beside the goal. If the target players get an assist, the goal is worth two points. The idea here being that it encourages third man combinations.
Goals can be scored without using the target player, as players should be allowed to find any viable solution to score a goal. Rewarding a target player assist with bonus points encourages and rewards the actions coaches want to see, but without limiting other areas of play.
Transitional overload drill with back-to-back goals
This is a transitional drill, with an overload in favour of the attacking teams. Within this exercise, we can identify the key characteristics of a PSV session:
Ways to win and earn points. Make it competitive!
High intensity. Rest in between turns to ensure quality.
Changing scenarios that force players to adapt and think.
Small sided (2v1, 3v2, 4v3, 5v4) for reps and engagement.
Use of constraints, points, challenges (time limit, touch limit, pass target etc.) to encourage and reward actions.
Transitions, forcing players to react.
How does this one work? Blues attack 2v1 against reds. Two central goals, back to back. Once the blue attack is over, the 2 blues and 1 red sprint to the other side, joining 2 more reds, making a 3v2. The 3 reds have to make one pass before being able to score.
Conclusion
Now that you've seen some of the drills they do, ones you likely already do anyway, can you see how there is no secret at PSV? There's lots to learn, sure, and you'll learn so much from the coaches, observing sessions, the presentations, and asking questions of all the helpful, friendly staff, but there is no secret. They just do lots of things really well. Lots of things we already know about, and lots of things we probably don't appreciate.
Their resources are high, their standards are high, and their knowledge is high. There's no secret drill that will convert your kids into pros that these clubs are using and not telling us about. And as much as I do my best in these articles, there's nothing that will beat seeing it for yourself.