Do you want to coach in a football academy?
- Ben Pinnington
- Jan 18
- 9 min read
Here’s what you need to know.
Football coaching in a professional academy is an extremely rewarding job. The opportunities to coach some of the best talent in the country is an obvious attraction, as well as working alongside some of the most knowledgeable coaches in the game. However, not every setting has world-class training facilities, 30 footballs per age group, and goals that can be moved…
The purpose of this blog post is to provide a real life, authentic insight into coaching in an academy setting for aspiring football coaches. Perhaps it’s your dream to play a part in your childhood club’s academy developing the next multi-million-pound superstar! I aim to provide some useful insights, practical tips, and for you to use this blog as a guide.
Activity: Before you read any more, write down what you already know about academy football coaching. This might include your own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings.
What does an academy coach do?
Academy coaches need to be far more than just great technical & tactical coaches. There are many different facets to coaching in an academy. Yes, planning, delivering and reviewing sessions is one of them, but there’s much more outside of that for coaches to involve themselves in. Other roles and responsibilities include:
· Conducting player reviews (approximately every 6-8 weeks depending on the academy)
· Developing & implementing Individual Learning Plans (ILP’s) or Individual Development Plans (IDP’s).
· Recording data & evidence – uploading training sessions to systems and conducting evaluations & reviews.
· Training and game analysis – reviewing and evaluating player performance during training sessions and matches through video analysis.
· Being part of the wider Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) discussing and facilitating strength & conditioning (S&C), player care sessions, psychology workshops, parent workshops and inductions, etc.
I’m sure there’s more to add, but those are the main factors that stood out for me reflecting on my time as an academy coach.
What skills do I need to work in an academy?
An academy coach needs to have many tools in their toolbox. There’s probably too many to list so the 5 main ones for me would be:
1. Having excellent self-awareness: knowing what your own behaviour, thoughts and feelings look like really helps to develop an understanding of other’s perceptions of you, manage your own emotions and behaviours, and implement change if necessary. Learn how your own attributes influence your decision making and others. Park your ego and show your genuine authentic self. Football is a small world, so be careful of how you behave and talk – it’s guaranteed to get around very quickly and could affect your reputation.
2. Emotional Intelligence: this is critical in being able to provide empathy, show genuine interest in others, listen, build rapport, read and manage different situations and (e.g. player ‘retain or release’ meetings come to mind…!) and lead people.
3.Know your stuff: it absolutely does help if you know the technical, tactical, physical and psychological elements of the game. Being able to implement the right information at the right time to the right person in the right place is essential to effective coaching.
4.Accountable: you’re going to fail at times. That is the nature of the beast and is essential in improving as a coach. Growth does not exist without failure. Accepting and expecting this will really help to push you forward. Be willing to accept change, become flexible, and try not to be too dogmatic in your approach.
5.Commit: Football coaching is not a 9-5 job. If anything, it’s closer to 24/7! You’ll often be thinking about whether to play a single or double pivot, planning your next session whilst driving, reflecting on your touchline behaviour – it’s mentally challenging. Not to mention the actual delivery hours often in the evenings after a full day of work and travelling across counties at the weekends. It’s not for the lazy, but is for the committed…
What do I need to work as an academy coach?
To work in a professional academy in the younger age groups, you’ll need a UEFA ‘B’ License as a minimum requirement. Most clubs also ask for The FA Youth Award or equivalent, too. To work with the older age groups (16+) you’ll usually need a UEFA ‘A’ License. It’s also very useful to be qualified to degree level to be able to apply deeper theoretical knowledge practically. In-date safeguarding and First Aid qualifications are too a must.
Please don’t waltz into an academy waiving your Master’s degree certificate having never delivered an after-school club. You need to have the self-awareness to know where you’re at and understand which gaps in your skillset and knowledge that you need to address first.
Activity: Research a job description for an academy coaching role. Assess how you compare against the job description making note of how you match and don’t match the role.
How do I build experience?
In my opinion, it’s critical to gather experience in community or school settings as a coach first. This is where I learnt the foundations of coaching; behaviour management, differentiation & personalised learning, trying new practices, learning to develop engagement, maintaining safety, and learning how to speak to children using appropriate language. Working in holiday camps, after school clubs, delivering PE lessons, and covering PPA (Planning, Preparation, and Assessment time for teachers) sessions. Don’t underestimate the challenge these settings offer – developing your skills here will hugely influence your ability to work in high performance environments.
Real coaching is learning to engage and keep engaged 20 mixed age and mixed ability children – some who love football, some who’ve simply been placed there by parents because they’ve got to work – delivering inside a small sports hall and having to cone your pitch around the school’s piano with limited equipment! Proper coaching.
Once you’ve got to grips with community work, it’s beneficial to gather experience in development or advanced development football centres. These centres often tend to be for the more experienced and higher ability or high potential players and bridge the gap between grassroots participation and football and professional academy football. In these centres, you can focus more on the technical & tactical demands of the game with an increased focus on performance and fun.
Other ways you can gather experience are:
· Volunteering – a great way to practice and hone your skills within a team setting.
· Shadowing – a fantastic way to learn from other coaches.
· Social connecting – reach out to coaches on platforms such as LinkedIn to ask questions and build your network.
· Further or Higher Education – studying college level or university courses not only increases your academic skills but also often provide placements, particularly within sports, health & fitness courses, and teaching/coaching courses. Depending on the course, you may even find yourself on placement within a professional football club!
Activity: Try to reach out to a coach each week asking for advice or opportunities to build your connections. Research coaching qualifications and courses that you could learn from. You could also list your experiences to date and then reflect on how you could grow that list.
How do I know I’m ready to apply for academy jobs?
You’ll never really know when you’re ready. A good place to start is once you’ve completed the required qualifications and feel confident in coaching children. It’s worth creating your own coaching portfolio documenting the clubs, teams or organisations you’ve coached in, the successes you’ve had, the mistakes and failures you’ve faced and overcome, references from staff members, session plans, strategies, and testimonials from coaches or players. You’ll also need to make sure your CV is up to date and tailored towards coaching and looks professional. It’s worth having this checked by someone and using professional templates. Don’t forget to include a well written Covering Letter – write both yourself, don’t use AI as scanners will pick up automatically generated text.
It’s difficult to be able to fully describe the interview process for academy coaching roles but expect a formal interview and a practical demonstration. The old age saying comes to mind: “failure to prepare is preparing to fail”. It’s essential that you are well prepared for any interviews. My advice would be to be your genuine self, make eye contact, greet staff formally, have a session plan to hand, a wear appropriate clothing. I’ve seen candidates coach in jeans – do not do this! And don’t wear a tracksuit of the club’s most hated arch-rivals either…you’ll feel uncomfortable.
What’s your “why?”. Think about WHY you want to coach academy football. If it’s because you want to wear a tracksuit with a pro club’s logo on and change your profile picture on social media – don’t bother. You’ve got to LOVE working with people and have a passion for helping others. For me, if you’ve not got this, you’re not going to be a coach. As harsh as that sounds, there’s too many in great positions doing it for themselves, and not serving others as they should.
Ask yourself if you’ve prepared well. Rubbish coaches get found out and quickly. Have you learnt how to manage behaviour and groups? Do you communicate effectively with staff and players? Are you committed to learning? Do you make effort to build rapport with staff, parents/guardians, and players?
Activity: Conduct a SWOT analysis by listing your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to conduct a self-scan. (Examples can easily be searched on Google to help you).
What’s so great about academy coaching?
Academy football is brilliant. It’s exciting, rewarding, satisfying, fast-paced, and unique. You’ll get to work with or against some of the best talent in the country which helps you to develop your own problem-solving skills, tactical thinking, decision making, deeper comprehension and understanding to name a few. You’ll get to travel the country and sometimes even coach abroad and visit some of the best facilities in the world.
There really are some amazing people in academies. You’ll get to learn from experts in their field such as analysts, strength and conditioning coaches, psychologists, player care officers, managers, physiotherapists, Heads of Academies, highly experienced coaches and ex-professional footballers. The opportunity to learn from people in these positions helps to broaden your coaching horizons and informs or changes the way you think about coaching. You may even be fortunate enough to meet and learn from some big names within football.
An academy football coaching role does stand you in get stead for qualification progression. To be offered a place on the FA’ UEFA ‘A’ license, you’ll need to be working in the right environment, within the 11v11 game, and with the right age group. Supporting letters or recommendations from a Head of Academy, Academy Manager, and Head of Coaching really does help support your application.
You’ll also have your own Individual Development Plan (IDP) where you’ll work with your Head of Coaching who’ll support your own development through observations, reviews, Career Professional Development (CPD) and provide opportunities for further training.
Activity: This blog is merely a guide based on my own experiences and views. Why not search LinkedIn for other academy coaches and ask them for their views to create a wider view of life in an academy environment.
What challenges can I expect?
You’ll need to prepare for challenges in this exciting journey. It’s a high-pressure environment and you’ll be expected to showcase consistent professional behaviours, demonstrate effective technical and tactical knowledge, deploy impactful strategies, and unfortunately, you’ll work with or for people you just don’t like. Football does attract some knobheads who are more concerned with intimidating others – you’ll figure out how to deal with them eventually.
Some other challenges you’re likely to face are:
· Lack of personal time – consistent planning, delivering, reviewing and travel can take hours each day.
· Wellbeing – most academy jobs start part-time and are in the evenings or weekends which can be mentally & physically taxing.
· Finances – depending on the club, you may not feel you’re being paid enough for your effort.
· Limited career progression – again, depending on the club, there can be ceilings to progression with limited opportunities to become full-time.
· Administration – football coaching is leaning into the educational world where written reviews, evaluations and data is to be recorded. This can be a time-consuming process.
· Feeling valued, recognised or rewarded – this really does depend on the club and the leadership. At times, you may feel like you’re just not being rewarded or recognised for the hard work you’ve been putting in.
· Club culture – the people make the culture, not the badge. Unfortunately, there are those in leadership positions that are power hungry, arrogant, rude, and just incompetent at their jobs which can be incredibly frustrating! Football is riddled with huge egos out to serve themselves with little interest in doing what’s right for others. These people don’t listen, are often rude, have little interest in others, and are more worried about how people perceive them than doing a good job. Harsh but true.
This short list does not intend to scare you or put you off but more to prepare you for the real world of academy coaching.
Activity: consider each of the points above and think about how you’d overcome each challenge using strategies before applying for roles.
Take the first step today.
Hopefully this blog serves as a useful guide to life as an academy coach. Every coach will have different experiences, and this blog does not intend to be exhaustive but to outline what you’ll need to work as an academy coach, what to expect, and how to prepare yourself.
Activity: write down 3 things you’ve taken from this blog, 2 things you’re going to research more about, and 1 question that you’d like answered.
Finally, take time to learn in a variety of environments before applying, put yourself out there, become comfortable with being uncomfortable, learn as much as you keen, be keen and willing, and expect challenges developing a solution mindset. Good luck!
If you’d like to discuss some of the elements of this blog, why not drop me an email at co-coach@hotmail.com? Or DM me via LinkedIn!
Ben Pinnington - Founder of co-coach.
X: @cocoachpro
I: @cocoachpro
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