Football Coaches Academy concludes Senior Football Foundation Course in Navi Mumbai

by Chittu Shetty October 22, 2021

Football Coaches Academy, Asia Pacific, recently concluded the Senior Football Foundation Course –aimed at working on the performances phase of the game for coaches dealing with 18+ age players.

The Senior Football Foundation Course was the first of its kind coaching course organized by the Football Coaches Academy, Asia Pacific, and was Held at Father Agnel multipurpose ground, Vashi in Navi Mumbai.

As a part of this course, there were two online sessions held which were mandatory to attend, before participating in the on-pitch course. The course was conducted by Suraj Pillai, an FFA A licensed coach. Suraj, who has professional coaching experience with Senior men as well as youth team setups in Australian domestic football, was also a coach educator for the FFA (Football Federation Australia), where he ran courses for them across the country.

The Senior Football Foundation Course was designed for coaches working/wishing to work in the performance phase of the game – Senior football and were looking to upskill themselves in areas such as match analysis, developing a playing style, tactics, player psychology, session planning, and successful creation of team culture. The course gives coaches a deeper understanding of planning, preparing, designing, and delivering their training sessions based on real-time problems that they identify.

The structure of the course across two weeks was modeled around the participants, where they were challenged to step out of their comfort zone, deliver training sessions and receive feedback not just from the coach educator but the entire group. In line with international standards with regards to coach education, the program turned out to be a success with Coaches coming from all across India.

The course was also attended by Prashant Singh, AIFF Coach Educator, and Ryan Roy Shah, Football Coach in Pune. “The Philosophical component and group activities were something that was great in this course” mentioned Prashant while his counterpart Ryan Roy acknowledged, “Us doing most of the work was challenging but equally improving us a lot”

“It was an excellent two weeks of coach development. Coaches’ standards were very good, with some B and C license coaches in the room, coaching at good levels. Their commitment on and off the pitch was remarkable. We had the youngest coach aged 18 and eldest at 54.” stated Suraj. Further adding, “Some of them traveled from inter-state and city, managing their own travel and accommodation. This showed genuine interest from football coaches across all levels and ages willing to better themselves. As a result, the discussions both on and off the pitch and the subsequent knowledge passed around were of high quality. The next step will be that they will transfer this knowledge into their players, which would result in better football in the upcoming season.”

Talking about his reason to start such programs, Coach Educator Suraj Pillai explained, “Having traveled across the world – coaching teams, players and coaches – from amateur to professional environments the of over 15 nationalities, and having sat in different classrooms with some of the top coach educators in Asia as well as Europe, I finally decided to start my own coach education firm, where I have the freedom to design courses to get the best out of football coaches.”

Further acknowledging, the hunger to learn within participating coaches, Suraj added, “I’m glad to see hungry coaches reciprocating in a very competent manner when it comes to gaining knowledge. Since these courses are not affiliated, the only reason coaches come down is for self-improvement and it is a very rewarding experience.”

Football Coaches Academy, Asia Pacific has planned the next course to be conducted in January 2022 at the same venue. This course would be based around youth football and the content will be designed for coaches working with players aged 13-18. Details will be available on www.thefootballcoachesacademy.com