Why coaches shouldn’t aim to teach young players ‘perfect technical templates’

Coach | Approach | Keith Davids and Fabian Otte | 27.07.2021

Coaches should help players develop adaptable problem-solving skills that respond to the context, conditions and opposition in a game, explains Professor Keith Davids. Image: getty images

Learning: 

-  Helping players develop problem-solving skills rather than ‘perfect technical templates’

-  Understanding football as a ‘dynamic and uncertain’ game that requires adaptable skills

-  The difference between skill acquisition and skill adaptation

Coaches should focus less on trying to help players develop ‘perfect technical templates’ and more on adaptable problem-solving skills, explains Professor Keith Davids, expert in motor learning at Sheffield University.

“There is a term ‘skill acquisition’ that focuses on the idea that as you become skillful, you almost acquire a skill as an entity and that's stored somewhere in the brain.

“And then when you need to use that skill your brain quickly retrieves it - almost like programmes and movements.

“That's kind of an old fashioned and traditional way of looking at it,” explains Davids, who has over 30 years’ experience of teaching and research on the subject.