An important aspect of training junior footballers is being able to perform analysis and evaluation. Managers do this in the most basic way every weekend when they look at how their players perform. Most managers don’t see themselves because they constantly focus on what their players are doing and how they behave.
Analysing and observing is a crucial part of your job as a manager, since it determines how you organise training sessions so that they meet your overall training needs. One reason to look at how the players behave both in training and in play is to see how they are developing, how they look in comparison to other players and what strengths and weaknesses they have.
You will assess most of this by observing them and while this is worthwhile, it may also be biased and inaccurate. Using a qualitative analysis is very useful for monitoring younger players and helping them to develop. This type of analysis uses your experience of the game and your knowledge to analyze players and their play.
You have probably observed that when you watch a live or televised game you always have an opinion about a decision, tackle, goal, dive, booking or sending off. That view might differ from that of another observer. It might be biased because it’s your team that’s playing, you may have an issue with the player in question or the referee, or it might relate to a substitute that you’ve sent on.
This bias, which comes from your experience, your emotions and you expectations of the game, can make you less objective. If you think this is false, then ask a parent about their child’s performance in the game – everyone will be biased in favour of their child. The important thing is to realise that you might be biased when observing how players perform individually and as a team.
Here’s an example: it’s more probable that you will remember the build up to a goal by your team than the build up that made your opposition miss out on a goal. That said, remembering what happened with your opponents might be useful when planning training.
A study of managers’ views of the events which led to scoring showed that managers remember less than 40% of the build up with accuracy, and that drops to less than 20% if a goal is not involved, for example if there is an offside decision or a player misses a scoring chance.
Most managers are apt to have better recall of events which involve their team, which might affect how they evaluate a game. When you talk to the team at half time, how many times do you refer to recent events? Research shows that managers have better recall of things that happen near the end of the half than those that happen in the middle.
Observation is still a good way to evaluate players, especially if you focus on particular aspects of individual or team play. However, it’s also a good idea to try a more systematic method and consider players’ technical skills and decision making ability as part of their development as a whole.
