Stephen and the Media

A Season Of Training Sessions Book Review
All Sports Magazine, December 2007 - Mario Rodrigues

A Year In The Championship by Stephen Constantine Published by World Class Coaching, USA Pages: 161

Football coaches come a dime a dozen. Come to think of it, if one does a headcount – if that is possible – there may be over a million football coaches plying their trade at various levels all across the world with their own individual philosophies and takes on training, tactics,fitness, formations etc., accompanied by varying capabilities and success rates. One of the relatively renowned coaches, at least in this part of the world, is India’s former national coach, Stephen Constantine, who is also a columnist for All Sports Magazine. The Anglo-Cypriot has distilled his years of experience in the game, both as a player and coach, into an engrossing book, “A Year in the Championship”, featuring “a complete season of training sessions of Millwall FC”, with whom he was associated with during their 2005/06 season in the English Championship.

The book is published by World Class Coaching (www.worldclasscoaching.com) with a foreword by Craig Brown, former coach of the Scottish National Side and former manager of Motherwell FC and Preston North End FC. This one-of-a-kind book with over 150 easy-to-follow charts and diagrams gives you the lowdown on not only what to do during a training session, but also why it is being done and the philosophy behind each of the coaching points. The sessions, compartmentalised into chapters, tackle most of the vital football fundamentals such as passing, finishing, teamplay, midfield play, wide play, defending and fitness.

Explaining his philosophy of coaching, Constantine says, “As a coach I feel you must challenge the players on a daily basis. I like to try and put them in realistic, game-like situations. I think you teach them more and allow them to make decisions for themselves when you put them into those kinds of situations.” So how does one teach players operating at a superior level? Constantine has a formula for this: “I don’t think we should limit ourselves to just coaching in the stop/start manner that you’re taught in many coaching courses; it is about creating situations where you can get the players to find out their own solutions.”

Constantine also makes the point that a coach cannot be rigid in implementing his programme for the day, and has to keep in mind the overall workload for the season and adjust for the day or switch to other drills depending on the body language and mood of his squad. Otherwise, the training can sometimes become counter-productive. Indeed, there is something for everyone in “A Year in the Championship”, whether a top playing professional or coach, amateur coaches or just students of soccer. As Brown aptly says in his foreword, “The quality coaching content of this book will be of undoubted assistance towards the ultimate objective – enjoyment and improvement for the fortunate recipients.”

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