Summary
I’m on the pitch at Stamford Bridge, home of Chelsea FC. I see my free kick curl beautifully and nestle into the top corner of the goal, in my mind’s eye at least. My actual shot sails into the blue seats of the Matthew Harding Stand. Row M, I think. More training needed. I blame my gruelling session withfitness game Shardfallthe day before for putting my legs out.
After another few free kicks, our coach calls us over to hover around an iPad. He shows us a clip of a training drill inEA FC 24, which we are to now replicate. Dribble through the cones, beat the defender, and bury the shot. Sounds easy, right? It is on paper, or pixels in this case, but on the pitch it’s a different story.
I’m trialling EA FC and UEFA’s new ‘festival’ concept of training sessions, in which small groups of players rotate through quickfire drills focusing on different aspects of the game, culminating in small 3v3, 4v4, and 5v5 matches. It’s fun, fulfilling, and video games are central to the concept. The drills shown on iPads not only give players a visual aid, but also help to engage young kids who play the game, to recreate what they see on screen.
“This is a massive opportunity and game changer,” UEFA grassroots mentor Les Howie tells me over email. “It will help players develop and [break down] the techniques required to execute a skill. It will encourage players to [practise] more in their own time and not just be reliant on the coach.
“In addition, it will help players and coaches prepare for sessions, so that more time can be used with the ball rolling, and then consolidate learning by reviewing again in the EA Sports FC game. Establishing the circle of practice involves learning and observing in the digital world, then learning and exploring in the real world, before reflecting and consolidating back in the digital world and testing yourself in the game and on the pitch.”
We’ve all been there. No matter your age, you tried to copy skills you saw on screen as a kid, whether that was in a video game or a televised match. I remember tearing up the lawn in my parents’ garden trying to master a rainbow flick, while my brother was obsessed with Juan Mata’s ‘signature ball roll’. I still don’t quite know what that move was, but we spent hours practising to pull them out in a match on Saturday mornings.
EA and UEFA are looking to harness that passion into more constructive sessions. Since soft launching the digital resources and festival drills concept last autumn, Howie says that the feedback has been “very positive”. He explains that national associations are looking to integrate the systems into both grassroots programmes and coach education courses.
The training resources can be foundfor free online, but the next step is providing adequate funding so that coaches of any level, with any income, can afford the hardware to showcase them on.
But has it been difficult for him, a man generationally removed from video games, to adapt to the new technology and terminology? After all, in a panel before the training session, Howie had mentioned needing to ask his son what the word ‘CAM’ meant after a kid he was coaching that day had said, “I’m going to play CAM today”.
CAM is EA FC terminology for a Number Ten, the Central Attacking Midfielder.
“I’ve loved the opportunity to be creative and to be able to look at ways that we can take the opportunity that digital games give us in player development to a new level,” he says. “I would also like to think that in our collaboration, we can also add to the experience for the gamer as well.
“I and other colleagues had a brilliant time with the EA development team earlier this year, designing sessions that we think will enhance the experience in the training ground for the gamer and the real-world footballer and coach. It’s not been difficult [to incorporate EA FC into his training sessions], it can make our job easier, and it helps players to learn so it’s a win-win. Football is a fluid game, therefore coaches and players must be flexible and be able to adapt and evolve to maximise opportunity and accept the latest challenges. The best players and the best coaches are those who set the trends and get ahead of the game.”
Howie emphasises the importance of evolution, that coaches must keep evolving as the real and digital game does. Without adapting to new technologies, be they video games or VAR, coaching will get left behind.
EA FC and UEFA are continuing to roll out the festival training programme across the UK and further afield, helping to get kids active and involved in sport by combining the digital and the physical. While Howie can speak to UK grassroots football, EA has also worked with Unicef to bring the system further afield, including to underprivileged kids in Namibia as part of itsNamibia Futurescampaign.
There’s a long way to go before every child has the opportunity to play football, but EA and UEFA are helping to bridge the gap between digital and physical and get more kidsinterestedin taking to the pitch. With continued support, funding, and adaptation as technology progresses, football could truly break down all barriers to exercise: gender, race, class. Howie, too, thinks the future of football coaching looks bright.
“I’m really excited about the potential of where this will go in the coming years, as we develop more training games as technology becomes even more advanced as different platforms become available, allowing us to really democratise the development and learning of the game at all levels.”
