Coachmate is a free app with a range of tools to help coaches deliver fun and engaging coaching sessions to their players, no matter their football experience. 

Developed by New Zealand Football in partnership with the New Zealand owned company Coachmate, the app is available on both Apple and Android phones, and is aimed at the hundreds of volunteer community coaches across the country.

The main feature is the ability to create and share training plans, with short videos demonstrating each exercise. The training content may be familiar to those who have been involved in football coaching for some time – it is based on the McDonald's Junior Framework, and the videos were previously available on the New Zealand football website.

The app is designed to be used by parents as well as coaches, and includes messaging and team chat, a scheduling calendar and polls.

Many clubs in our region have adopted Coachmate as a club training tool.

Te Awamutu AFC

At Te Awamutu AFC, for instance, the club committee have adopted Coachmate for all their Junior Teams. 
Club President, Sean Stringfellow (aka “Stringy”) says they would like all of their younger players to have a really similar football experience, regardless of who they have as a coach. They acknowledge that there is something of a coaching lottery in kids sport, where parents are expected to volunteer to coach and manage teams, and not all of them have the same skill, knowledge or experience. 

They use Coachmate to create a training plan, per grade, for all coaches to follow.

The videos are useful, Stringy says, in a couple of ways. Some coaches like to use them at the start of a session to show the kids what they are going to do. Some kids really like this – as visual learners, they pick up from the video quicker than a verbal explanation. 

It can be helpful, says Stringy, to tell parents what the learning outcomes are of each session, and share that through CoachMate. For example, “We were working on passing today. For Saturday’s game, that’s what we want our players to be thinking about, passing and receiving the ball.” This can help encourage a development focus for game day, and provides space for feedback as well. 

Stringy says that most of their Juniors are doing one training session a week, as well as a game day. As much as they can, they try and keep all training per grade on the same day – this means teams can join together if a coach is away, and coaches can share the load.  

Otumoetai FC

Otumoetai is one of the largest clubs in the WaiBOP region, with around 950 Junior and Youth Players. They’ve started to use CoachMate this year.

Jack Boland, Football Development Officer, says the club uses the app mostly with First Kicks (4-6 year olds) and Grade 7 (7 year olds). All these teams are coached/managed by community volunteers – mainly parents. Each week, the club sets out a training schedule, and all coaches are encouraged to follow the same plan. While use of the app is voluntary – coaches can adapt the plan as they see fit, or do something else entirely – Jack says the majority of teams have adopted it.

Each Grade has a Co-ordinator who develops a training plan, with Jack’s input, and this is sent out via the app each week to coaches. Jack says the club can see several benefits in this approach. Some community coaches don’t have much football experience, and the app providing a ready-made plan makes it easier for many parents to help. If a coach is away, it’s very easy for someone else to step in and help out. 

The club sees a benefit in having all kids, especially in the youngest grades, working on similar skills each week.

Rotorua and Eastern BOP

In Rotorua, and Eastern Bay of Plenty, CoachMate is used on Game Day for Grades 5 and 6. All teams do 2 activities, and small sided games. 

A schedule is developed at the start of the season, and activities are repeated at least twice. 
Repetition is key, Te Awamutu’s Stringy says, to quality learning in football. While some coaches think they need to do new, different drills each time, much of the learning comes in doing the same thing over and over. 

For kids, that often includes making small changes – or “progressions”, which might look like “Today, we’re going to have a game with 2 goals, but each player is only allowed 3 touches before they have to pass”
Videos and training plans are organised into appropriate ages, and each of the 8 exercises per age group has multiple ways it can be adapted to make it easier or harder.

Download coachmate here.

Article added: Monday 26 August 2024