Robin D.

During my professional history, I have demonstrated consistent success applying soccer qualities to achieve high-reaching objectives. I have played soccer all my life in high school, college, and local neighborhood teams; so my love for the sport is obvious. I know what it takes to teach the sport in a way that brings success for the team and most importantly, a sense of teamwork and fun. I am high energy, love working with kids, and love the sport.

I grew up in Germany and played soccer from a young age. I then moved to Amsterdam and played in a variety of academy's and learning the Dutch style of soccer. At the 18 of I moved to the UK and played there semi professional for a team and my university.

In 2014 I started to coach my own club, Ardwick Community Football Club, in which I was the chairman and head coach, this was a newly formed team of 30 individuals aged between 16 and 25 years old who were new to soccer. I trained them based on my own experience and got them into their first competitive league in which we became second after a long, successful season.

This was recognized by colleagues around me and I got awarded the FA Level 1 course to get my official coaching badges. I learned the fundamentals of coaching and how to implement my skills and knowledge and teach other people which was very rewarding. While I continued to coach my own team, I had the opportunity to start coaching for Manchester United in 2018. I got hired as one of the coaches to take up the u12-u14s team which was truly enjoyable as there were a lot of talented players. I trained them 3 times a week and generally there were between 15-18 players during a session. As this was academy level soccer, my drills were generally a lot more tactical and had to blend in with United's philosophy at that time.

At the end of 2018 I moved away from Manchester and therefore could not continue coaching at United, but I started a new role, playing and coaching the University of Central Lancashire's college team. Again this was a challenge as there was vast variety of abilities and ages, however in the first season we won the league and I was awarded the vice chancellor award of excellence for all my work. I continued to coach until my move in 2022.

I also have provided individual coaching session between 2014-2019 at a summer camp in NY, in which I trained children aged between 6-16 years old providing them with various skills from passing, shooting, dribbling to defending and goalkeeping.

During my youth career from 2008 till 2013, I played for the Dutch academy club AFC Amsterdam, and had great success playing with them in various tournaments and against professional Dutch youth teams. I was a midfielder who could play in various positions and always captained my team, throughout this I gained valuable communication and leadership skills. My style of play is very modern, with quick passing and moving being my main focus.
I then moved to the UK and from 2015 to 2022 I played semi professional football in college for the University of Central Lancashire, captaining my team, scoring many goals and winning many awards

Depending on the age group, skill level and amount of players I will amend the session.
I do not plan too many activities in a single session and I stay focused on the topic
After each session, I evaluate the activities by asking the following questions:
• Was the activity too easy, too hard or appropriate to the players’
capabilities?
• Did things flow smoothly?
• Did the players learn?

In planning the training session I ensure to account for the modified rules to the Laws of the Game for the age group.
And during a match in a session I enforce the rules of play.

During my planning I always consider the number of players expected for the training session and I believe a good coach should bs flexible, as numbers may vary and it will occasionally happen that not all of the players planned for will show up at the training session. An example of this would be if an activity calls for eight players to be involved – possibly a 4v4 game.
However, there are sixteen players at the training session. Then set up two grids side by side. The same activity can take place in both grids. You go back and forth between the two grids coaching the players.

The training session must have a topic. That topic could be anything within the four components of the game.
– Fitness
– Psychology
– Tactics
– Technique

I always try and make it fun especially for the younger individuals, who have a shorter span of attention. This includes creating games and exercises, With older children I still maintain a fun element, however often focus more on the actual skill and then use tactical drills to implement what they learned. A typical session would start with a warm up, a small drill, progress that drill in 2 stages and end with a game to apply what they practiced.