Ep.17 How Coaches should Develop their Style of Play | LAFC 2 Head Coach, Enrique Duran

Our guest for today, LAFC 2 head coach, Enrique Duran.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Enrique for 2 seasons now and that intro soundbite is one of the many topics we’ve discussed in the office. Setting objectives that aren’t only tied to results is key … this helps you see if your system of play is working. The key phrase there being, “system of play” Throughout the episode, he shares where his philosophy came from, the mistakes he made along the way and provides a general framework for any coach looking to establish theirs.
If you’re new to the podcast, Enrique has already been a guest on the show. I’m going to provide a quick recap from that episode so that you can better understand some of the topics we discuss.

In episode 7, we start with his time at FC Barcelona’s La Masia, and how this provided him with a template from which he built his coaching Philosophy.
And, just a few years later, he would find himself in South Africa looking to implement this style of play while serving as the Technical Director for the Mamelodi Sundowns for 4 years. Here, Enrique would come to understand 2 things:
Take the proper time to assess player & coaching profiles to better understand how to adapt his philosophy to the needs of the project.
And the second was that, to maximize the development of the players, you must first maximize the development of the coaches. This would be a valuable experience for Enrique when, in 2017, he would make the move to LAFC’s Academy and become the Director of Coaching, where he would help build the coaching curriculum from scratch. It’s these experiences that have helped fine tune his sharpen his methods.

Timestamps
0:00 Q: How does pre-season look like so far?
1:20 Q: How do trainings look when the full team isn’t together?
4:00 Q: Where is the state of coaching the United States?
4:30 “One thing that’s missing is coaches trying to develop their own style of play”
6:00 Q: Do some coaches have identity crisis’ with varying styles of play?
7:30 Q: Where did your “style of play” process start?
9:45 Q: Advice to coaches whose players profiles don’t fit their style of play?
11:50 Q: Have some coaches just had great players and never needed to coach? Soundbite
15:20 - 17:15 “In the end, we need to be experts in the way that we would like to coach” soundbite
18:40 “If your concepts aren’t clear, it’ll be tough to get the most from your players on that day”
18:55 Q: Advice to coaches at the grassroots level — style of play and training sessions?
20:20 “A good coach is one that has a clear goal / objective and players are developing in a way that helps them accomplish that objective”
22:00 Q: What happens when your ideas aren’t working? Advice to coaches going through that struggle?
24:20 “The first time I failed was when I was trying to introduce my drills at LAFC”
25:20 “at the end, all the of the drills are providing information to the players”
25:40 “You just need to adjust the drills to their abilities” Soundbite
26:40 Q: What did you learn from your failures in South Africa?
28:40 “The S. African coaches at the club were the most resistant to the new ideas”
30:00 “Finding players who can execute good technical actions consistently to apply them in tactical situations”
30:40 Q: Advice to coaches that are winning – how do they set the bar higher and higher for themselves?
31:00 “Find a way for your team to lose”
32:40 Q: Players and coaches can get away with a lot when the competition isn’t very good”
36:20 Q: How to self-motivate as a coach when no one is monitoring your sessions?
38:20 Q: Sticking to a plan that isn’t working?
39:50 Q: How do you prepare your sessions?
43:10 “With the youth academy, I will have the plan regardless of who we play on the weekend”
45:55 Q: Framework for young coaches soundbite
49:10 “We MUST expose players to as many potential scenarios to help them develop solutions I.e. build-up”
50:40 Q: Coaches copying pro style but not having the personnel?
51:30 “you can’t adopt the general idea (possession) without knowing the limitations of the players you have”
53:00 Q: Thoughts on Thomas Schlieck quote: “If the gk makes a mistake, I check to see if the coach worked on it enough”
53:45 “M-F we work for the players . . . once a week, the players work for us”
55:30 Q: Have you ever not asked something of the players because you didn’t work on it during the week?
57:10 Q: What’s been the biggest change since your days in Barcelona?
59:25 “The ideas are always going to stay the same … but we need to keep evolving the style and system of play”
1:00:20 Q: How many scenarios does your philosophy account for?
1:03:10 “Clear objective, loose instruction”
1:04:00 Q: How do you take a clubs concepts and for your own identity?
1:06:40 Atletico Madrid
1:09:10 Q: Final piece of advice to coaches
1:10:45 “I don’t think there are bad idea, I just think that they’re not well developed” soundbite