When he was looking at implementing the Be Your Best Trainer into his coaching, Coach Winkel put it to the ultimate test: a trial with his existing players.
- I studied sport psychology, my mission is to support players in taking their mental game to the next level. Helping them to fulfill their potential and improve their performance on-pitch. The Be Your Best Trainer, seemed super interesting, since this is an innovative new scientific and concrete tool with the possibility for players to train perceptions skills and ability to scan their surroundings.
- But in coaching it comes down to whether the players actually believe in the tools you use. If they don't, then the method will never work - no matter how convinced the coach is. It turned out that my players found the Be Your Best Trainer useful, because they recognised the situations and see how scanning can benefit them.
Everything starts with setting a goal
Winkel explains it all starts with goal setting. When a player sets a goal, he and the player will look into what steps they need to take to achieve that goal.
- An ideal situation for me is that we analyse the player's past performance, we map where the player wants to go, and we look at specific ways to reach that place. I often see that scanning and awareness on the pitch is a recurring problem with players that I coach.
Using the features of the Trainer
When using the Trainer, Winkel utilises the replay feature in-game, where he and the player observe together how the player performed.
- I don't tell them what to do, but rather ask them what they see: what is it that you are doing here, where are you looking, what are you thinking at this moment.
In this way, Winkel challenges the players to think about and analyse the situation for themselves.
- I've noticed increased scanning and awareness with my players, but I think you have to train like this consistently and structurally for it to have the best effect.
A safe environment and valuable conversations
Using the Be Your Best Trainer, Winkel experiences that it can also lead to valuable conversations with his players that go even deeper.
- I often use the Trainer together with video analysis from matches. If I see that a player is struggling with elements like scanning and decision making in previous performance, but his scores in the Trainer are sufficient, we can use that to look even deeper at things like stress-coping, performance anxiety or lack of concentration, and work on that too.
We're excited to see that Coach Winkel and his players find the Be Your Best Trainer useful in their progression. We will continue to support Winkel doing what he does best - coach and develop the best footballers of the future!
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