Learning curve for student coaches

The third course in the third season of UEFA's coach education student exchange scheme brought together students currently working for the UEFA Pro licence qualification which will entitle them to exercise their profession at the top end of the game.

As usual, the squad list for the event in Nyon was packed with familiar names – among them Kevin Kilbane, capped 110 times by the Republic of Ireland. "It's massive, coach education," he told UEFA.org. "It's a huge learning curve. I could probably make a list of the benefits as long as my arm. Working with other coaches from different associations is great. This is the time to listen and learn from experienced coaches – essentially from the tutors that we have here, experienced coaches and managers in their own right. We have to listen and learn from what they say, in order to learn from their experience and knowledge."

Kilbane was one of 67 students at an event which assembled coaches from Northern Ireland, Poland, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland. Ruud Dokter, the Republic's high performance director, said on the final day: "This was a fantastic experience in a good environment, where the students had opportunities for networking and self-evaluation, and could clearly see the need for constant further education in our profession."

The programme for the student exchange courses has steadily evolved since they were introduced on a pilot basis in 2011. However, the mix of presentations, interviews, match analysis and practical work at the training pitches in the UEFA campus has remained essentially unchanged, with the emphasis on challenging the students to reflect on the nature of the job, and the way they want to attack it.

On the opening day, Nico Romeijn – one of the three members of UEFA's coach-education Jira Panel who acted as tutors during the course – underlined the need for constant self-evaluation and reflection on the coach's own potential. As he put it, the top coach needs to be able to delve into his or her "rucksack of experience" for guidance on the best ways of handling the situations that arise.

Howard Wilkinson sustained the probing by asking for definitions of "team spirit", its importance and how to create and maintain it. Peter Rudbaek equalled his Jira Panel colleague in terms of provoking debate by examining the importance of ball possession; UEFA technical instructor Jacques Crevoisier addressed the issue of crisis management; and UEFA's chief technical officer Ioan Lupescu looked at trends at the top end of the game, in the UEFA Champions League.

Practical work on the training pitch was pegged to the UEFA Champions League matches played in Manchester and Paris during the event, with students from each association asked to coach their sides to cope with or to exploit the teams' strengths and weaknesses. The highlight of the final day was an interview by UEFA's head of football education services Frank Ludolph with former SV Werder Bremen player and coach Thomas Schaaf, who was able to transmit valuable messages based on his varied background as youth coach, assistant coach and head coach at the German club.

"The course gave us cause to reflect on the ways of reaching the summit of our profession," commented Poland's technical director Stefan Majewski. "Who is the rich man? The man who has money? Or the man who has knowledge?" The same question will be posed to students from Belarus, Croatia, Denmark and Romania when they travel to Nyon for the fourth course of the season at the end of April.