Club examples
Burnley
Matchday experience: the third half…
- The Boot Room
- 26 September 2019
In the seventh, and final, part of a series focusing on the matchday experience for Foundation Phase players, we look at what you can do after the game to continue the learning process for your players.
Fun, learning and playing doesn’t have to stop after the final whistle is blown every weekend, in fact it could carry on for another ‘half’, something that this article explores.
If we make the ‘match’ the be all and end all of our weekend then we might be missing a trick.
The next clip is to plant an idea into your head. It shows FA tutor, Martin Dighton, inviting both teams to play a ‘third half’.
In this activity the players are given a specific challenge but with enough freedom to begin to work things out for themselves.
When you watch the video, look closely at the levels of engagement in this game; bearing in mind it’s still against the team they’ve just played in a more ‘formal’ way.
An interesting observation from this video is that the players thought that the ‘third half’ was where they were meant to do skills - should this not be encouraged at all times?
It’s important to release children from some of the pressures and shackles that come with matchday because there’s a ‘result’ at the end of the game.
Playing a ‘third half’ is a great way to celebrate the fact that the players all love getting together to play and, as the adults involved, it's important to provide this for them in the best possible way.
To read the whole matchday experience series, head to our playlist by clicking here.
To learn more about Foundation Phase DNA, click here.
