EFL Youth Development Week | Swansea City Under-14s Mic'd Up

As part of EFL Youth Development Week, Swansea City Under-14s' coach Jack Pritchard tasked the young players to take part in managerial tasks during their fixtures at the most recent EFL Festival.

Taking part in small-sided games, the Youth Development Phase players were assigned challenges such as making substitutes, half-time and full-time team talks and post-match analysis.

“At the most recent EFL Festival we wanted the players to experience what it’s like to be an Academy coach on the touchline, said Pritchard. 

"This had significant impact on their social and psychological characteristics, but also gave us as staff an insight to the behaviours and traits they associate with their lead coaches. 

"Players were encouraged to lead on team talks, analyse the game from an individual and collective perspective whilst managing the different ‘in game’ challenges such as scoreline, substitutions and disappointing decisions. 

"With any experiment like this, you want the players to express their personality and step out of their comfort zones. 

"Our takeaways from this experience were extremely positive but also useful for future reference, and we are already thinking about how we can further enhance this idea to gain more understanding of how to develop our Academy players at Swansea City”.