21 Gifts for Football Coaches They Will Actually Use

A coach is easy to buy for and hard to buy well for. Most of what is sold as a football coach gift is a mug with a whistle on it. The presents that last are the ones they reach for on a cold Tuesday night, at a Saturday kick-off or on Sunday evening, when the next session gets planned. This list is sorted by where the gift gets used. Some of it we make; most of it we do not, and it is on the list anyway.

For the touchline

• 1. A real touchline coat. Long, insulated and waterproof. Players run for ninety minutes; the coach stands still for all of them.
• 2. A flask that keeps tea hot until the second half. Small, and used every single matchday from October to March.
• 3. A notebook that survives the rain. Waterproof paper and a pencil, for the thought that arrives in the 60th minute.
• 4. A stopwatch with a lap button. Drills run on time, and a phone is the wrong thing to be looking at during one.
• 5. Flat marker discs in four colours. Fifty or more. They go missing at the same rate socks do.
• 6. Numbered bibs in three colours. Numbers turn "you in the yellow" into a name and a job.
• 7. A ball pump with a pressure gauge, and spare needles. Every coach has one that has stopped working.
• 8. A ball bag that holds fifteen. Carried twice a week, from the car to the pitch and back.
• 9. Pop-up goals. Small-sided games anywhere, set up in a minute.
• 10. A first-aid kit refill. Cold packs, tape and plasters: the bag everyone forgets to restock.

For the analysis

• 11. A tall tripod or a telescopic pole for a phone. Filmed from high, a match becomes something you can learn from. Filmed from the touchline, it is mostly backs.
• 12. A magnetic tactics board with a carry case. For the dressing room at half-time, a board in the hand still beats everything.
• 13. Twelve months of Total Football Studio Pro. Boards that move, video analysis of their own matches, sessions that print and a squad with photos, for €15.99 a month, paid once. It starts the day they open it and never renews.
• 14. Twelve months of Amateur, for the grassroots coach who plans every week: animated boards and sessions, for €8.99 a month, paid once.

Every board in our library was drawn in the studio. This is what a coach makes with it: one phase of a build-up against a man-to-man press, posed, then played.

For the reading

• 15. A Playbook. Our own: 7 tactics e-books, each with a board for every idea and a training session for every chapter, in five languages. One book, or the whole series.
• 16. Inverting the Pyramid, by Jonathan Wilson. The history of football tactics, from the first formations to the modern ones. The book most coaches say they should have read sooner.
• 17. Pep Confidential, by Martí Perarnau. A season inside Guardiola’s Bayern Munich: how the training week is built around the next opponent.
• 18. Money towards their next coaching badge. Courses cost money and take weekends. A contribution says you have noticed both.

For the person

• 19. Tickets to a match they would never buy for themselves. A top-flight game, a cup tie, a women’s international: somewhere to watch shape from the stand.
• 20. A team photo, signed by the whole squad. Framed, it outlives every kit they will ever coach in.
• 21. A card from the players. It costs nothing, and it is the one present a coach keeps for good.

The best coach gift is the one still in use in March.

If the team is giving together

One parent buys, and the message is signed by everyone: “From the U12 parents”, with every name. A studio gift can be emailed on the day you pick or printed and handed over at the last training session, and if it has not been opened yet it can be refunded in full. The gift page has all five cards.