From the language barrier to the cost of courses, getting back on the touchline after relocating from Norfolk to Andalucía was a learning curve
By Andrew Lawn
December 11, 2024
On a warm December evening last year, I found myself on a football pitch in Andalucía, facing 20 blank-faced semi-professional footballers who I’d been tasked with coaching off-the-ball attacking movement.
Raising my voice slightly, I asked for the second time: “Cuando esta el espacio?” More silence. I asked again, now shouting: “Cuando esta el espacio?” Finally, Javi, our veteran striker who lived for a couple of years in Bournemouth and is one of only two players to speak English, piped up. “Mister, instead of cuando (when) do you mean donde (where)?”
Smiling through the group’s infectious laughter, I wondered, how did I get here? A few months earlier, I’d been delivering the same session – in English – to an under-18 team in Norfolk. Admittedly I’d been faced with a few blank faces then too. Now, I was almost 2,000 miles south and well out of my depth.
A few years earlier, my wife and I had decided to escape perma-grey Britain and head for a new life in the sun. My day job as a writer, coupled with the introduction of Spain’s new-ish Digital Nomad Visa, offered an (expensive) post-Brexit escape route, so plans were hatched. Then Covid put everything on hold.
Before the pandemic I’d been a season ticket holder at Carrow Road, but the introduction of VAR that season had absolutely destroyed my matchgoing experience. With knees which made it impossible to limp around a football pitch in any meaningful way as a player, I’d long toyed with giving up my ticket and freeing up the time to coach, but I’d never quite broken the matchday habit. VAR, followed by a season behind closed doors, did the trick.
At that point, I had this idealised view of standing on a sun-drenched touchline with bronzed skin and a whistle, explaining to Spain’s footballers that we needed to “stick it in the channel and turn ’em”. I later learned that having a whistle was too much power for me to handle and there’s no Spanish equivalent for “in the channel”. Still, I knew that once in the country I’d want to coach and that football would be the perfect opportunity for me to meet people and make friends.
First, though, I needed to get qualified. In the UK football coaching is sort of a professionalised hobby. In order to be allowed to volunteer (almost no grassroots coaches get paid, even expenses), alongside a CRB check, you need – or at least need to be working towards – a Level 1 licence from the FA, called the Introduction to Coaching Football. It costs £100 and essentially teaches you not to bully children.
To pass you need to complete a multiple-choice quiz with questions like: If eight-year-old Abi turns up late to training, do you: A: Welcome her to the group and quickly get her involved? B: Ask her why she thinks she’s important enough to keep you waiting? C: Make her run lonely laps for every minute she was late? D: Ignore her?
Armed with my Level 1 (the answer to the quiz question was A, by the way), I set my sights on the next level – the UEFA C licence. At this point, while still administered (and priced) by national associations, the qualifications are recognised across Europe. In England the UEFA C course costs £650. In Spain it’s €325 (£270). I was lucky enough to get one of a handful of spaces on the first UEFA C course the English FA offered post-Covid.
In the 18 months since my Level 1 I’d moved up to the under-18s of a local semi-professional step eight club, who’d promised to cover the costs of my coaching education. Almost three years on that invoice still sits unpaid on the chairman’s desk. At that level, I learned that promises meant little and every spare pound goes on the first team.
The course itself was spread across three weekends, mixing classroom learning (in a sweltering Portakabin) and on-pitch practicals, plus a series of visits to your club. Our cohort of 30 people was taught by four Coach Educators. Part of the problem in England is demand for the courses outstrips supply. This doesn’t surprise me when the FA only employs their Coach Educators part-time and they’re therefore having to balance weekends and multiple evening assessments alongside full-time jobs – and their own teams. Ours were excellent, but I don’t know how they find the time.
Licence secured, we headed to Spain. Our local team, CD Torrox, play in the Andalucían Segunda division – the seventh tier of Spanish football. In the UK, to coach at this level you’d need at least a UEFA B. So, it was more in hope than expectation that I emailed and explained that while I spoke very little Spanish and only had my UEFA C, I was keen to help in any way I could, even if it was just putting down cones.
In response I was invited to training a few nights later, to chat with the head coach, Aleyg. I was equal parts excited and terrified. Meeting Aleyg – aided by Jessy, another player who spoke English – I discovered he didn’t mind what licence I held. All Aleyg cared about was my attitude and my willingness to push myself out of my comfort zone.
Initially I put it down to a quirk of Aleyg’s but it turns out that here, UEFA licences are just one of many football qualifications on offer. Rather than a professionalised hobby exclusively the domain of the FA, in Spain football coaching is considered an academic pursuit that you can do via the Spanish FA (RFEF), at university or through private tutors. As such the certificates matter less and the pool of quality coaches is larger.
Limitations still exist. If I wanted to study for a UEFA B licence which would be recognised back in the UK, I’d have to apply for one of only 225 Andalucían places on the RFEF courses (€950, compared to £1,200 back home), but that’s far from the only available option to continue my coaching education.
And, in the meantime, I’m developing in the best possible way; by doing it week in, week out in an environment that’s both reassuringly familiar and thrillingly alien.
This article first appeared in WSC 448, December 2024. Subscribers get free access to the complete WSC digital archive
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Tags: Coaching