Iceland started their changes in about 2001. By 2005 they had put in place most of the building blocks. They made it compulsory for all coaches to have attended a couple of courses before becoming a coach. They worked out that the single most important factor to becoming a decent side was player quality and that technique and also skill levels of players had to improve. They worked out that to do that they needed better quality coaching, especially of the 5-12 year olds. So much of a players technique and skill is firmly imprinted by 12. It would be an exceptionally rare case for any player to take up the game at 12 and make it to the top level, things have moved on so much that its simply highly unlikely to happen.
They made it so that new coaches worked beside experienced coaches before taking teams on their own. That all the way down to 5 year olds. They have a very high ratio of qualified UEFA coaches per player.
I think the single biggest thing we could do to help us become better is that we start to assess coaches the same way we assess players, by observation and measurement of attributes. Currently in clubs, schools, private academies and at Federation level we give coaches jobs based on qualification, cv or word of mouth.
To be open and honest i think the Federation rep setup is 100 times better now than it was just 10 years ago and the methods, drills and ideas the coaches are asked to provide are very good. However we dont select our coaches (and this is especially important at rep level) with the same scrutiny that we select players.
Under the Federation system players are measured on various attributes each term and reports are provided on their progress etc. At this point we dont do this with the coaches and the weakness here is that some of the coaches may not be of the required standard and in turn that means the reports they provide on players may not be as accurate as required. Also they may not be providing sessions at the required level. If we started to observe and measure our coaches then we can help them become better, employ the best and in turn our kids will get better.
From my knowledge i dont think there are very many, if any clubs, schools or private academies that provide reports each term on specific dedicated attributes the way the Federation system does. The problem however is that the coaches are not measured in a similar appropriate manner.
It is easy if you have been doing coaching courses long enough to know how to pass them. To get an edge we need to be evaluating coaches at regular intervals. This needs to happen at clubs and schools, it currently doesnt or if it does it will be in very rare cases. Its entirely doable but needs to be recognised as a problem first and then pushed from the top.
My personal view is that the most important age is the 5-12 age group and providing world class coaching to those ages will give us the greatest benefit long term. More highly skilled players coming in to the youth setups will mean that those competitions at that age group will be forced to improve. I believe the most important coaches at clubs and schools are those taking the 5-12 year olds not the top team coach.
The trouble is that for the average fan youth age players with respect to the future is the more interesting area to look at and discuss.