Coaches relish football talks

Europe's national-team coaches are returning to their UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying competition duties fresh with ideas gleaned from the immediate past – the FIFA World Cup in Brazil – as a result of their discussions at the FIFA/UEFA Conference for National Coaches and Technical Directors in St Petersburg this week.

The national-team coaches of UEFA's 54 member associations have been discussing technical and tactical trends at this summer's World Cup at this traditional event which takes place after EURO and World Cup final tournaments. UEFA are joint hosts of the event in Russia with the world governing body FIFA, and such conferences are seen as crucial in helping football in Europe and beyond move forward.

"It's always great to meet your colleagues and to have a chance to speak to them informally," said England manager Roy Hodgson. "Because whenever you meet around the matches, you both have a job to do, you're both under pressure to get results, so even though you speak, you don't really speak, because you've got other things on your mind. I think that meeting people in this informal environment is very useful.

"Where there's going to be a discussion and analysis of technical aspects of the World Cup, that always interests you as a coach," Hodgson added. "It's always interesting to hear what sort of ideas people have come up with for a major tournament. Especially when you have been a part of it, when you have actually been inside it, it's quite interesting sometimes to hear what people have made of it from a more external and less pressurised viewpoint."

France coach Didier Deschamps shared Hodgson's view. "It is a chance to exchange ideas with colleagues," he reflected. "It is true that when we usually get the chance to meet, it is when a match is going on, so in general there is not much time. Here things are calm, the players are not around, so it is a pleasure to see one another again."

Liechtenstein's coach René Pauritsch emphasised the importance of the dialogue and information gained for smaller countries. "I think that for us as a small association, it is crucial to participate at such events, in order to see and to learn how the big associations work," he explained. "This is one advantage, and the other one is certainly to meet colleagues, also from other smaller associations, and to exchange ideas with them and to see which issues the associations have, and which structures they have in place, in order to not lose ground to the bigger ones."

"Every coach has his own opinion, and has a different view on football," was the viewpoint of Austria's coach Marcel Koller. "So you can talk and exchange ideas, and by this, you can discover new elements and you can then maybe incorporate those in your own work."

"You have your own ideas in general," added Greece coach Claudio Ranieri. "But here you can really see the figures and statistics about goals scored, or corner kicks, and so on, so it is always a very interesting event."

Wales coach Chris Coleman saw the conference as a learning experience. "For any international manager at a young age, when you are amongst some of the managers and coaches that are here, and the experience they've got and the success they've had … . Once you are among them and speaking with them, there is always something you can learn from them - because I think the common denominator is, we all like the game and we all want to see it at its best and to see how much we can improve it."

In addition to technical presentations which have demonstrated that the World Cup in Brazil was a fascinating and entertaining spectacle that shone with attacking football and outstanding players, the conference in St Petersburg has also enabled FIFA and UEFA to inform and communicate to the coaches about refereeing issues.

FIFA's head of refereeing Massimo Busacca showed the audience the referees' team's preparations, activities, monitoring and evaluation that took place before and during the tournament in Brazil; English Football Association (FA) general secretary Alex Horne explained changes that are taking place within football's lawmakers, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), to modernise the body and expand its consultation and decision-making process; and the UEFA chief refereeing officer Pierluigi Collina looked forward in addressing refereeing matters related in particular to the UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying competition, and the instructions given to European referees.

"Communication between those who are involved in the matches is something that is very important," said Collina, "so having this chance to speak about the match, to speak about what the coaches see and hear the coaches' point of view, is of great benefit, and helps both in dealing with their next task.

"Particularly before the start of a new competition, like [UEFA] EURO 2016," Collina added, "it's very important to give the coaches a clear message about what the referees do on the field of play, what instructions they have received and what they can expect from a referee."