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The FA · free preview

UEFA A Diploma

The professional game: advanced game models, tactical periodisation, sports science and analysis, match management, set plays, recruitment and the dressing room.

£4,150 · 12 months · six two-day residentials at St George's Park plus support at your club · UEFA minimum 180 hours over at least six months

Take the courseCreate a free accountCourse fee: £4,150 in-game · with Full AccessCourse fees are in-game money, paid from your in-game wallet — never real money.

Free lesson · The professional coach

The UEFA A Diploma: the gateway to the professional game

The UEFA A Diploma (FA Level 4) is The FA’s highest practical coaching qualification: the standard for coaches leading teams in, or on the edge of, the professional game, senior (21+) or youth.

  • Entry: you hold the UEFA B, have held it for at least a year, and have at least one year as a head or assistant coach in 11-a-side football since gaining it. You are not on another FA Level 4 course, and throughout you coach a group that trains regularly and plays competitive 11v11.
  • Priority: places are weighted. Men’s game: coaches working and living in England, then the senior professional game (Premier League and EFL), then coaches who need it for EPPP rules, full-time before part-time. The women’s game starts with the WSL and Women’s Championship.
  • Cost and format: £4,150, including full board at St George's Park. Twelve months: six two-day residentials, online work before each, and a Coach Developer visiting your club between blocks.
  • Hours: the UEFA minimum is 180 hours (140 guided, 40 practical work experience) over at least six months, across four pillars: the coach, player and team, the training environment, matches.

Attendance is total: a missed block is made up on another course at your own accommodation cost. You are assessed under Article 13 of the UEFA Coaching Convention and have up to three years from the first block to reach the standard.

Source: Coaching certifications reference · 5. UEFA A Diploma

The syllabus: 11 modules, 44 lessons

  1. 1

    The professional coach

    • The UEFA A Diploma: the gateway to the professional game free preview
    • Philosophy, identity and the leadership you choose
    • Running the staff, and talking to players, board and media
    • Developing yourself, and the ethical lines you hold
  2. 2

    Advanced game models and tactics

    Pitch practical Switch the play: when the press overloads one side, move the ball to the free side in one pass.

    • Positional play: three superiorities and the free man
    • Direct, hybrid and game-state football
    • Designing the press, and building up against one
    • Bounce and switch: playing away from the overload
  3. 3

    Tactical periodisation

    • The principle hierarchy and the scales of training
    • The one-match morphocycle, day by day
    • A real week, and what happens when the fixtures pile up
    • Six periodisation faults and how to correct them
  4. 4

    Advanced training design

    • The design grammar: five dials on every practice
    • Rondos and position games: the atoms of the model
    • Patterns, phases of play and the tactical 11v11
    • Building physical load into tactical work
  5. 5

    Individual development in the professional game

    • The professional Individual Development Plan
    • Position-specific coaching and video feedback
    • Managing elite egos
    • Rotation, the squad, and bringing young players through
  6. 6

    Sports science integration

    • Reading the GPS: external load
    • Internal load: what the session cost
    • The red-flag list and who decides
    • Fuel, sleep, recovery and travel
  7. 7

    Performance analysis at professional level

    • The weekly opposition workflow
    • Coding the game and presenting it
    • Live analysis and the post-match review
    • Data metrics: uses and limits
  8. 8

    Match management

    Pitch practical Run the half-time war room: read the first half and make the change that wins the second.

    • Matchday: the final hours and the bench
    • Substitutions and in-game switches
    • The half-time war room
    • Extra time and penalties
  9. 9

    Set-play specialisation

    Pitch practical Deliver the corner into the zone your routine attacks, for the runner it was designed for.

    • Designing an attacking corner
    • Defending corners and the second phase
    • Wide free-kicks, throws, direct free-kicks and restarts
    • The keeper and set-play governance
  10. 10

    Recruitment input and the sporting director

    • Profiling the role from your game model
    • The four corners and video due diligence
    • Squad building basics
    • Working with the sporting director
  11. 11

    Psychology: performance, culture, conflict

    • Performance under pressure
    • Resilience and momentum
    • Building team culture
    • Conflict, cliques and the crisis protocol