Skip to game content
Touchline Logic
Operations consoleCoaching Badges
System ready
← Coaching Badges

The FA · free preview

UEFA B Diploma

Where coaching becomes a profession: build a game model, coach attacking, defending, units and transitions against real opposition, and defend your philosophy.

£1,250 (£495 for the PFA members) · 9–12 months, 18 months allowed · blended, with development visits to your club · UEFA minimum 120 hours

Take the courseCreate a free accountCourse fee: £1,250 in-game · with Full AccessCourse fees are in-game money, paid from your in-game wallet — never real money.

Free lesson · Building a game model

The UEFA B Diploma: where coaching becomes a profession

The UEFA B Diploma (FA Level 3) is the first advanced coaching qualification: the point where coaching can become a profession. The UEFA C taught you to coach players. The B teaches you to coach a team: build a game model, coach units and the whole side in realistic opposed practices, and defend your ideas in front of an assessor.

  • You are 18 or over and hold the UEFA C.
  • You have 12 months’ experience as a head or assistant coach since gaining the C.
  • You are actively coaching a team in a season-long competition: Coach Developers visit you there.
  • Your players are aged 12 or above (or you work in a professional academy).
  • Your First Aid and Safeguarding Children certificates are in date.
ModuleWhat it covers
1. Developing a game modelThe demands of the game, principles of play, an evolving game model
2. Coaching approachYour values and beliefs, intervention styles, session design
3. Individual tacticsPositional roles, developing individuals within units and the team
4. Consolidation and assessmentBringing it together; the final practical assessment

The course takes 9–12 months (18 allowed). You are assessed in a one-day practical, a session against real opposition, plus a presentation of your coaching and playing philosophy, with up to two reassessments inside the 18 months. It licenses you for professional academies (EPPP), the National League System steps 1–6 or women’s tiers 3–4, and senior amateur football as head coach.

Source: Coaching certifications reference · 4. UEFA B Diploma

The syllabus: 11 modules, 43 lessons

  1. 1

    Building a game model

    • The UEFA B Diploma: where coaching becomes a profession free preview
    • What a game model is (and what it is not)
    • The five moments, and principles for each
    • Building your model, and letting it run your week
  2. 2

    Attacking play in depth

    Pitch practical Break the line: a through ball into the runner’s path, weighted to arrive before the cover.

    • Build-up from the goalkeeper against one, two and three pressers
    • Progression: between the lines, width, depth and length
    • Breaking the line with a through ball
    • The final third: overloads, combinations and each defensive block
  3. 3

    Defending play in depth

    Pitch practical Spring the pressing trap: close the receiver down on the trigger and show him where you want him to go.

    • The defensive hierarchy and the pressing action
    • Triggers and the touchline pressing trap
    • The high press, the mid block and the low block
    • Defending crosses and 1v1 defending by zone
  4. 4

    Unit work

    Pitch practical Step the back line up together on the trigger and leave the runner offside.

    • The back four: slide, step, drop and cover
    • Stepping up together: the offside trap
    • The midfield and attacking units
    • Inter-unit distances: the accordion
  5. 5

    Position-specific coaching

    • Goalkeeper and centre-back: where attacks start
    • Fullback and the 6
    • The 8 and the 10
    • The winger and the 9
  6. 6

    Formations and systems

    • Five lanes, and the back-four systems
    • Back-three systems and the diamond
    • Reading the matchup and changing the game
  7. 7

    Set pieces

    Pitch practical Defend the free kick: set the wall with the right number and the right men.

    • Your playbook and attacking corners
    • Defending corners: zonal, man-to-man or mixed
    • Free kicks and setting the wall
    • Throw-ins, penalties and the MD-1 rehearsal
  8. 8

    Transitions as a coached phase

    Pitch practical Win the transition: get back goal-side of your runner the moment the ball is lost.

    • Rest defence: the structure that permits everything
    • Reaction standards: the non-negotiables
    • Losing the ball: recovering goal-side
    • Practices where the transition is the scored behaviour
  9. 9

    Physical preparation

    • The demands of the game, and reading GPS
    • Conditioning through small-sided games
    • The weekly microcycle and speed work
    • The FIFA 11+ and return to play
  10. 10

    Analysis and observation

    • Seeing: the observation framework
    • Notational basics on no budget
    • The one-page opposition report
    • Feedback with video
  11. 11

    Session design at UEFA B

    • The practice spectrum and when to use each
    • The 90-minute session and the tactical week
    • The coaching process inside the session
    • What UEFA B assessors look for