Irish FA · free preview
UEFA Youth B Diploma
The youth years: growth and maturation, a game model for young players, practice and match days that put development first, and the pathway to senior football.
£650 (the Irish FA’s edition; not run in England, where the Advanced Youth Award fills the space) · UEFA minimum 60 hours: 30 off the pitch (classroom units, in person or online) and 30 on it (practical units, including work experience) · entry: a valid UEFA B licence
Free lesson · The youth player: growth, maturation and bio-banding
The UEFA Youth B Diploma: the real course
The UEFA Youth B Diploma is UEFA’s diploma for coaches of youth players. It is one of the diplomas whose minimum standards the UEFA Coaching Convention sets, and it sits one step below the UEFA Elite Youth A — the diploma for the transition zone, roughly U17–U21, which admits coaches on a valid Youth B (typically with a year’s experience after it) or on a valid UEFA A.
| The real course | |
|---|---|
| Entry | A valid UEFA B licence, plus the Convention’s general criteria: enough of the course language, the organiser’s own admission criteria (including an aptitude evaluation), the documents asked for, and no criminal record incompatible with coaching |
| Minimum hours | 60 — 30 off the pitch (classroom units, in person or online) and 30 on it (practical units, including work experience) |
| Who runs it | National associations, to UEFA’s minimum. Example editions: Irish FA, Belfast — £650 (2024); the Maltese association — €950. The Scottish association lists a Youth B in its pathway too |
| In England | Not run as a standalone course: The FA’s Advanced Youth Award fills that space. (In Wales, the level above is run as a combined UEFA A and Elite Youth A.) |
| Leads to | The UEFA Elite Youth A: at least 120 hours, for coaches of elite young players moving into the professional game |
The Convention fixes the minimum hours and the entry level; each association designs its own delivery and assessment, so the diploma looks a little different from one country to the next. The craft does not change: coaching young players through the years when they grow fastest, change most and are judged hardest.
This course follows that craft in six modules — the youth player; long-term development and the age-band curriculum; a game model for youth football; designing practice; coaching youth matches; and the development programme and the pathway to senior football. Each module closes with a knowledge check. The final is a competency standard in three groups, and every group must be met.
You hold the UEFA B and coach your club’s U15s. The academy manager wants you leading the U16 to U18 group within two years. The Youth B is the step that fits: it builds on your B, it is taught around the players you already coach, and with a year’s experience after it, it opens the Elite Youth A.
Source: Coaching certifications reference · 14. Elite Youth Track
The syllabus: 6 modules, 31 lessons
- 1
The youth player: growth, maturation and bio-banding
- The UEFA Youth B Diploma: the real course free preview
- Growth, maturation and the two clocks
- The growth spurt: clumsiness, load and growth plates
- Bio-banding: grouping by maturity, not birthday
- The relative age effect
- The teenage footballer’s mind
- 2
Long-term player development and the age-band curriculum
- Long-term player development: the model and its critics
- Windows of trainability in the teenage years
- Early engagement, late specialisation
- The three phases, and where your players sit
- The Youth Development Phase curriculum, corner by corner
- 3
A game model for youth football
- Why youth football needs a game model
- The four moments as a shared language
- Principles of play in possession
- Principles of play out of possession
- Positions and roles: from shirt numbers to role profiles
- 4
Designing practice for youth players
- Practice that looks like football
- Technique under pressure, speed and fatigue
- Worked sessions: pressing and building up (U12–U13)
- Worked sessions: transitions, wide play and managing the game (U14–U16)
- Physical development inside the football week
- 5
Coaching youth matches: minutes, rotation and development over results
- The games programme: competition as a curriculum
- Minutes are budgeted in August
- Results are data, not the objective
- Coaching during the game: interventions, game states and the review
- The touchline: parents and the difficult conversation
- 6
The development programme and the pathway to senior football
- The individual development plan
- Reviews, the multi-disciplinary team and data
- Playing up and playing down
- Choosing and releasing players
- Scholarships, loans and the step into senior football