Football Performance Coaching
Football performance coaching is a degree that prepares you to work at the coaching and performance side of football, developing the knowledge, practical skills and professional understanding to support players across different age groups and competitive levels in improving their technical, tactical, physical and psychological performance. Football is the most popular sport in the world and a major professional industry, with extensive staffing across coaching, performance analysis, sports science, sports medicine and academy development. Graduates who combine scientific understanding of performance with practical coaching competence are sought across the full range of competitive and developmental contexts in which the game operates.
At the University of St Mark and St John, this three-year full-time programme provides both academic and practical preparation for football coaching careers. You will study the physiological, biomechanical and psychological dimensions of football performance alongside coaching methodology, player development theory, tactical analysis and the professional practice of working with players in training and competitive environments. Plymouth Marjon, as the university is also known, has a strong tradition in sport and coaching education, and the programme provides opportunities to both study and engage practically with the game in an environment that values your development as a player and practitioner.
The degree develops both the scientific literacy to understand and apply research on football performance and the practical coaching intelligence that can only be developed through sustained experience of working with players.
Graduates go on to work as football coaches at youth and adult level, performance coaches within academy systems, sports development officers, strength and conditioning coaches specialising in football, and in sports science support roles within professional and semi-professional clubs. Further study in sports coaching, performance analysis or sports science is also a common route for those seeking to develop specialist expertise.