Change Your Questions, Change Your Results
Most coaching questions don't work. Not because coaches aren't smart — but because the questions are structured in a way that either answers themselves, or leave no room for a real response.
Here are three I stopped asking.
"Do you have any questions?"
You've just delivered a coaching point. You've explained the shape, the moment, the decision you want to see. You look around at the group and say: any questions?
Silence.
It's not because they understood everything. It's because you've given them too much at once, and they want to get back to playing, and nobody wants to be the one who holds up the game by asking something. So they nod and go.
If you're coaching in the flow — talking to individuals while the game continues — this question becomes almost obsolete. The game is answering most of their questions in real time. The players who need to understand something more deeply get that through the individual conversation you're already having with them.
"Does that make sense?"
Yes or no. Usually yes. Tells you nothing.
If you want to know whether a player understood what you just said, ask them to show you. That's the question I come back to more than any other: Can you show me?
It's not confrontational. It's an invitation. Can you show me how you're going to support the player on the ball there? Can you show me where you think you need to be? Can you show me how you'd get into the space behind the defender?
When a player shows you, you know exactly what they've understood and what they haven't. You don't have to guess. And the act of demonstrating something — physically moving into position, pointing to the space, walking through the moment — reinforces it in a way that nodding along never does.
"Why are you late?"
This one's about something different. The player who arrives flustered, five minutes into training, already knows they're late. Every second they've been sprinting across the car park they've been thinking about the fact that they're late. They know it. They're stressed about it. And your first words being "why are you late?" just compounds all of that.
It's also rarely their fault. They're twelve. They don't drive. They're at the mercy of a sibling's schedule, a parent's work meeting, cross-town traffic. Even if it was their fault — you asking why, in front of the group, doesn't fix anything. It just creates shame.
What I ask now: Are you okay? Are you ready to play?
If they need a minute, they get a minute. If they can jump straight in, I give them a role immediately — feeding balls into the game, stepping in as a floater on the next rotation, anything that gets them connected rather than stood on the outside watching. One player I had recently arrived and immediately asked how many laps he had to run. The answer was zero. Get your boots on, here's what we're doing, you're going to feed for two minutes and then rotate in. I could see him relax in real time.
Making late players run laps has never warmed anyone up for soccer, and it never changed anyone's arrival time. Engaging them immediately, with compassion and a job to do — that works.
Questions That Actually Work
The shift is from group questions to individual questions, and from closed questions to open ones that require a real answer.
In the flow of a game, while play is continuing, I'm moving around the field and asking individual players things like:
"Where should you be right now to support the number four on the ball?"
"What does our game model demand of you here?"
"What problem is that team creating for us?"
"If the goalkeeper steps out and the number four steps into midfield, what does that open up for you?"
These questions are position-specific and moment-specific. They're not directed at the group — they're directed at the individual whose body is in that situation. Which means the answer they give you is genuine. They can't just nod. They have to think about what's in front of them right now.
And when they give you an answer — even if it's unexpected — that's a coaching moment. I had a right back tell me they thought they needed to be deeper. My first instinct was to correct it. But when I looked at the situation, they were seeing something I hadn't noticed — the opponent's winger had checked away and left space in behind. Their answer wasn't wrong. They were seeing the game.
That's the goal. Players thinking for themselves, not waiting to be told.
The False Nine Example
I ran a training session recently where I asked one player to operate as a false nine — dropping into midfield to receive rather than staying as a focal point up top. I didn't announce this to the defending team. I just set it up and let it run.
After a few minutes I stopped the center back. "What was the problem for you in that last block?"
They saw it straight away. The striker was dropping into a space they weren't used to tracking. We talked about two possible solutions — drop with them or let the midfielder step. Then we played again.
A few minutes later I went back to the attacking player. "They figured you out. What do you do differently now?"
That question puts the problem back on them. Not "here's what to do next" — but "what would you do?" And they came up with something. We played. It developed. By the end of the session, both sides had been through three or four cycles of problem-solving without a single team-wide stoppage.
That's game IQ being built in real time.
The Review Moment
When an interval ends — say a four-minute block of play — I have a brief window before the next one starts. That's not dead time. That's the review.
"Did it work?" — simple, yes or no, but now you can expand. Why did it work? What helped? What got in the way? What are you going to do differently in the next four minutes?
It takes thirty seconds. It closes the loop. And it connects the work they just did to the work they're about to do, rather than letting each interval be its own isolated event.
Beyond the Field
The last piece is easy to overlook but worth using: tools outside of training. A short Zoom call. A video clip in the team chat. A screenshot from the game at the weekend with a question attached.
"Watch 2:35 of this clip. What does the center back do to deal with the pressing forward? What would we do in that situation?"
You're not asking for an essay. A voice note back. A quick reply. Something that proves they watched it and thought about it. The field time is precious and often surrounded by noise. A five-minute conversation over video, where you can show something and ask about it, gets you a quality of tactical exchange that's hard to achieve on the sideline while twelve other teams are training around you.
Change the questions. Change what you learn about your players. Change what your players learn about themselves.
Listen to the full episode: Ep. 58 — Change Your Questions, Change Your Results
@LeeDunneSoccer