Knowing your players is about more than just knowing their physical abilities. In this episode we speak with Bex Garlick, FA national coach development lead for women and girls, to learn more. Bex and her team work towards getting more females into coaching and delivering the coach development offer to coaches in the East. We learn about her first experiences of football and the challenges that she faced being the only girl in the team. And we hear that she never got the opportunity to be coached in school, but that her passion for teaching and football put her on a clear path towards coaching. Bex shares many powerful insights into how coaches can better understand their players and what they should be learning about them. She offers strategies on how to engage players and improve their social skills resulting in a better experience for all. In this episode you’ll discover: • What skills does a transformational coach need? • Who has been Bex’s biggest inspiration? • The body language to look out for so that coaches can communicate better with players. • Managing players’ energy levels and keeping up interest. • How coaches can use observation to understand their players. • What ‘WINGS’ stands for and how it can help you have conversations about what you’ve observed with your players. • Should communication be tailored to different age groups? • Tips on managing difficult emotions. • Dealing with conflict based on what you already know about individuals. ————— Do you have any coaching questions you’d like answers to? Or perhaps you’re facing a coaching challenge that you’d like help with? Simply head over to our England Football Community forum (https://community.thefa.com/coaching/f/youth-club-football-forum/3174/coaching-problems-and-questions) and post them there. We can then put them to our guests in future episodes to get their advice! Already listened to this episode or the previous seasons of Coachcast? We’d love to hear from you! Pass on your feedback by contacting us via [email protected]. LEARN MORE England Football Learning – https://learn.englandfootball.com/ England Football Community – https://community.thefa.com/ England Football Learning on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCisPO86aEIhWRTnTS1vrSVw England Football Learning Twitter – https://twitter.com/EnglandLearning LISTEN Anchor – https://anchor.fm/coachcast-thefa Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/4sA9fHoldaH1x5Wn3vdmsB Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/coachcast/id1591804808 Editing by Clarion