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How the Talent Coach Programme’s curriculum supports Costa Rica’s youth system
Acebal is keen to stress that the curriculum underpinning the FIFA Talent Coach Programme is based both on an understanding of how young people acquire skills and on the overarching objective of developing footballers. The aim is to produce players with the skills that will help them to thrive in the future, without imposing a specific playing style. This approach suits the Costa Rican FA because one of Vivas’s key priorities when he became Director of Football in 2023 was to develop more technically proficient players throughout the national youth system, and across the men’s and women’s game.
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Using collaboration to deepen coaches’ understanding of the curriculum
Under the programme, a FIFA Talent Coach is based in Costa Rica for two years. As Acebal makes clear, during that time there is a concerted effort to design training sessions on a collaborative basis with the association’s coaching staff, helping the latter deepen their understanding of the Talent Coach Programme’s spiral curriculum throughout the two-year period. The product of this collaborative process is a series of session plans that build on top of each other, resulting in an upward development spiral that both consolidates what the players have already been taught and maps out a clear path towards the next learning outcome.
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Reflecting on progress
Overall, Vivas is very satisfied with what he has seen from FIFA’s talent development initiatives. FIFA’s instructors have been quick to share their expertise with the Costa Rican FA and to engage in a robust and fruitful exchange of ideas that helps all parties to develop and grow, as well as to bring new players into the programme. As in any exchange of this nature, there are occasional differences of opinion, but FIFA and the Costa Rican FA share a strong commitment to helping talent youngsters excel on the pitch, and are working together to achieve that aim.
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