The world is changing at breakneck speed, and the benches of a soccer field are no different. Long gone are the days when all a coach did was harangue his players, tell them to go out there and give it their all, to put their feet up, and little else. Today, whether in professional teams, high performance soccer academies or even in soccer camps, the job of coaching requires extensive knowledge, daily preparation, tactical concepts, psychology… and, also, technological resources. Therefore, in this article we are going to introduce you to what, in our opinion, are the best computer applications for soccer coaches.
And be careful, because these applications are not a freak, as many fans of the classics might think. And no, you don’t need to be Pep Guardiola, Jürgen Klopp, or Luis Enrique, and you don’t need to have a big club or federation behind you to cover the costs in order to access them. Many of these software applications for soccer coaches are free and, of those that have a monthly fee, this is usually quite affordable.
So do not hesitate and get to know here, from our hand, the ones that could help you the most in your work as a coach.
EXERCISE DESIGN
Let’s start with one of the main fields in which there is a wide demand for soccer apps, the design of exercises and plays. In this aspect, we highlight three applications:
Soccer Coach Pro
If what you are looking for as a coach is a simple, intuitive and easy to use application, with which you can design plays and exercises, perhaps your best option is Soccer Coach Pro. This app has a very basic design, and the important part of its offer lies in the ease of drawing systems, movements, passes, formations, etc. In addition, you can export and share the designs on any device.
Its price is very reasonable: 1.99 euros. What are its biggest drawbacks? Well, it is only compatible with iOS systems, and it may be too basic for teams or coaches of a certain level.
Tactical Pad
If the previous app seems too basic, not very complex, maybe your option is TacticalPad: a truly innovative, dynamic and complete software application for soccer coaches. In it you can carry out almost any task related to the strategic approach of the matches, the deployment and tactical analysis, training exercises, the specific movements of the players in different situations and even the study of the rival. In addition, it has a database of exercises already created.
Although the interface is very understandable and easy to use, the 3D vision of the program provides a realism that other apps do not have, and that makes TacticalPad, without any hint of doubt, one of our favorites. Not for nothing, big teams such as the Brazilian national soccer team, Athletic Club de Bilbao, Tottenham Hotspur, or Corinthians trust TacticalPad as the perfect tool for their coaching staff.
This application offers three different membership plans:
- Full subscription (€59 per year): which gives access to two licenses, one for PC/Mac and one for Android/iOS.
- PC/Mac subscription (37 euros per year).
- Subscription for Android/iOS (26 euros per year).
The Coaching Manual
As with Tactical Pad, The Coaching Manual app for soccer coaches is a very complete product, and it would not do justice to define it solely as a drill design app. In a sense, The Coaching Manual is almost a bible for coaches, with a huge database of training sessions designed by professionals -David Moyes, former manager of Manchester United, Everton and Real Sociedad, among others, is a collaborator of the project-, and it also offers the possibility of organizing your own sessions. Even, mind you, plans for a full season.
Southampton of the Premier League is one of the professional clubs that works with this app, which has several versions: one free, and two paid versions, each with different plans. It must be said that all are worthwhile and are available for both Android and iOS.
SOCCER WHITEBOARDS
what more classic element is there for a coach than the blackboard? What would a coach be without painting the pitch? Well, just know that you no longer need to carry chalk or markers on you, because nowadays, you have some wonderful electronic soccer whiteboards.
Here are two of our favorites:
Football Dood (soccer)
If you are looking for a simple whiteboard that offers all the facilities of the classic models – quick play drawing, not overloaded with elements or animations – but at the same time allows you to represent moving plays and formation changes, Football Dood is the best option on the market.
Another positive aspect of Football Dood is that it is compatible with both iOS and Android, and that it is completely free.
Remember, however, that you must download Football Dood (soccer). Otherwise, what you’ll be using will be a soccer app. And you don’t want any or any of your soccer players to start tackling on the field. Or do you. Well, that depends on your soccer style but, in principle, you’d better use the one we recommend.
Coach Tactic Board: Soccer
A bit along the same lines as the previous one, we find the application Coach Tactic Board: Soccer, a perfect electronic board for those who do not want to stray too far from the classic coaching boards. The main value of this free soccer app is that it allows you to create plays and tactics, in addition to the possibility of resorting to the 47 different tactics that it stores in its database. It is available for both Android and iOS.
CLUB MANAGEMENT
And what happens, you ask, when you’re not so much interested in play or drill design, or whiteboards, but a more global perspective of a club’s organization, with its performance statistics, training sessions, match annotations, and so on.
As it happens, there are also soccer applications for coaches with which they can manage the entire day-to-day running of a team. Here are some of them:
Wyscout
There is no doubt that Luis Enrique, Spain’s senior men’s soccer coach, is usually one of the main introducers of innovative methods among Spanish coaches. There was his invention of the scaffolding, or the walkie-talkies. Well, one of the applications for soccer coaches that also gained notoriety in Spain thanks to the Asturian coach is Wyscout, undoubtedly one of the trendiest apps in the professional world.
Aimed at any professional in the field of soccer -from coaches, managers and players’ representatives, to journalists, or bookmakers-, Wyscout is a very complete soccer software that has complete match analysis, big data statistics on the specific performance of players, or a huge database with tactics from different coaches. An app, in general, with everything a coach could ask for.
There are customized plans, but the price of Wyscout usually ranges from 270 to 648 euros per year.
SportEasy
If what you are looking for is a simpler application but that can offer you many of the possibilities that Wyscout has, perhaps your choice is the soccer app SportEasy. Because, although with a less profuse approach, SportEasy allows you to create a space with all the data of your team, organize the activities and matches of the calendar, manage the casualties of injured players, be in constant communication with all members and players of the club, and create your own database with the statistics of the team’s matches.
In Spain, soccer teams such as Levante UD and clubs from other disciplines – the Unión Esportiva Santboiana, or the Club Judo Sant Jordi – use SportEasy to manage their day-to-day. It also has a full version in Spanish, is compatible with Android and iOS, and has both free and paid plans.
Sport Member
Unlike the previous ones, Sport Member is an application oriented to clubs of any sport and of a less professional nature. This, however, does not mean that it does not have features that make it a great application for soccer coaches, quite the contrary. Because Sport Member offers the possibility of keeping track of all club events in a calendar, registering players for the payment of fees, recording basic statistics, and creating tactics and lineups.
For all this, for the fact that it is available on both Android and iOS and for having very affordable plans (free, or costing about €0.15 per month per member) Sport Member is a great option for amateur or semi-professional clubs.
Sportlyzer
And if Sport Member was a great option for amateur or semi-professional clubs, it can be said that Sportlyzer should be the preference for all soccer managers and coaches in lower categories.
why? Because it has a system to manage the billing of club fees, because it allows you to add the parents of the players to the system, and because it has systems to manage the messages that the club wants to convey to its members – with matches, meetings, trips, etc. -. In addition, all this is not to the detriment of more professional functions, such as GPS performance data storage, individual progression analysis, statistics, tactical management, etc.
It has a free and a paid version, depending on the size of the club. For example, for a club of 126-150 players, the price of Sportlyzer is 53.40 euros per month (or 448.56 euros in a single annual payment, which represents a 30% saving on the fee).
Soccer Dad
Finally, more oriented to the management of children’s teams, fry, or benjamins, we can find the soccer software Soccer Dad. It allows you to organize training schedules and communicate them to families, save simple formations, and create a profile for each player.
On the downside, it should be noted that Soccer Dad is only available for iOS. Its price is very affordable: about 5 euros.
STATISTICS RECORDING
Let’s go with another key aspect, that of recording statistics, both individual and collective, of soccer teams. An increasingly important aspect, key in modern football, and in which we have decided to stay with two options:
My Football Stats
My Soccer Stats is a free soccer application that offers everything an amateur or semi-professional soccer coach is looking for in a tool like this. Without falling into the overload of data typical of the more professional and paid apps, My Soccer Stats offers the possibility of recording the statistical performance of your team -and the rival- in real time during the matches and being able to access it whenever you want.
One of its strong points is that it not only adapts to 11-a-side soccer, but also has modes for futsal and 7-a-side soccer, making it ideal for lower categories. Its design is simple and helps to understand it at the first time, without having to invest a lot of time in understanding how it works.
You can download it for free from the Google Play Store.
Soccer Pulse
If you want to go a step further in recording stats and team control, your choice may have to be the soccer coaching software application Soccer Pulse.
what does Soccer Pulse offer? Well, a total tracking of the players’ performance, both in matches and training sessions, which allows you to keep track of the physical condition of the entire squad, injuries, individual progression in different areas and the team’s fitness as a whole. In addition, this soccer app allows players to provide feedback to the system, something really important in terms of injuries and convalescence.
Soccer Pulse is an application developed in the United States, so it still has more appeal among coaches in North America -both at university level and in professional teams, such as the Portland Timbers of the MLS-, although some European teams, such as Panathinaikos, have already adopted it.
In addition to offering a very specific study of each player’s performance, Soccer Pulse has the advantage of being very intuitive, being available for both iOS and Android and offering a first month free trial.
EXERCISE DATABASES
Let’s go, now, with the databases for training exercises. Because it never hurts, as a coach, to have somewhere to get some inspiration from.
Soccer Specific
Soccer Specific is an application developed by Anthony Latronica and Mick MacDermott, renowned coaches with international experience and North American universities, who came up with the idea of creating an exercise database for soccer coaches. The idea couldn’t have worked out better and, today, Soccer Specific offers a whole range of training methods, adapted to different ages and levels. Not only that, but it also has an exercise creator so that you can develop your own methodology.
Soccer Specific is recommended by various international professional soccer figures and, in fact, is one of the applications used by the coaching staffs of the US Soccer Federation. It is mainly web-based, and has a single plan, which is $10 per month, or $100 per year.
My Personal Football Coach
Saul Isaksson-Hurst is another coach who has decided to share his methodologies on a website and, in doing so, has done reasonably well. Isaksson-Hurst, a former Chelsea and Tottenham youth coach, does it through My Personal Football Coach, a portal with video courses, where you can find different methodologies and types of training depending on your goal.
The purchase of the different courses – aimed at coaches, players and parents – is established around packages, whose price ranges between 40 and 100 euros, approximately. In addition, My Personal Football Coach offers an app compatible with iOS and Android.
I-Drills
The soccer app I-Drills combines two of the functionalities also offered by some of the apps mentioned above: a database with different exercises (for numerous sports, not just soccer) and a creator to design your own workouts.
The biggest advantages of I-Drills over its competitors is that it is very intuitive and easy to use. In addition, its price is very reasonable: around one euro for the download of its soccer platform.
GOALKEEPER TRAINING
And, of course, we could not close this article without talking about soccer apps for goalkeeper training. We are left with two of them:
Goalkeeper Planner
Goalkeeper Planner was born as the attempt of the creators of the online magazine Mi Portería to create a software for soccer coaches focused on goalkeeper training. The plan worked and, according to the app’s website, teams such as Barcelona, Espanyol, Celta, Valencia, Tottenham and Bayer Leverkusen use it on a daily basis.
Goalkeeper Planner has two types of subscriptions, one for the price of 49 euros (with which you get access to the magazine for a year) and the other for 85 (with which you add, in addition to access to the contents of the magazine, the use of the app for a year).
Goalkeeper Training
The Goalkeeper Training app has a disadvantage compared to the previous one, at least in the Spanish market: it is only available in English, although it is true that in many of its videos it is possible to understand the content with just the images.
A bit like Goalkeeper Planner, Goalkeeper Training is a training app for goalkeepers with diverse material. Its main difference is that the content is organized for dissemination in a quite different way: 53 of its exercises are free, while the other 333 are paid.
The app is adapted to both app and tablet use ,and most of the exercises and videos have been created by Alexander Vencel, who has a career of more than 20 years as a goalkeeping coach Le Havre or Racing Club Strasbourg.
TRANSFERS AND PLAYER VALUE
Finally, let’s turn to two classic products from the world of soccer which, although not applications as such, do offer an invaluable service for professionals in the world of soccer.
Transfermarkt
Transfermarkt is the oracle of the soccer world when it comes to transfers, rumors and player value. Few websites have the extensive database of this project born in Germany, and it is the site that every professional in the world goes to in order to know the approximate market value of a soccer player.
An obligatory reference site for fans, journalists, managers and, of course, coaches.
Football Manager (video game)
And finally, of course, we must talk about the legendary video game Football Manager. Because no, the stories about clubs that have signed through this soccer simulation game are not myths. Thanks to a very extensive network of partners around the world, Football Manager was partly responsible for the signings of Luka Modric and Dimitar Berbatov, or the incredible promotion of Toulouse to Ligue 1 in the summer of 2022.
His price is around 30/40 euros. And the best thing is, if you don’t want it for work, you can also use it for leisure.