The Game Model Workbook
You already have a game model. Most coaches have never seen theirs.
It shows up every weekend, in the decisions you make before you’ve had time to think about them. This workbook turns it into something you can say out loud, teach to a player, and hand to an assistant.
Twelve parts · About an hour · Free account, no card
Start the workbook — free
A free account, no card. You keep the workbook, the assessment, and the community library for as long as you want them.
What this is
It doesn’t hand you a philosophy.
It asks you a sequence of questions and gives you somewhere to put the answers. A coach who chooses to defend deep and counter has a model every bit as legitimate as one who presses high. The work is naming what’s yours, not matching someone else’s.
- There are no wrong answers here, only unexamined ones. You’re writing down what you already believe, in language you’d actually use.
- Write for the players you have. Every prompt is about the group that shows up to your sessions this season — their ages, their confidence, the time you actually get with them.
- It maps straight onto the Game Model Builder. Six zones here, six zones there. When you finish, you’re transcribing rather than starting over.
How it works
Four moves, in order
The later parts lean on decisions you make in the earlier ones, so the workbook builds rather than sprawls.
Name your Coaching Shift
The distance between the coach who plans on Wednesday and the coach who reacts on Saturday. Most models are written by one and delivered by the other.
Turn positions into convictions
Four axes, then two or three sentences that each name a consequence. A belief with no second half isn’t doing any work yet.
Build the six zones
Direction, Approach, and the detail that makes it coachable on a Tuesday and recognisable on a Saturday.
Decide what never bends
Your four non-negotiables, plus what changes at a goal ahead, a goal behind, and level and late — decided before the moment arrives.
The structure
Six zones, one identity
Not thirds of the pitch — a third tells you where the ball is and nothing about what you’re trying to do with it. CORE divides by moment: which half you’re in, and whether you have the ball.
Build-Up
When we have the ball in our own half, we look to…
Progression
When we have the ball in their half, we look to…
High Press
When they have the ball in their own half, we look to…
Low Block
When they have the ball in our half, we look to…
Attacking Transition
The moment you win it — four seconds of disorganisation.
Defensive Transition
The moment you lose it — the most dangerous five seconds you have.
Two ways to work
Print it, or let it remember for you
Fill it in on the platform
Every answer autosaves against your account. Come back a week later and pick up where you stopped — then export your finished workbook as a PDF with your name on the cover.
Your assistant coach reads it before it answers you, so the advice references your convictions, your squad, and your zones.
Or work on paper
Some coaches think better with a pen. Create your free account and the designed workbook is yours to download and print — write in it the way you’d write in a notebook, then bring the answers back whenever you want them saved.
Create a free account to download itWhat else is free
The workbook is the door, not the room
A free CORE account carries more than these twelve parts — and none of it expires.
The Coach Philosophy Assessment
Fifteen minutes to surface your archetype across four identity axes — and to measure your Coaching Shift directly rather than guessing at it.
The community library
Browse sessions and activities built by coaches whose football looks like yours, and see how they turned the same principles into a Tuesday night.
Your assistant coach
It reads your workbook before it answers, so the advice references your convictions and your zones — not generic coaching content.
The Reflection Journal
Capture what you notice at the field and turn it into something you can act on next week.
Set aside an hour where nobody needs anything from you.
Answer as the coach you are right now, not the one you’re planning to become.
Start the workbook — freeDiscover who you are. Coach with confidence.
Curious what else is here? See the platform