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A thought prompted by @honigstein's excellent piece on Thomas Tuchel - https://theathletic.com/2345622/2021/01/26/thomas-tuchel-chelseas-combustible-genius-who-made-defenders-train-holding-tennis-balls/
During my graduate studies, I ended up coaching the Cambridge University Women's Football team. It was a fascinating case from the perspective of someone who had gone through the university football system themselves and seen the discrepancy between the two.
To highlight this, while I - just a guy with some coaching experience but no badges - was coaching the women's team, Jez George - then CEO of Cambridge United and former manager of Cambridge United - was coaching the men's team.
The discrepancies also showed up in the players I was training. At this point, it was clear that the provisions for women who played football was pretty sketchy in the UK. We had players who had gone through the academy systems of places like West Ham or Luton.
But we also had players who had got by through the sheer enjoyment of the game and making do as best they could.
Tactically, there was barely anything to work with. The standard of women's football - even up to the professional level at this point (c. 2012-14) - was so variable that you could get a long way by simply being a baller.
But this was Cambridge University - these were some of the smartest people in the country. The challenge was how to get largely tactically illiterate but terrifyingly smart people a little more aware of what they were trying to do on the pitch.
This was where "differential learning" came in. I designed loads of small-sided games which focused on highlighting the importance of "figuring out the meta" - play a SSG with offset goals and only allow goals from crosses from a marked out area:
yes it allows you to work on specific aspects of the game but it also puts you in a problem solving capacity - it makes you think about the game differenty.
We would play SSG with seven balls, one in play and the other 6 on cones at corners of the pitch and halfway line. If the ball went out, the team who were responsible for putting it out had to go and retrieve it and the opposition could start play with any of the 6 spares.
This taught how to deal with overloads and the principles of defensive transition without us having to sit down in front of a whiteboard. But these various games gave us a reference point in tactics sessions.
By the end of my three years, the team were tactically smart: not because I had drilled them in tactics but because they were smart people who were given scenarios to work out the meta for themselves.
I know Thomas Tuchel is often sniffed at for being a bit eccentric and maybe he did wear out his team through attention to detail, but differential learning really works as an approach amongst the right players imo.
