Stop Managing Behaviour. Start Designing Better Training Environments.

Every coach has experienced it. You look around during training and notice players drifting to the edges, conversations starting away from the ball, effort dropping, and energy slowly leaking out of the session. The instinctive response is often to raise your voice, stop play more frequently, or tighten control in an attempt to “get them back”.

But disengagement in training is rarely solved by more discipline, more rules, or more talking. In most cases, it is not a behaviour issue at all. It is a session design issue.

When players switch off, it is usually because the training environment is not demanding enough thinking, ownership, or relevance. The good news is that engagement can be designed back into sessions—without shouting more, over-coaching, or reinventing everything you do.

Why Players Really Switch Off in Training

Players disengage when training stops feeling meaningful. This can happen even in sessions that are well organised, technically sound, and delivered with good intentions. If players are not required to think, decide, or adapt, their attention naturally drifts.

Long periods of standing and listening, repetitive drills with no clear purpose, and activities where outcomes feel disconnected from game day all contribute to disengagement. Over time, players learn that they can hide, comply, or wait for instruction rather than actively participate.

Disengagement is often a signal that the task is too easy cognitively, too predictable, or too removed from the reality of the game. Players are not choosing to switch off; the environment is allowing them to.

Why More Control Rarely Fixes Engagement

When engagement drops, many coaches respond by trying to regain control. They stop play more often, correct every mistake, and provide increasingly detailed instructions. While this can create short-term compliance, it rarely leads to genuine engagement.

Over-controlled environments remove responsibility from players. When every decision is corrected or pre-empted by the coach, players stop thinking for themselves. They wait for answers instead of searching for them. Confidence, creativity, and ownership gradually decline.

True engagement does not come from tighter control. It comes from better problems to solve, where players are required to be active participants rather than passive recipients.

Engagement Increases When Players Have a Clear Purpose

Players stay engaged when they understand what they are trying to achieve and why it matters. Purpose gives direction to effort and meaning to decisions.

Games-based training naturally creates this purpose. Every action has a consequence, every decision affects an outcome, and players are emotionally invested. However, games alone are not always enough. Without a clear focus, games can become chaotic or superficial.

This is where challenge-based coaching becomes critical. A clear challenge gives players something specific to aim for, without removing freedom or creativity. It sharpens attention and gives meaning to the game.

Using Challenges to Re-Engage Players

Challenges shift the focus from “doing the activity” to “solving the problem”. Instead of telling players exactly how to play, challenges guide what they are trying to achieve and allow players to explore how to achieve it.

This is where MatchPlay Cards are particularly powerful for sports coaches. Each card introduces a simple, game-relevant challenge that can be layered onto any training game. The activity stays the same, but the learning changes.

A single MatchPlay Card might focus attention on:

• Creating space before receiving
• Playing forward quickly when possible
• Supporting the ball carrier
• Regaining possession within a time limit

These challenges immediately increase engagement because players have a clear purpose. They know what they are working on, but they must work out how to do it themselves.

Why Challenges Work Better Than Instructions

Instructions tell players what to do. Challenges invite players to think.

When players are given a challenge, they scan more, communicate more, and experiment with solutions. They begin to take ownership of success and failure, rather than relying on the coach to intervene.

Challenges also work across mixed abilities. More experienced players are stretched by complexity and decision-making, while developing players benefit from clarity and focus. Everyone remains involved in the same game, working toward the same outcome, but learning at their own level.

This creates engagement through inclusion, not entertainment.

Reduce Coach Talk, Increase Player Thinking

One of the fastest ways to lose engagement is to stop play too often. Flow matters. Rhythm matters. Emotional investment matters.

MatchPlay Cards help reduce unnecessary coach talk by acting as a shared reference point. Players know the focus of the session. Coaches know what to observe. Feedback becomes shorter, clearer, and more relevant.

Instead of long explanations, coaches can allow the game to run, observe behaviours linked to the challenge, and intervene briefly with a question or prompt. If learning stalls, the challenge can be adjusted rather than the activity being stopped or replaced.

This keeps players active, thinking, and engaged for longer periods of time.

Engagement Grows When Players Can See Progress

Players are far more likely to stay engaged when they can recognise improvement. Constantly changing drills makes progress hard to see. Repeating core games with evolving challenges makes learning visible.

Using the same game across multiple sessions, while changing the MatchPlay Card focus, allows players to notice patterns, make quicker decisions, and feel more confident returning to familiar situations. Engagement increases when players feel competent and capable, not when they are constantly starting again.

Progress becomes something players experience, not something the coach has to convince them of.

Engagement Is Designed Into the Environment

Re-engaging players does not require louder voices, stricter rules, or more complex sessions. It requires better-designed learning environments.

When training environments:

• Demand decision-making
• Provide clear challenges
• Allow freedom within structure
• Reduce unnecessary instruction

Players naturally stay switched on.

The coach’s role shifts from managing behaviour to designing better problems. When the problem is good enough, engagement looks after itself.

A Simpler Way to Keep Players Engaged

If players are switching off in your sessions, the solution is rarely to do more. It is usually to do less, but with greater intention.

Start with a game.
Add a clear challenge using MatchPlay Cards.
Let players explore and struggle productively.
Observe, tweak, and repeat.

Engagement will follow.

At The Coaching Lab, we support sports coaches with practical, game-based tools like MatchPlay Cards that help players stay engaged, think independently, and carry learning into competition. Because when sessions are designed well, players do not need to be shouted at they stay switched on.