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Coaching licenses and practical experience as a football coach can be highly beneficial in delivering the individual modules. However, they are not mandatory requirements for participating in our courses. It is important, despite any experience, for coaches to approach our modules and exercises with an open mind to new training ideas and be willing to implement them consistently in their own training practice.

We have been incorporating cognitive training for many years, particularly in individual training but also in group and team training. For targeted cognitive individual and small group training, a session duration of approximately 45-60 minutes once or twice a week is recommended. During these sessions, the primary focus is on brain training following an individual warm-up program. Since the training does not include extended breaks, even highly skilled players experience mental fatigue, and extending the training duration would not provide additional benefits.

If more then one or two days per week are available for individual training, it's generally more beneficial to opt for shorter, daily sessions, like 15 to 20 minutes each day. This frequent exposure helps reinforce skills and concepts regularly, which is crucial for motor learning and cognitive development in sports. Daily practice can also keep engagement high and reduce fatigue compared to fewer, longer sessions. This approach allows to consistently practice and refine techniques, ensuring steady progress and retention of skills.

In team training, depending on the available time, it is advisable to allocate 15-20 minutes for cognitive training per session either during the warm-up or immediately afterward. Although this may initially feel unfamiliar to everyone, it often receives a positive response from teams, as players nowadays are enthusiastic about new, diverse, and innovative exercises. Moreover, many of them observe noticeable improvements in their performance after just a few weeks.

Our exercises can be incredibly challenging and mentally exhausting even for experienced players, especially at the beginning. At the same time, however, this makes many of our exercises so appealing to players, who, after some time, look forward more and more to new challenges in training and enjoy mastering one exercise after another!

The exercises should be used in a way that constantly pushes the players to the limit of their abilities and a little beyond, without overwhelming them. This is called the “Principle of Overload". The right level of difficulty naturally varies from player to player and can best be adjusted in individual training. In group or team training, the difficulty of the exercises can be increased for those players who master a basic task faster than others through additional tasks and combinations.

Always ensure that the learning speed is not compromised and that you extract the maximum learning speed from the players; therefore, your coaching must be efficient (our great coaching-tips will help with that). It is not about the players executing the movement perfectly; movement differences are allowed. Instead, the focus is on the players acquiring the movement concept of the exercise. Over time, the diversity of movement patterns learned in our exercises will lead to an overall more harmonious and economical movement flow.

The COGNIGOALS training combines physically demanding movements with cognitive tasks. The exercises build upon each other, allowing for progressive performance development. To the best of our knowledge, this combination is unique.

As a motor-cognitive training program, we believe that the brain of our players is best trained through exercises with and without the ball. In addition, we incorporate other COGNIGOALS-specific, clever training approaches that we explain in detail in our modules. However, it is important to note that other cognitive training methods also include effective approaches to enhance the cognitive performance of football players.

Depending on prior knowledge and abilities, working through and then especially trying out and learning a single exercise can take up to about an hour or longer. The average duration to grasp a single module can therefore be around 2 months. The main goal of each module and the entire course is the application of the exercises, i.e. in practical training.

In one-on-one practice sessions, particularly those centered on motor-cognitive training in football, the ideal rest period between sessions may vary based on the workout's intensity and the individual's capacity for recovery. Generally, a minimum rest period of 24 hours is advised to facilitate both physical and mental recuperation. Monitoring the athlete's reaction to training is crucial, including observing signs of fatigue, assessing performance levels, and evaluating overall well-being, to tailor rest periods appropriately. For sessions of higher intensity, extending the rest period could be advantageous to ensure thorough recovery and to prevent overtraining. It's vital to emphasize quality over quantity in training to achieve optimal results.

COGNIGOALS training offers numerous advantages, particularly in significantly improving the players' two-footedness, game intelligence, and creativity. In terms of conducting training sessions, a major advantage is that apart from our players, the ball (and occasionally a few cones), no additional equipment is required, making the training extremely simple to set up and execute.

It can happen from time to time that players make little or no progress at the beginning or even during the modules. In such cases, it is important to analyze the training of the current exercises to understand the reasons behind the lack of progress. Often, this can be attributed to both motor and cognitive difficulties. In the coaching points provided in the "Playbook" of each exercise, we address the most common challenges and sources of errors.

It is crucial to break down the exercises into small steps, allowing the players to learn them gradually at their own pace. Afterward, these components can be integrated to form the complete exercise. During this process, it is important to explain to the players that many of the exercises can be quite challenging, and therefore, it is normal for the learning process to take some time. Additionally, taking short breaks or initially repeating a familiar exercise can be helpful before returning to the more difficult one. Surprisingly, our brains often make use of these pause periods, which can make subsequent exercises feel easier for the players.

In today's world, online courses are the best way to make innovative learning content accessible to as many coaches as possible worldwide, in a simple and effective manner. Anyone can engage with the content at their own pace, from anywhere in the world, and then apply it in their own training practice.

This is what makes COGNIGOALS so brilliant - normally, all you need is a ball and an area about 20x30 meters in size.

There is no such thing as "too young" or "too old" for cognitive training; the idea is "the earlier, the better."

However, the age of six years is the earliest starting age for our motor-cognitive training. Keep in mind the learning pace always depends on the current status of a player's motor-cognitive abilities and their prior experiences. Especially for very young players, it's advisable to incorporate exercises into the training in a simple and playful manner.

When other coaches observe our training sessions, they are often impressed by our unique combination of exercises with and without the ball, which are intentionally and effectively integrated. The individual exercises are designed to continually challenge and train the brains of our players, enabling them to find the best possible solutions through cognitive excellence, even under intense pressure from opponents and time constraints in tight spaces, all while relying on genuine two-footedness during gameplay.

If a player is unable to fully master an exercise even after multiple attempts and various coaching tips, this is completely normal. At the beginning of cognitive training and with particularly challenging exercises, it may take several training sessions before mastering an exercise completely. As a coach, it is important for us to closely observe the challenges our players face in order to provide the most effective support. Nevertheless, it is equally important to introduce other exercises or review previously learned ones after a certain period, where players can experience at least some small moments of success.

The fewer players and the more coaches, the better. In order to work effectively, a coach should not train more than 8-12 players simultaneously. Ideally, individual training is the way to go.

That is definitely not the case. The majority of players, even those playing at a very high level, still find COGNIGOALS training to be very challenging.

Good players usually face little failure in training, but with our exercises and the right training intensity, they regularly reach their limits. There are some fundamental strategies to manage this as a coach.

First and foremost, it is important to constantly remind our players that mistakes are an integral part of our training. Failure is a part of the learning process, and every execution of an exercise has important training effects, whether it was successful or not.

Furthermore, it is crucial to maintain a positive atmosphere. The feeling among our players should consistently be positive. It is our responsibility as coaches to immediately recognize and mitigate any frustration by repeatedly explaining the challenging nature of the exercises. Moreover, failure is an important indicator that the difficulty level is appropriately chosen for our players. Exercises that have not been mastered yet have a higher training effect than those our players already mastered. Thus, any frustration is quickly transformed into positive ambition and, in the long run, a professional attitude.

Lastly, it is essential to praise any progress and improvements and motivate the players to continually take the next step until they successfully master the exercise. If it was particularly challenging for the players, the success can even be celebrated loudly at times.

When conducting cognitive training with a larger group of players, it is advisable to form several smaller groups from within the larger group, depending on their performance level. Additionally, more skilled players from the group can assist those who take a little longer to complete an exercise, acting as co-trainers. These co-trainers can be effectively utilized within smaller groups as well. Players who grasp an exercise quickly can help those who struggle with it, and this assistance may vary among different exercises.

It is not advisable for professional players to skip individual exercises or even entire modules, as they are the result of our over 20 years of training experience and are systematically built upon a clear learning structure.

Our courses require a strong interest in cognitive training and a willingness to embrace new, unusual ways with full focus and wholeheartedness, and to follow them through consistently step by step.

COGNIGOALS courses provide a wealth of support for the exercises (including instructional videos, interactivity, exercise descriptions, scientific background with a glossary, quizzes, and certificates) to successfully master the courses. However, it is still necessary to thoroughly engage with these materials and gain as much practical experience as possible with the exercises.

We do not provide 1:1 assistance with individual exercises, but will continuously improve the courses based on user feedback and questions.

Exercises without a ball are an essential "ingredient" of our motor-cognitive learning concept and offer the advantage that Novel Movement Patterns are internalized so that new movement components and additional tasks can subsequently be integrated into the training. They must not be skipped.

We have created this course for all coaches who want to achieve a competitive advantage for themselves and their players. The course is applicable to all age and performance levels. This includes, for example, the entire youth sector, semi-professional and of course professional players. COGNIGOALS makes everyone better!

The time it takes for players to achieve noticeable learning progress varies from player to player. Some players experience rapid improvements and even begin to notice significant enhancements in their weaker foot during games. For instance, we had a player who we trained in a larger group the previous year, and within a few weeks, they started regularly scoring goals at a higher level using their weaker foot. However, for the majority of players, it will likely take until at least the middle of the first module for tangible learning progress to translate into improved performance in game situations. As coaches, it is crucial for us to emphasize that mastering each individual exercise already represents a valuable learning accomplishment.

The COGNIGOALS Football Coach L2 consists of modules 4 to 8, which will be released for purchase gradually.

Our Football Coach modules are designed for coaches, the course offering for players is available here.

It is essential to always remember that our training is specific brain training for football, but not football training itself (which also explains the nature of the exercises). It is crucial not mix it up with technical training, but rather keep these two separate.

Our training serves as a highly effective foundation, enabling you to excel in football-specific aspects during regular training sessions. The exercises actively shape the players' brains (neuroplasticity being a key factor), allowing them to respond and adapt optimally to the specific demands of football.

To date, there have been only testimonials from trainers and players who have regularly applied the COGNIGOALS training program. These accounts have reported extremely positive effects, and the method has been further developed over the years. Currently, an 8-week intervention study has been conducted and is currently in the evaluation phase.

The COGNIGOALS training methodology is thoroughly described in individual modules that are specifically designed to build upon one another. In each module and for every exercise, you will find a detailed description of the training.

The effects and goals of the training vary in each module and in many exercises. Consequently, the effects on a neural level also differ. Generally speaking, motor-cognitive training stimulates neural activity in various brain regions, which can lead to neurophysiological changes, such as the formation of new synapses and an increased density of the prefrontal cortex, among others. These neural adaptation processes are intended to enhance (cognitive) performance in real game situations.

Many mechanisms of the applied methods have already been scientifically proven and are extensively documented in the glossary with references to relevant literature. Additionally, both the trainers who utilize this methodology and the players who regularly undergo this training affirm its effectiveness.

However, it is important to acknowledge that motor-cognitive training should not be viewed as a cure-all and may not yield the same results for everyone or under all conditions. Individual responses to this training method, like any other, can vary. It is crucial that the training is conducted by qualified professionals.

In the future, it would be beneficial to conduct independent and comprehensive sports science intervention studies on this subject to develop a more thorough understanding of its applications and limitations. An initial intervention study on an 8-week COGNIGOALS training program has already been carried out and is presently undergoing evaluation.

On this page, we have compiled additional information on the topic of COGNIGOALS & Science.