Liam Gerathy grew up and played football in New Zealand, while also coaching at various schools and academies. He moved to Australia a year ago to study sport coaching at ACPE, and has since worked as an analyst for Western Sydney Wanderers with their U14 squad.
It was a great experience, a great learning opportunity, and a very big challenge. The highlight was going to a tournament in Japan at the end of the season. Ill be doing some similar roles this coming season, and in the future Id like to work with a professional club as a full-time video analysist. For now though Im going to work on building up my skill set.
Liam also coached an U14 team at Saint Ignatius’ College in Riverview last season, and he aims to continue there this coming season, along with doing his C-Licence in the near future.
It was a year of transition for me, from having more of the mindset of being a player who happened to do some coaching on the side, to the mindset of being a proper coach. It was my first time working with my own team, designing every single session on my own, and being fully responsibility for everything on match day.
Taking some of those learnings from his time as a player, Liam had a very specific approach to coaching that he wanted to employ.
I very much believe in game-play based training, and teaching the players through guided discovery. It engages the players better, and lets them find their own solutions, which is more powerful and gets more buy-in from them. I have a great passion for coaching, and I find it a rewarding way to pass on my knowledge and see others grow.
Liam also believes there are many valuable life sessions that can be learnt through football, both from his experiences as a player and now through coaching as well. He lived on site away from his family when he played for an academy for example, so good communication with teammates and the coaching staff, especially off the pitch, was something he had to develop, along with adaptability and resilience.
Even for players who arent playing at a high level, these skills are still very important, for example when you lose the ball, or a teammate does. Its about learning from mistakes and being able to move forward together.
Liam also suffered a serious injury during this time which made his experience even more challenging, but it has allowed him to really appreciate the need for a strong work ethic. Not only in his recovery, but also to maintain a good standard of training and match play to regain and keep his place in the team. Now even as a video analyst, the same principle applies.
I literally started doing video analysis from scratch, and had to learn very fast to get to a reasonable level as quickly as possible, because the turnaround time required from your work is very short. But if you put your mind to it, it can happen, even if it seems like a big mountain to climb to begin with.
MWFA is looking forward to seeing what Liam will be able to achieve in the future as a video analyst and also as a coach.
Look out for more articles on other MWFA Future Coaches in the coming weeks.
