AIFF A-Licence coach
Sandeep Patel
I coach football, and I study it for far longer than I coach it. This site is the coaching work, the ideas behind it, and my daily commentary on the games worth breaking down.
- AIFF A Licence
- Match analysis
- Player development
Profile
Who I am
I am a football coach with the A Licence awarded by the All India Football Federation, which is the highest badge on that pathway short of the Pro Diploma. Getting there took years of sessions, assessments and being told, repeatedly and correctly, that what I thought was a good session was not yet a good session. That process changed how I see the game more than any match ever has.
What I do on a training pitch is teaching. A session is not a collection of drills, it is an argument about how the game should be played, made in a way players can feel in their legs by the end of the hour. If a player cannot explain why we did something, I have not coached it properly.
Away from the grass I watch and re-watch matches, write up what I see, and publish it here most days. Some of it is tactical, some of it is about behaviour and standards, and all of it is written for people who actually enjoy the detail.
Coaching is teaching. Everything else on a training pitch is decoration.Sandeep Patel
Background
The licence and what it covers
In India the coaching pathway runs from the AIFF D Certificate up to the AFC Pro Diploma, and each level is a prerequisite for the next. Here is where the A Licence sits on it and what it allows a coach to do.
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Held
AFC A Diploma, awarded through the AIFF
Thirty days of assessed coursework delivered as three modules. It covers tactical and technical demands, leadership and man management, player identification, and the physiological and psychological side of preparing a squad. Holding it makes a coach eligible to work in the Indian Super League, the I-League and with national teams, and the certification is valid for three years before revalidation.
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The route to it
D Certificate, then the C and B Diplomas
The AIFF D Certificate is the entry course and covers grassroots, school and district football. The AFC C Diploma runs thirteen days and around eighty five hours of theory and practical work. The AFC B Diploma runs twenty days and more than a hundred hours, and moves from running sessions to building a playing style and planning individual, group and team preparation. The A Diploma requires the B plus at least a year of coaching on top of it.
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Next
AFC Pro Diploma
The top of the pathway and the licence the highest level of the game asks for. The guidance is to spend a minimum of two years coaching after the A Diploma before attempting it, which is exactly the point of the work described on the rest of this page.
Philosophy
How I want teams to play
Four principles. They are short on purpose, because a philosophy a player cannot repeat back to you is not a philosophy, it is a document.
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01
Play forward with purpose
We keep the ball to move it somewhere. Every pass sideways has to buy a pass forward, and the first look is always the one that hurts the opponent most.
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02
The player decides, the coach prepares
My job is to build the picture in training so the decision is obvious at speed. Nobody wins a game by looking at the bench for permission.
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03
One game model, three phases
In possession, out of possession, and the seconds either side of losing it. Same principles in all three, so the team behaves like one idea rather than three.
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04
Own the moments nobody rehearses
Transitions, restarts, throw-ins, the last ten minutes. These are the cheapest goals in football, at both ends, and they get coached here like they matter.
The blog
Latest match commentary
Detailed write-ups of the games I have watched properly, published most days during the season. Premier League, Europe and the Indian game.
Set pieces, second phase, Spurs
Why October quietly rewrote the rule on set piece second pha
De Zerbi's Spurs have stopped treating the corner as the end of the move. Here is what October's tape showed on second phase
Tactics
Spurs pressing trap: what the October numbers finally proved
De Zerbi's Spurs stopped jumping in October. The data on pressing traps, counter-press success and bait passes explains why the run finally turned, and what it costs next.
Set piece second phase
Spurs set piece second phase: the October tape that changed
Roberto De Zerbi's Tottenham quietly rewrote their set piece second phase in October. What I saw, what the numbers say, and how coaches can copy it.
Tottenham's third-man run
De Zerbi's Spurs: the third-man run finally arrived
October 2026 tape shows Tottenham under De Zerbi finally producing consistent third-man runs. A coach's view of what changed, what it costs, and what Spurs still need.
November numbers, three moved, one didn't
Spurs pressing triggers: what November data actually showed
A coach's read on Tottenham's pressing triggers after November, with the three numbers that moved, the one that didn't, and what De Zerbi changed before the December run.
Tactics
Spurs rest defence: what the October data actually shows
Tottenham's rest defence numbers from October 2026, what De Zerbi changed after the Brighton loss, and why the second-sprint lane still worries me before Liverpool away.
The ambition
One day I will coach Tottenham Hotspur
I want to be the head coach of Tottenham Hotspur. Not a club of that size, not something vaguely at that level. That club. I am putting it in writing because an ambition you keep private is one you can quietly drop later, and this one is not going anywhere.
I know how that reads coming from a coach with an A Licence and no Premier League on his record. It reads like a fantasy. But every coach who has ever held that job was once a long way from it, working somewhere nobody was watching, and the ones who got there were simply the ones still working when the opportunity finally came round.
So the plan is not clever and it is not fast. The A Licence, then the Pro Diploma. Seasons in the jobs that never make the news. Sessions that are better every year, analysis that gets sharper, players who leave better than they arrived, and a body of work solid enough to make the conversation possible.
No matter what. However long it takes, whatever the route turns out to be, and whoever tells me it is unrealistic along the way. Everything else on this site is the record of the work on the way there.
Contact
Get in touch
For coaching roles, analysis work, trials, or a conversation about a session you want a second opinion on.
The quickest way to reach me. I reply to everything that is not a mailing list.
Read the analysis
The blogNew match commentary goes up most days during the season, with the full archive in one place.