Build the sessions your coaches run

Build a session block by block from the club’s drills, say what it is for, check it on a coach’s phone, and publish it to the club library, ready for the season grid.

Coaches don't run a curriculum; they run Tuesday night. What turns a block's emphasis into something a group of 14-year-olds actually does is a session: seven or so blocks in the right order, each with a drill, the minutes that add up to the night, and one sentence that says what the whole thing is for. The session builder is where you make those. Everything you publish here is what the season grid puts on nights, and what a coach opens on their phone when they walk onto the grass.

Before you start

Open Session Planner in your programme's part of the sidebar and go to Sessions. It lists every session your club has, grouped by phase and theme, with a New session button at the right of the bar.
The bar's Board and Table switch is remembered. The table is the quicker read for a long shelf: each row shows the theme, the match day, the session's Shape (a strip of its blocks by the part of the night they play, keyed above the table as Arrive, Warm up, Practice, Game and Recover), its minutes and its status.
A session is built from drills. Your club's own are on Drills; the Clubhouse library is on Library, to browse and copy from. You don't need to draw anything before you build your first session: the Clubhouse library already has a drill for every component of every phase.
A session you publish is private until you move it to the club library. Private means only you see it on Sessions and only you can put it on a night; in the club library, every coach in the programme can find it and plan a night from it.

The BYL Session Planner on the Sessions tab, as a table. The bar has Programme, Source and Filters pills, a search box, the Board and Table switch and a New session button. Above the table the strip key reads Arrive, Warm up, Practice, Game and Recover. The Skill acquisition group lists eight club sessions with their theme, a dash under match day, a shape strip and 75 min. The Game training group follows, and its second row, Playing out under a high press, is marked Mine with David Larsson’s name, MD-3 under match day, 90 min and a Draft status. — The table is the quick read of a shelf: theme, match day, the shape of the night and whether it is yours or the club’s.

Starting from nothing

A new club's Sessions tab is empty, and says so: No sessions yet, with the same New session button. The first session you build is the one the grid can put on a night, so start with the night you most want to get right (the first week of the block you are planning) rather than trying to fill the shelf.

If you would rather not start from a blank plan, open Library, find a drill or two for the phase, and use Add to club drills. The copy lands on Drills, yours to edit, and the picker in the builder will show it under Club library ahead of everything else.

Start a session

Press New session. The builder opens full screen, titled New session, with the plan already laid out for Game training: the standard blocks for that phase, each with its usual minutes. If the night is for another phase, change Phase in the details column and then press Start from the standard plan under the block list, which swaps in that phase's standard blocks. A phase change on its own never touches your blocks, so a session you have half built is safe to re-file.

The planner tabs, Sessions underlined, then Drills, Set pieces and Library. Below them the Sessions bar: Programme Boys Youth, Source All sources · 31, Filters, a Search sessions box, the Board and Table switch, and a dark New session button at the right. — New session sits at the right of the Sessions bar.

The builder has three parts across a laptop or desktop screen:

the plan on the left: the strip, the block list and Add block;
the selected block in the middle: its drill, the diagram, coaching points and the block's own fields;
the session details on the right: title, phase, theme, objective, the fields coaches filter by, and the publish checklist.

On a narrower screen the details fold into a drawer behind the pencil beside the title, and a block opens as a sheet when you tap it.

The session builder on the draft Playing out under a high press. The top bar has Preview as coach and Publish. The plan column on the left shows 90 / 90 min with a tick, seven blocks from 1 Welcome to 7 Cool down, block 6 Training game reading Choose a drill. The middle shows block 1, Hello passes and the night’s plan, with its diagram, a play bar and two frames, and a Swap drill button. The details column on the right has Title, Phase set to Game training, Theme set to Playing out from the back, Match day MD-3, Structure Whole-part-whole, Programmes, Minutes 90, Players 16 and the Football problem. — Three columns: the night in order, the block you are looking at, and what the session is for.

Tip: Nothing saves until the session has a title. The status beside the buttons reads Add a title to save until it does, then Saving… and Saved on their own as you work. A draft saves itself a second and a half after each change.

Shape the night

The plan column is the night in order. Each row is a block with its component (Welcome, Warm up, Positioning game, Game training, Training game, Water break, Cool down and the rest), its minutes, and the drill in it or Choose a drill in italics where there isn't one yet. The line at the top adds the minutes against the session's Minutes and says where you stand: a tick when they match, N to plan while you are under, and N over in amber when you have planned more than the night holds.

Add block offers the phase's components first, then the ones any session can use, each with its usual minutes. Drag a row by its grip to reorder, or use the row's menu.
Start from the standard plan puts the phase's standard blocks back. It replaces what you have, so when that would lose a drill you had chosen or a note you had written it asks Start from the standard plan? first and says what goes.

The plan column alone. Plan, 90 / 90 min with a green tick, and the strip beneath it. Seven rows: 1 Welcome, Hello passes and the night’s plan, 3 min; 2 Warm up, Injury-prevention running course, 15 min; 3 Positioning game, Find the free player, hit the target, 15 min; 4 Game training, Beat the press to the target zone, 25 min, highlighted as selected; 5 Water break, Drinks, 3 min; 6 Training game, Choose a drill in italics, 24 min; 7 Cool down, Walk, pass, stretch, share, 5 min. Under the list, Add block and Start from the standard plan. — The minutes line keeps the night honest: a tick when the blocks add up, the gap or the overrun when they don’t.

The ⋯ on a row opens its menu: Swap drill (or Choose drill on an empty block), Preview as coach from here, Duplicate, Move up, Move down and Remove block.

Block 4, Game training, Beat the press to the target zone, 25 min, with its menu open: Swap drill, Preview as coach from here, Duplicate, Move up, Move down and, below a line in red, Remove block. Blocks 5 to 7 sit underneath, block 6 reading Choose a drill, with Add block and Start from the standard plan at the bottom. — A block’s menu: swap its drill, preview from it, or move, copy and remove it.

Select a block and its detail fills the middle. Under the drill, Minutes has a stepper with the methodology's band for that component beside it (25–30 min for a game-training block); outside the band the hint turns amber and the publish checklist will name it. Block title (optional), Players (override) and Area (override) let you change what the coach reads for this night without touching the drill itself: the placeholders show the drill's own values. My notes for this block is a note for this block in this session.

Where the drill carries a Step up written as CHANGE IT levers, the block also has Week by week: Week 1 runs the drill as written. Each step adds one change the week after. Add a step for week 2, week 3 and so on, and the session gets harder across the block without you building four sessions. The last row lets you name a different drill for the final week.

The lower half of block 4’s detail. Under the diagram’s frames and Swap drill, Coaching points lists six, beginning Where is the free player? Find them before the keeper passes. Then Minutes, a stepper reading 25 with 25–30 min for game training beside it; Block title (optional) with the placeholder Beat the press to the target zone; Players (override) showing 12–16 and Area (override) showing 50 × 35 m as placeholders; and My notes for this block. — The block’s own fields change what the coach reads for this night, not the drill itself.

Choose a drill for each block

Press Choose drill in a block's detail (Swap drill once it has one). The picker opens as a side panel, already narrowed to This session's phase; take the chip off to search the whole library. Type to search by name or by what the drill works on, and tap a row to read it in full before you decide. Use in this block at the bottom puts it in and closes the panel.

A warm-up, cool-down or conditioning block opens with a second chip, Physical preparation, and the list grouped by source with your Club library drills ahead of the Clubhouse library. The other components list what matches, featured drills first.

The Choose a drill panel, subtitled Tap a drill to see it in full, opened from the warm-up block. A search box, then two chips, This session’s phase and Physical preparation. Club library, 3, lists Injury-prevention running course, Nordic hamstring progression in pairs and Regeneration and mobility, each with players, area, minutes, a load and the match days it suits. Clubhouse library, 45, follows, beginning with Eight-minute hamstring and groin prehab. — For a warm-up, cool-down or conditioning block the picker steers to physical preparation and lists your club’s own drills first.

The block takes the drill's title, description, diagram, coaching points and usual minutes, and the diagram plays through its frames with a Plan and 3D switch in its corner. The picture a coach sees on the night is the drill's own, so if the diagram needs a fix, make it on the drill (see Draw a drill) and every session using it follows.

Block 4, Game training, in the middle column. The drill is Beat the press to the target zone: A keeper and eight outfield players build out against six pressers and try to reach a target zone. It trains finding and using the free player when the first pass is pressed. 12–16 players, 50 × 35 m, 28 min. The diagram shows a coned grid with a keeper in yellow on the ball, blue builders, white pressers and a dashed target zone at the bottom with a T in it, a Plan and 3D switch in its top right corner, a play bar reading 6.9 s and three frames beneath, then a Swap drill button. — A block shows its drill in full, with the picture the coach will see on the night.

Say what the session is for

The details column is what coaches filter by and what they read before they plan. The block that matters most is the objective.

Title, Phase and Theme. Where your methodology describes the stage, its line shows under Phase, and the theme list is that phase's themes. A session with no theme still publishes; it just doesn't sit in a theme group on Sessions.
Match day, on game training and performance sessions: which day of the match week this load is for, from MD+1 to MD-1, or Any day. A coach planning a Thursday before a Saturday match looks for MD-2.
Structure: how the night is put together, Game-based, Whole-part-whole, Play-practice-play, Up the steps or Carousel. Once your methodology's Session structures section has content, What each structure means under it opens that section in a new tab.
Programmes: tick the programmes whose coaches should find this session. Nothing ticked means every programme, and the line under the pills says so.
Minutes and Players: the night's length (what the plan column counts against) and the number of players it is written for.

The top of the session details column. Title, Playing out under a high press. Phase, Game training. Theme, Playing out from the back. Match day, MD-3, with the hint The day of the match week this session’s load is for. Structure, Whole-part-whole, with How the night is put together. Programmes, five unticked pills, Boys Youth, Girls Youth, Mixed JDL, NPL Men’s and Women’s, with Every programme’s coaches can find this session. Minutes 90 and Players 16. Then Objective, Football problem, with the sentence beginning Improve the keeper and back four’s ability. — Phase, theme and match day are what coaches filter by; the objective is what they read.

Objective. A Discovery or Skill Acquisition session names a Core skill and the Moment of the game it is trained in, from two lists. A Game Training or Performance session names a Football problem in one sentence: who, what, where, when, and why it matters. Write it the way you would say it to the coach: Improve the keeper and back four's ability to find the 6 or a full-back when the opposition press our goal kicks, because against Seacliff we went long by habit and lost the ball straight back.

Notes for coaches travels with the plan wherever it is used, so it is the place for the thing you would say on the way out to the pitch: the coaching point to protect, when to stop the game, what to do with 20 players instead of 16.

Lower down, Allocated to lists every block, age group and night this session already sits on, with Allocate… to put it on more. That is the season grid's job and its page covers it. Below that is Before publishing.

The bottom of the session details column. The Football problem, then Notes for coaches beginning Keep the 6 between the centre-backs, not in front of them, with Shown with the plan wherever it is used. Allocated to reads Nowhere yet, allocate it to curriculum slots or specific nights, with an Allocate button. Before publishing shows a green tick and Ready to publish, and under it Publishing keeps it private. Move it to the club library when other coaches should see it. — The checklist names anything in the way in plain words; when it reads Ready to publish, Publish publishes.

Check it as a coach

Before you publish, press Preview as coach. The builder is replaced by a phone showing the session exactly as a coach sees it on their night, with the objective, the strip and each block in turn; Phone sideways and iPad show the other shapes, and Run shows the same plan the way the coach runs it on the grass. It follows your edits, so you can go Back to editing, change a note and look again. A block row's menu has Preview as coach from here to open the phone at that block.

The builder in Preview as coach. The top bar has the session title, Playing out under a high press, the words Preview as coach, and a Back to editing button. Phone, Phone sideways and iPad on the left, Plan and Run on the right. A phone in the middle shows Training night, Boys Youth, a Session plan card marked Planned by TD with a Run session button, 90 min, 7 blocks and Make changes, then the title, the objective, the strip and the blocks in order from 1 Welcome. Under the phone: What a coach sees on their phone. It follows your edits as you make them. — The coach’s phone, inside the builder: the test of whether someone who wasn’t in your head could run the night.

The question to ask of the phone is the one a coach asks of a plan: could someone who wasn't in your head run this? If the answer depends on something only you know, it belongs in Notes for coaches or in the block's note.

The top of Preview as coach for Playing out under a high press. On the right, the words Preview as coach, a Back to editing button and a close cross. Below, Phone, Phone sideways and iPad on the left with Phone selected, and Plan and Run on the right with Plan selected. — Switch the shape and between Plan and Run, then go Back to editing.

Publish it, then move it to the club library

Before publishing in the details column lists anything in the way, in plain words: Give the session a title., Give the session an objective., a block whose minutes are outside the phase's band, a drill with no coaching points. When it reads Ready to publish., press Publish. If something is still missing, Publish opens the details at the first item rather than sitting disabled with nothing to say.

Publishing keeps the session private. The message that follows says Published. Not in the club library yet. and offers Move to club library there and then; the same action sits in the More session actions menu beside the buttons, and in the session's row menu on Sessions, until you take it. Once it is in the club library the row carries Club, every coach in the programmes you ticked can find it, and the grid can put it on their nights. Make private in the row menu takes it back off the shelf without unpublishing it. Nights a coach has already planned from it keep their copy, but a session that is on the season grid is refused: Take it off the grid before making it private.

A published session’s top bar: a grey Publish changes button with nothing yet to publish, and beside it the open More session actions menu with one item, Move to club library. — Until a live session is in the club library, More session actions offers the move.

Once a session is live the button reads Publish changes, and edits wait for it instead of saving themselves: the status reads Unsaved changes until you press it. If you close the editor first it asks Leave without saving?. If someone else saved the session while you had it open, an amber Changed elsewhere banner says so and offers Reload to see their version or Save a copy to keep yours.

Duplicate in a row's menu makes a private copy to build the next week's session from.

The Sessions tab searched for Dominate the duel. Under Skill acquisition, one row: Dominate the duel, marked Mine, Improve 1v1 out of possession, David Larsson, theme 1v1, its shape strip and 75 min, Edited 3 days ago. Its row menu is open with Edit, Duplicate and Move to club library. — A session of yours that is live but private: the row menu moves it to the club library.

Draw the drills and set pieces it needs

A session can only be as good as the drills in it. When the library has nothing that does what you want, draw it: on Drills, press New, and What are you drawing? asks whether it is a drill, a phase of play or a set piece. Drills go into training sessions; phases of play and set pieces go into the playbook on Set pieces, for match plans rather than nights.

The editor is the same one coaches use, and its pages are written for a laptop or desktop as well as the iPad: Draw a drill for the pitch, the palette, movement and frames; Show a drill or play in 3D for presenting it; and Set pieces, tactics and the match sheet for plays. Two things are different in your seat:

What you publish lands in the club library directly. A coach's drill needs Submit to club library and your decision; yours needs only Move to club library, offered the moment you publish.
You can Feature a published club drill from its row menu, which puts it first wherever coaches search, and the picker in the builder lists it first too. Unfeature takes it back. How do I feature a drill so coaches find it first? covers which drills can be featured.

The Drills tab searched for Injury-prevention running course, with a dark New button at the right of the bar. Under Club library, 1, the drill is marked Club, Warm-up and activation, 2 phases, Low intensity, 8–24 players, 30 × 20 m. Its row menu is open: Edit, Duplicate, Feature, Make private and, in red, Archive. — A published club drill’s menu has Feature, which puts it first wherever coaches search.

A drill a coach drew and sent you waits at the top of Drills under Submitted for review. Deciding those is covered on the season grid page.

Put it on the nights

A published session in the club library is a shelf item until it is on a night. Open Season, pick the block, and put it on the nights it belongs to, or build the whole block by pattern. Plan a block on the season grid is that work from start to finish.

Confirm it worked

The session is on Sessions under its phase and theme, with Club beside the title rather than Mine.
Its row's Shape strip shows every part of the night, and its minutes match what you planned.
Preview as coach reads the objective and the notes you wrote, and every block has a drill with a picture.
A coach in the programme can find it: open Preview as coach on one of their nights, or ask one to look under From library when they plan a night (their side of it).
On the Season tab, the session is in the library drawer when you select a night.

Last reviewed 25 Oct 2026

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