Can We Make Space for Technique?: Politics and Play in Digital Coaching
Update: 2025-09-04
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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Martin Jesper Larsson can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/09/can-we-make-space-for-technique-politics-and-play-in-digital-coaching/. About the post: In Sweden, youth soccer is expected to be fun –but in a specific way. Rooted in the 19th-century idealization of amateurism over professionalism, fun in Swedish youth soccer has come to emphasize spontaneity, inclusion, and teamwork (Bachner, 2023). Over time, these amateur ideals have been woven into a broader political agenda in which youth sport is understood as a vehicle for public health, social integration and the cultivation of social capital (Doherty et al., 2013; Ekholm, 2018). I hadn’t really perceived the problematic nature of these notions of fun and its broader political framework until I started working as a translator for the digital coaching app Supercoach, in 2018. Developed from the talent development methodology of IF Brommapojkarna –Sweden’s most prolific soccer academy– Supercoach aimed to improve grassroots clubs through structured content and a clear pedagogical pr (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)
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