Project Footballer

Welcome back to Project Footballer, the voice of youth football. If your child is pursuing professional football, you probably understand that statistically most academy kids don't play in the Premier League or even the championship if they do get paid to play football. Statistically, most academy players play in the lower leagues. So as a parent pursuing professional football for your child,...

In this episode, Darius Charles and Dan Edwards talk to Jess Warner, the blogger known as being “the one with all the boys”—the mum behind The Only Girl in the House, where she shares tales, tips, tricks, family travels and grumbles of having 5 boys. In this Instagram live stream, they discuss how to deal with teammates who are bullies in academy football and much more.

In this episode, we speak with Rob Moore about the importance of managing money in football, whether you make it as a footballer or don't make it. This is a super important topic that needs to be covered, and we hope you can enjoy this episode with an open mind.

In this episode, we have a panel of guests to answer your questions! Ex-footballer and current senior house parent for Manchester City U18s and U21s Darius Charles, top technical coach Dan Edwards who has worked with the likes of Jesse Lingard, Aurélien Tchouaméni and Raheem Sterling, Ex-footballer and England Futsal player Rob Ursell and Portia Freno, parent of one of the top U8s in London join u...

Is your child's speed predetermined by genetics? Jonas Dodoo, one of the world's top speed and directional movement analysts speaks to us about this topic. He's worked with some of the fastest Olympic athletes, as well as with 5 Premier League clubs at both academy and professional level. He provides an incredible insight into how you can make your child faster, and whether there's...

David is the former head of research and development at Manchester United, providing intelligence and support to the multi-disciplinary team across coaching, science, data, technology, medicine, operations, media and psychology. He also wrote an in-depth case study on the success of Gary Neville, looking into his structured deliberate practice and decision making. In this episode, we dive deep int...

Carlton Cole is an English football coach and former Premier League striker who scored 52 goals across 288 appearances for four clubs. In this episode, Carlton shares the real story behind his journey to the top. He opens up about how cage football shaped his mentality, how his mother’s belief — symbolised by buying him his first proper boots — helped him earn a contract at Chelsea , and the lesso...

In this episode of Project Footballer, we speak with professional freestyler and internet personality, Daniel Cutting. He has amassed a huge audience of over 3 million across his socials from showcasing his incredible football technique online. As well as building his son's accounts past 250,000 in a short space of time, setting him up to become either a footballer or content creator.

In this episode, we speak to Chelsea Strength and Conditioning coach Harry Knock about how to develop physicality in young football players. He answers some interesting questions and provides us with nuggets of information that we all needed to learn!

In this episode, we sit down with Stephen Lawrence — Ajax Consultant and father of professional footballer James Lawrence — to explore one of the most overlooked factors in youth football development: birth month . Stephen explains how being born later in the academic year can create hidden disadvantages for young players in the UK system, affecting everything from physical comparisons and early s...

On this episode, we interview the parents of Leicester academy star Nazar Mahina, they tell their story of how they raised Nazar, and how he has gone on to become viral, appearing on multiple HUGE football channels.

In this episode, we speak to English former professional footballer Joleon Lescott, who has previously won 2 Premier League titles, an FA Cup, a League Cup, as well as making over 500 appearances for club and country.  We discuss how Joleon made it as footballer, what was his journey like? What was his environment like? Joleon also gives a lot of insightful and interesting information that pa...

In this episode, we've brought together a panel including former Arsenal legend Paul Merson, ex-futsal star Rob Ursell, YouTube sensation Tim Grimwade, Chelsea FC scout Sean Conlon and Spurs scout Marcelo Graca. Together, we answer YOUR questions surrounding academy football and football development, in a bid to further explore the question... how do you make a footballer? Is there a formula? Plea...

Sonny Pike has an amazing story to tell. One that could really help parents avoid some potential mistakes, as they try to aid their child’s journey towards becoming a football player.  Long before every aspiring young footballer was social media-famous, Sonny was the first, and only, for many many years after, footballing prodigy who was made accessible, known, and even famous, to the general...

In this episode, we are joined by Gabriel from Athlete Mentality, an Instagram platform with over 50,000 followers which discusses ways in which athlete mentality can be improved! We discuss how to develop a winning mentality for your child in this episode.

James Fahmy spent his whole career in the academy system, playing for Queens Park Rangers FC and captaining the U18 Professional Development Team. However, he is now studying at the renowned Harvard University, where he is also a NCAA Division 1 student-athlete for the college. We take a look at his journey to Harvard, and the reason why he turned down the oppurtunity of a professional football co...

Ex-England Futsal player Rob Ursell has had an amazing career in futsal and football. Known in non-league football as "The Wizard", Rob changed his game from being a brilliant 1v1 player to a controlling team player. He has strong views on what's wrong with English academies and why England will never win anything with our current teaching methods. This is a fascinating episode which we found to b...

Professional Footballer Fabio Sole and Daniela Osu, a Sports Psychotherapist, discuss coping with mental health & bullying within Academy Football. They also discuss Footballers Minds, a programme, full of activities and techniques targeting the maintenance of wellbeing within football.

In this episode of Project Footballer, we speak to Daniel Geey. He discusses the do's and don'ts of sports law in youth football. Daniel's clients include Premier League clubs, Champions League football clubs and top agencies. He is an author of multiple books on football contracts and sports law and a partner in the sports group Sheridans. In this fantastic episode, Daniel breaks down what is fac...

Social media is prevalent in youth football. Parents are starting accounts for their children at younger and younger ages, but what are the impacts of this?  Does it put pressure on the child? Does it make the child focus on the wrong parts of the game?  Is there money to be made from your child generating thousands of followers?  We speak to Shane O'Brien, a social media expert who...

Isa is regarded as one of the best technical coaches in the world. From his demonstrations, to the explanations and his passion for the game, this is a great listen for anyone looking to help their child become the best player they can be.

In this episode, we recap what we have learned from the previous 8 episodes. We push to find the answer to discover 'What is the formula to making a footballer!'  The question we spend the most time discussing is, how important is athleticism? We go down a lot of rabbit holes and really try to answer this question. We don't get an answer and we argue a lot, but there it's certainly a thought-...

In this incredible interview Jamie Redknapp gives us the scoop on how his father and uncle developed two of England's best ever midfielders. He also speaks about his own son's journey through academy football at Chelsea and his thoughts on how much of becoming a footballer is down to nature and how much is down to nurture.

Ethan Pinnock is currently playing a signifant role in Brentford's debut season in the Premier League, but it hasn't always been smooth sailing for Ethan. He tells us what it was like to be released from Millwall at the age of 15 and how he had to make his way in football from playing in the Conference League to then climbing the ladder to reach the Premership. Ethan has so many insights to offer...

Jamie Mackie tells us his incredible story of how he went from playing local Sunday league football with his school mates at age 16 to playing in the Premier League and scoring in one of the most famous games in football history against Manchester City. This is a fascinating insight into the positives and negatives of skipping the normal academy football journey which is common for most footballer...