This contribution discusses methodical challenges and results of a research project of the University of Turin focused on coaching reflective practice: "SOCCƎR Football School. Roles and educational tasks". The premise is that, through sport, education is able to work on concrete possibilities of societal change. In the Football School context, for example, sport offers children the opportunity to form particularly significant experiences for the construction of identity and social relations (UN, 1989): these are experiences that, in the immediate future, make it possible to discover one’s own abilities, to practice confrontation with others and to measure oneself against the rules; however, these are also experiences that can have a longer-term impact, forming those skills that are essential to being an active citizen, who is involved and responsible (Arnold, 1997; Isidori & Fraile, 2008; Isidori, 2017).

Indeed, by practicing a sport, the child experiences real and direct dilemmas that are specifical of social dynamics (e.g., the dilemma between personal affirmation and group solidarity, between personal interests and equity, between diversity, inclusion and shared values) and gradually learns to manage them (EC, 2007; UN, 2015).

However, if it is true that sport is a concrete proof of the educational process ability to orient social change, it is also true that coaches - especially those of the Soccer School - are not always aware of their educational role and of their consequent responsibility for the introduction of the new generations into the social fabric (Brocchieri et al., 2009; Ghisleni, 2017).

Therefore, the need for a specific training course for the coach's role clearly emerges: if the coach is engaged in an educational action aimed to train the child both as an athlete and as a future citizen, what are the most effective educational practices to promote the skills necessary for this task?

The importance attributed to educating coaches is not a novelty. It talks about a need internationally recognized (Jones, 2006): in order to become better skilled at educational action, a coach needs to do more than simply spend time in the field. In face of that, integrating reflection into coaching practice is the key to training coaches in educational action. In the recent European and international scientific panorama, reflective educational practices are regarded as the most effective way to promote an educational-oriented coaching action (Evans & Light, 2007; Clements & Morgan, 2015; Chapron & Morgan, 2020). These pratices conceptualize coaching as a decision-making or problem-solving process in a complex social situation and emphasize the use of reflection as a mean of coping with situations that are critical or problematic, due to their being ill-structured and unpredictable (Jones, 2020). If these reflective educational practices, on the one hand, constitute a valid training proposition, on the other hand, they are practices that need to be improved and strengthened in order to promote the acquisition of skills necessary in coaches, not only for the improvement of the child as an athlete, but also for the growth of the child as a future citizen.

Precisely in function of this strengthening, the contribution intends, through the presentation of the project SOCCƎR, to outline the characteristics and evaluate the learning outcomes of ₃R-Play training practice, aimed at exercising and strengthening the skills of reflection and evaluation necessary for Football Schools coaches in the conscious and competent management of the educational relationship between the coach and the children and of the social dynamics between children-children, coach-coach, coach-parent.

With the aim to empower the awareness of sports operators’ educational responsibility, the project SOCCƎR has planned a training path based on the dialogical method of pretext-practices. In general, the project that we present is part of the methodological framework based on Schön’s concept of reflective practice (Schön, 1983). The difference between reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action has been influential in study and experiences on reflective educational capability. It is important to engage the person, still and above all the football school coach, in the reflection-in-action in a sense that one’s thinking “occurs in an action-present – a stretch of time within which it is still possible to make a difference to the outcome of action” (Schön, 1995). Integrating reflection into coaching educational action is strategical and means to exercise a holistic approach to the sportive activity (Cassidy et al., 2004). In this methodological perspective and because of the pandemic period, we have designed a digital version of educational practice based on a guided reflection: the 3RPlay educational practices, aiming to exercise the three actions necessary for an operational, meaningful and effective educational action (Reflecting, Researching, Replying). This digital version of reflective practice has planned a training path of five phases, each one focused on one particular topic of coaching experience. Every phase is structured in two parts. In the first-one, managed in asynchronous mode, the participating coaches are confronted with a situation-pretext regarding the football experience; recalling the principles and techniques of Life histories (West, Alheit, Anderson & Merril, 2007) and Life - based methods (Formenti & West, 2016), the “situation-pretext” (text, image, video, …) is a “device” that creates a “dialectical agony” between the different points of view and the possible meanings of the issue. In the second part, managed in synchronous mode, starting from the speech of two discussants (pedagogical experts and sportive operators), the participating coaches work in groups and propose lines of action. The model of 3RPlay includes an evaluation plan to verify the transformation of coaching experience into coaching knowledge. The evaluation plan tests the improvement of coaches’ reflective capability though a video-presentation (at the beginning), a video-reflection (at the end of the path) and a post video reflection interview (3 months after the conclusion of the path) (Xu et al., 2019).

SOCCƎR is a research project having three principal expected outcomes: the first-one educational; the second-one methodological; the third-one specifically socio-informative. As for what regards the educational outcome, the reflective training path aims at improving relational capabilities, evaluating abilities and decision-making skills in educational action. These areas of expertise have been identified as the main expected outcomes in relation to coaching learning as they represent central competences in managing the educational relationship and, in particular, in managing complex and problematic social-sportive situations (Jones, 2020). In addition, these areas represent central skills so that the coach may be able to "put into play" an "ethical attitude" based on respect, fairness and justice. As for the methodological outcome, the reflective training path aims at testing the effectiveness of 3RPlay educational practices. The results of effectiveness obtained thanks to the training method will be detected through a final self-assessment of the participants, through a systematic observation of the trainers and through the analysis of the pre-post intervention questionnaires. As for the socio-informative outcome, the training path aims at promoting through a capillary communication activity, both in the preliminary and in the final phase, a greater awareness of the theme of the Football School coaches’ training needs (Isidori, 2017). Through the Italian Association of Football Coaches, in particular through the regional headquarters of Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta, meetings will be organised with the management groups and the technical departments of different football clubs in Turin and Piemont. Moreover, meetings with parents and teachers will be organised both in extra-curricular and curricular fields. The results related to the rise of awareness will be collected through a structured questionnaire proposed at the end of each meeting. Until ECER 2021, we aim to comply the first edition of the experimental educational path based on 3RPlay.

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