The new players->staff system confuses me

All right, so I decided to do a bit of chatting with my older players, say "hey, you should be a coach". Then I get a response of "I can start right now if you want!". Not wanting my player to stop playing(Arshavin is one of the stars of my team right now, after all), I say "no, I'll let you know", as them becoming a coach caused them to stop playing when I tried it in FM10. This gets him angry and he requests a transfer. So I go back to prior to these chats, and say "sure, that'd be fantastic"(or whatever the option is). Now my player has staff attributes and player attributes. However, I'm not sure what that leads to. Do the players retire sooner? Can I then sign them to a Player/Coach contract and just have them keep playing and coaching at the same time? Is it just making sure that I know he'll coach after he retires? I'm not really comfortable continuing because I don't want my players to stop playing for me like they did in the old system. Am I being too paranoid? Will this work the way I want it to, with them able to be signed to Player/Coach contracts and just continuing to play normally while also being able to coach?

I really have no idea, as this is an abrupt change from previous versions.

Thanks.

will work fine, as long as he is constantly playing he will remain a coach. If you stop playing him for a season he is likely to retire.

the start right now means that you can offer him a player/coach role (or whatever it is that you recommend)

meaning that he can play for as long as you want, yet you can offer him a full coaching contract when you think his services are no longer required