Looking At The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

There are some books that are obvious reads for anyone in sports; where there are clears lessons to be had in texts aimed directly at people within sports.  Other books are not so obvious.  Yet although these are not directly aimed at people in sports it is still possible to learn from them.  Indeed arguably reading such books is even better because it opens up the way you think about various issues.

Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life” is one such book.  On the face of it – as one can easily deduce by the title – it is an aggressive attack on a lot of pop-psychology that is circulated these days.  The idea that positive thoughts can be enough to lead to a happy life, for instance, is one that particularly irritates the author.

Though Manson is primarily a blogger, there is a lot of substance to his writing.  As with a lot of articles online, the title is aimed at getting people curious and willing to check it out rather than because it is all about creating controversy.

Indeed it is in the explanation over what he means about ‘not giving a f*ck’ that this starts to emerge and the value of the book for football coaches becomes obvious.

Manson makes reference to Alan Watts’ “backwards law” which goes something along the line of the more that you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place.

What this essentially translates to is not looking always for positive experience and that, if you learn off it, a negative experience can end up being an extremely positive experience.  It is only human to want to be comfortable but sometimes that leads to apathy.  It certainly doesn’t lead to development.

In football terms, if you get too comfortable coaching kids within a certain age group you may opt to keep on doing so not because you know that it is best for you or what you really want but because you keep getting high on the feeling of being good at it.  You don’t go looking for new challenges – which might ultimately bring with them further satisfaction – but chase the easy fulfillment.

It is around such feelings and search for easy comfort that this book is focused.  Indeed the whole philosophy of the book deals with not caring too much (if at all) on what may be thought of you.  Indeed it lays out three rules that end up applying to anyone within the game of football as much as they do in everyday life.

The first centres around being comfortable with being different.  It is not easy when you are trying to do something that is not conventional.  There were many who criticised and ridiculed Arrigo Sacchi when he first spoke of his ideas that centred around zonal marking and pressing.  He was seeing things differently in a country that had been dominated by catenaccio - the religion of ultra-defensive football  - for more than two decades so this reaction was hardly surprising.

Perhaps a weaker man would have folded and gone the conventional route.  But Sacchi, a manager with no history as a player and who had spent most of his adult life working to be in a position to try out his ideas did not, to paraprhase Manson, give a f**k about what others thought of his ideas.  He was comfortable with being different and that brought about a revolution in the game.

Sacchi is also a pretty great illustration of the second of Manson's rules: that in order not to care about adversity you must first care about something more important than adversity.

This might seem to be pretty obvious but is not so. For some people the headache that might come with trying something new can be too much.  There are countless coaches out there who come up with new ideas but many fail to try out these ideas because they fear the challenges that players might put up or how fans will react.  They care more about not facing the problems than they do about the potential end result that might come through them.

Sacchi didn't care about players not accepting his ideas.  What he really cared about was seeing his ideas being executed; that is what drove him.  He coached his players so they understood his ideas, explained what he wanted them to do and then made sure that they did so.  Not everyone appreciated it and he certainly had his fair share of set-backs.  Still that didn’t really matter to him as he was convinced of his ideas.  Of course, he was a great communicator and his enthusiasm ended up driving his players but that is essentially a secondary aspect.

This leads into the final point that Manson makes: that you’re always choosing what to care about whether you realise it or not.  You have to decide whether you are going to focus on your ideas and what you want to do or whether you are going to give in to what others might say or think.  

As a coach you often have to make difficult decisions especially if you are doing something that goes against the accepted norm.  It is perfectly fine to choose the option that leads to least resistance but you have to be conscious that you’ve essentially given power to the possibility of criticism or failure.  And once you’ve given up that power it is very difficult to claim it back.  

How many teams fail to deliver on their potential because a manager starts deferring to some or all of his players on major decisions?  Indeed a clear sign of a manager nearing the end of his career is any news of that manager making decisions to keep certain of his players happy.

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Essential Qualities of a Football Coach: Psychology

An examination of the abilities that distinguished the game’s most legendary managers from the rest will reveal a number of similarities.  To a man they were visionaries; capable of transforming the way that football is viewed and played.  They managed to build their teams around the abilities of their players and also shaped the talents of their players to fit into the way they wanted their team to play.  And they always ensured that their players were willing to do whatever they demanded of them.

That latter ability used to be described as the capacity to motivate players.  What those managers did, however, was more than that: they could understand what drove their players and acted in a way that built up that drive.  For most of them, all of this either came instinctively or else had been shaped by their life experiences.  

Today’s managers and coaches, however, do not have to rely on fate or fortune.  There is now a whole discipline – sports psychology – that is devoted to helping coaches deal with players and their mentalities.  That is not to say that to be a good coach you need to know whatever a sports psychologist knows but it is essential that one is at least aware of how to deal with different issues.

This was best explained by Dan Abrahams, a sports psychologist and the author of the book Soccer Tough.  “I believe that a coach must be creative and to do so they must seek as much information as possible in the four major areas; technical ability, tactical ability, physical conditioning, and psychological strength,” he said in an interview with Blueprint for Football.

“A coach must understand the physical talent but what is often overlooked is mental talent.  The kids that are naturally gifted in terms of concentration, discipline and dedication; that is something important that is often ignored.”

“The other thing is being a 1 percenter: I want them to leave no stone un-turned.  Find all the 1% shifts you can to help your players excel.”

Quite frankly, it isn’t good enough for a coach to simply give up when a player seems to hit a mental barrier.

“Too many coaches say that they have players that have lots of physical talent but 'he doesn't want it' and there's nothing that can be done.  That is rubbish.  Of course something can be done.  This is where I get back to seeking that no stone is left un-turned.  Going to FA modules, reading books like mine can help you get a better understanding.  But don't just stop there, put into practice what you read.”

And Abrahams agrees that the ability to leverage psychology is what distinguishes the great from the good.  

“All managers do psychology within their role and some are better than other.  A key factor is the culture they develop within their club.  If you look at the leading managers - Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger - they've developed different cultures but also sound cultures that help develop their team and their commitment.  They've built a culture of success and achievement.”

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Essential Qualities of a Football Coach: Curiosity

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Football is a highly conservative game so it is hardly surprising that those who work in it tend to be conservative as well.  None more so than experienced managers who hold on to ingrained opinions on how to achieve success and who refuse to look at ideas that challenge those opinions.

It is for this reason that there are managers who still do not fully trust the benefits of a healthy nutrition regime, of proper training or of the use of statistics to help shape tactics.  

There is little doubt that the majority of these managers possess a huge wealth of knowledge about the game of football.  Most of them have spent their whole adult life working within the game and in all probability know little else apart from football.

And therein lies the problem; there is a point at which the laser focus on the game at the exclusion of everything else hinders rather than helps.  Their lack of curiosity about anything other than football leaves them with a poor frame of reference with which to look at any new idea that they come across.  Or, to put it another way, they aren’t equipped to absorb and learn new ideas.

“As we grow older we tend to become less active explorers of our mental environment, relying on what we’ve learned so far to see us through the rest of the journey.”  So writes Ian Leslie in Curious, a book that deals about curiosity and the role this plays in our lives.

“If you allow yourself to become incurious, your life will be drained of colour, interest and pleasure.  You will be less likely to achieve your potential.”

Sound familiar?  It should especially if you’ve heard ‘traditional’ managers talk dismissively about the value of statistics in football or negatively on the notion of rotation in managing the squad’s fitness levels.

That is not to argue that coaches should be curious for curiosity’s sake. Indeed that kind of curiosity – diversive curiosity – often results in wasted effort.  What people should be trying to foster is what Leslie terms as epistemic curiosity, which is a more structured and deeper form of curiosity that can ignite the desire to learn and attempt to do things that one would not normally consider.

There is much that coaches can learn by being curious at what is happening in other sport, to come up with one obvious example.  There is much to admire and think about if you spend some time looking at the ideas that underpin the success of the All Black rugby side, for instance.  The same can be said of other team sports like basketball or hockey.  

Will all that can be found in such examinations be immediately useful for coaches?  Probably not, but they will sow seeds that will blossom when their time comes.

Steve Johnson, author of “Where Good Ideas Come From” calls this the slow hunch.  “Rather than coming out of the blue…the best ideas are the result of hours, days, sometimes even years, of digging into a subject and pursuing the hunches that slowly emerge as a result,” he says. 

Essential Qualities of a Football Coach: Communication

Think back to when you were at school and the teachers who most left a lasting impression on you.  What made them stand out?  Why were they better than other teachers?  Was it because they knew the subject more than others?

Probably not.  What made them different was the ability to make you interested enough to get excited about and understand - possibly even love - a tough subject.  They explained it in a way that resonated with you.  For some coming across such teachers is a life changing moment.

As a coach you have to be like that kind of teacher.   You have to get players excited about learning the game.  This might seem like an easy enough task until you look into the detail of it.

For most people football, like any other skill, requires a lot of practice and repetition.  Take the teaching of a simple ability like passing the ball.  Sure, you can (and need) to be inventive in the drills that you have the players practice but ultimately it is all about how you explain it to them.  You have to make them understand what you want from them and why.  If they do it wrongly you have to explain what they have done wrong and how to correct it.  And do all this in a manner that doesn't put them off.

It is the same at every stage of a players’ development regardless of the complexity of what it is that you want them to do.

A manager’s ability to communicate clearly is never as tested as it is during a match.  The message has to get across despite the player trying to focus on what is going on around him.  Complex instructions have to reach players without putting them under any additional pressure (and, above all, without senseless ranting or shouting). That too, is built on the work that a coach does on the training pitch.  It is there that the basis of his method of communicating has to be instilled in his team.

The importance of communication is best reflected in a phrase which Sandro Salvioni – a journeyman Italian coach – told me during an interview.

“I was at Parma when Arrigo Sacchi arrived as manager,” he said. “At the time I was 32 and I would say that it was only then that I truly learned to play the game of football.”

“I wouldn’t say that I took nothing from my previous managers but Sacchi was something else; his approach to the game, the pressing high up the pitch, his offensive outlook, everything.”

Imagine being a veteran player with more than three hundred professional appearances in your career and probably thinking that there wasn’t anything in the game that you didn’t know only to suddenly coming across a manager who can teach you a completely different way of viewing football.

That is the power that a manager who can properly communicate his thoughts can hold over his players.

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Sacchi's Criticism of Italian Football

In the history books, Arrigo Sacchi will go down as a manager who moulded a team of highly talented individuals into the finest club side of its generation.  Under his guidance AC Milan won a Serie A title, eclipsing a Maradona inspired Napoli, and two consecutive Champions Cups that included the 5-0 semi-final demolition of Real Madrid at the Bernabue.

But Sacchi was much more than that; he was a man who revolutionised the game.  At a time when football was dominated by the ultra-defensive catenaccio inspired tactics, Sacchi had the courage and vision to build a team that pressed constantly to get the ball whilst doing away with man-to-man marking in favour of the zonal system.  More than anything, he wanted his teams to play fast, attacking, attractive football.

It was a winning style but, physically, also a very demanding one.  Eventually his players couldn’t keep up with the intensity he required and his methods became less effective.  He moved on to manage Italy and led them to a World Cup final in 1994 but never achieved the wide acclaim that such a result deserved.  When, two years later, Italy failed miserably at the European Championships he was dismissed and subsequently shunned by Italian football.

No one wanted to hear what the Profeta di Fusignano (Prophet of Fusignano) had to say.

No one bar Demetrio Albertini.  When the Milan legend was appointed vice-president at the FIGC in 2007, he turned to his former mentor tasking him with co-ordinating the technical side of Italy’s youth teams.

There have long been debates about Italian football's declining standards at youth level but matters seem to be getting progressively worse.  Last year there were four international youth football tournaments: the European Under 21 championships, the Under 17 and Under 20 World Cup and the European Under 17 championships.  Italy failed to qualify to all of them.

That is why Italian football has once again turned to Sacchi's vision. And, true to form, he isn't holding back.

As from next season, the Primavera (as the main youth football league is called) will be restricted to Under 18 players, thereby putting an end to the common practice of including some overage players.

It is a move that was instigated by Sacchi.  "I hope they all get in line with the new age limits we've set in place for next season," he said during a brief visit to this year's Torneo di Viareggio, perhaps Italy's most popular youth football tournament.  "Here I'm seeing ninteen and twenty year olds.  These are men, not kids.  In other countries at that age if you're good enough you're playing in the first team."

"The Spanish U21 side that won the European championships had a much younger average age then most of the clubs  here at the Viareggio.  It is unthinkable.    In Italy we've become used getting last (to change) but we need to change quickly.  Without new generations coming through, our football is in danger of disappearing."

Equally scathing were his views of the managers in charge of these teams.  "I've read and heard some absurd interviews.  Managers who talk of their team as if they were in charge of a group of Serie A professionals.  Here they're thinking only of winning and of the tactical ways to achieve this.  They tell the kids to hoof the ball so as not to run any risks or that they should all stay behind the ball so they don't concede any goals.  Nothing could be more wrong in youth football."

"When are we going to teach them to play, to take risks, to finish moves where all the team play a part?  We have to take back the abc of technique, create a solid framework of basics.  Then, through the play, you'll see that the results will come.  Instead they want to win everything instantly.  Too often a manager isn't chosen or judged because of his intelligence or his ability to teach but for the honours won.  A disaster."

"There is a lot of talk about investment in youths," he continued, with focus shifting towards the Serie A.  "What investment if in Italy we're barely spending a quarter of what Real Madrid or Barcelona are putting in?  And what sporting culture is there if the only thought is to bring foreigners to Italy without paying attention to the best local talent?  Not to talk about the difficulties that the few talented Italians have to find a bit of space in the Serie A"

His words might not be comforting but, then again, they're not meant to.  What's important is that people listen to what he's saying and act on it. The future of Italian football depends on it.

Quotes from an interview made by the Italian magazine Guerin Sportivo.