One of the ideas behind Blueprint for Football is that of looking at different ideas that are – or should be - influencing the game of football. We’ve done that over the years and here is an overview (shown by order of publishing with the most recent ones being on top) of the most influential of those ideas.
On Curiosity
Essential Qualities of a Football Coach: Curiosity [May 2016]
There is the belief that great innovations come from lightbulb moments when inspiration hits and the fully formed idea is conceived. That isn’t the case. Instead great ideas are usually the result of years of thinking about something and linking it to knowledge learned from elsewhere. It is for this reason that curiosity is important as it is through it that one accumulates the knowledge needed to thread together different concepts.
Memorable Quote: “What people should be trying to foster is…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.”
On Habits
How Habits Shape Football (And Why They Matter To You) [October 2013]
The most tactically disciplined teams are also those who seem to know instinctively when they should be doing a particular action. Think of Arsenal’s back four under George Graham moving in unison to set-off the offside trap or Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona pressing defenders as soon as possession was lost. The thing is that this is hardly instinctive but rather a movement that is dictated by habits, an idea that every coach has to be aware of.
Memorable Quote: “Barcelona’s game, then, isn’t a spontaneous expression of genius but rather the perfect execution of a series of deeply ingrained habits.”
On Perception
Perception is in the Eye of the Beholder [September 2013]
Can you teach a player how to be more aware of what is happening around him? Can you determine how aware a player is of what is happening around him by watching him play? The answer to both questions is yes and Geir Jordet, who has studied in depth the idea of perception provided a breakdown on how this is possible. For coaches looking for some different ideas to investigate, this has to be on their read list.
Memorable Quote: “Players tend to look too much at the ball; you don't really need all the information you get from the ball.”
On Psychology
Helping the Brain to Win Games [May 2013]
The history of the game of football is littered with players who had the talent but not the mental capacity to succeed. It is a shameful waste considering how much resources there are out there for them to help themselves. As for coaches, they too have to have a good handle of the basics of sports psychology and Dan Abrahams delivered a primer on that in this interview.
Memorable Quote: “(Sports psychology) is the bottom of the wish list for clubs and also probably at the bottom of the wish list for player. Yet we talk how important the psychological side is in football so there is a bit of a disconnection.”
On Specialisation
Bursting the Specialisation Myth [September 2012]
The idea that the 10,000 hour practise rule is, at best, an indicator rather than a rule that guarantees expertise is now quite accepted but at the time of this interview with the University of Birmingham Senior Lecturer Dr Martin Toms his arguments flew in the face of the pop-psychology beliefs set about by Malcolm Gladwell’s books. A wide ranging interview that delves into the damage that early specialisation does to players and how it would be best to let children try out a number of sports.
Memorable Quote: “Specialising in one sport at a young age is actually detrimental to success.”
Showing posts with label Different Ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Different Ideas. Show all posts
Monday, June 19, 2017
Monday, June 5, 2017
Taking Note: Why Coaches Should Keep A Journal
One of the finest football books of recent years is Simon Hughes’ Secret Diary of a Liverpool Scout. It tells the story of Geoff Twentyman who was Liverpool’s Chief Scout between 1967 and 1985, an era that was marked by the club’s unprecedented success built largely on an exceptional ability to identify talent.
What marks this book out is how it was written. Rather than being based on the recollections of Twentyman himself (sadly, he passed away way before work on this book had started) it uses the meticulous notes that he used to take during every one of his scouting trips.
This was an extension of the practise within Liverpool’s fabled boot room of noting down different aspects of their work from training, recovery and tactical approaches in varying situations. These dossiers eventually became the reference point whenever the club was faced with similar situations allowing them the luxury to judge whether to take a similar approach or not.
Bill Shankly took over at Liverpool in 1959 and the boot room was established shortly afterwards. It is testament of how visionary that group of people was that the practices that they adopted are still as effective today as they were more than fifty years back.
Essentially: every coach should be journaling regularly, documenting decisions taken and the reasoning behind them.
Never Trust Your Memory
To appreciate why that is there is the need to move away from sport and into the realm of psychology. People act in the manner that they do because over the years their behaviour has been shaped by their own experiences. The problem, though, is that those experiences and memories might not include all the details; they might be inherently biased. There will be occasions when a positive result influences one’s recall of a choice or vice-versa.
Imagine if someone were to ask you to think back to a time when you missed the train and describe your experience. The odds are that you will recall a negative experience. This will also contaminate any future thoughts that you have and, if that same person were to ask you to imagine how you would feel the next time you missed the train then the likelihood is that you would predict a bad reaction.
All this is not conjecture but precisely what Dr Carey Morewedge and his colleagues from Harvard University found in 2005. During their study they asked a set of people to recall the last experience of missing the train, another to recall their worst experience and another to think back three past experience.
Their findings showed that those who had been given free reign to think of one experience made the most negative prediction. Further studies strengthened this theory that people tend to make overly positive or negative predictions if they were to rely exclusively on their memory: they fall prey to their memory bias.
This, clearly, has a number of implications in a football environment. Let’s say that your team was thinking of bringing over a new player who has a particular character trait that might cause issues in the harmony of your squad. If you’ve just come from a good season then you might be swayed into thinking that this too will work out well and that you’ll manage to integrate that player.
That might well turn out to be the case but, regardless, that decision was not made on the right basis. Awareness is key to overcome any bias. In such a circumstance, if a manager has records of previous transfers and thoughts before they were completed then he might notice instances that might be similar to his current situation. Reading them and thinking of how they turned out would probably allow them to make a better informed decision.
It makes it harder to justify a certain decision when you have a divergent piece of evidence in front of you.
Accurate And Honest Feedback
Michael J. Mauboussin is an unikely source to find inspiration for football coaches. He has no history with the game (as far as is public knowledge at least); he is instead the managing director and head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse and an adjunct professor of finance at the Columbia Business School.
He has, however, also authored a number of books that look into decision making. And it is the research that he has put into the latter that is influential
In an interview with The Motley Fool, he said, “when you’ve got a decision-making journal, it gives you accurate and honest feedback of what you were thinking at that time. And so there can be situations, by the way, you buy a stock and it goes up, but it goes up for reasons very different than what you thought was going to happen. And having that feedback in a way to almost check yourself periodically is extremely valuable. So that’s, I think, a very inexpensive; it’s actually not super time consuming, but a very, very valuable way of giving yourself essential feedback because our minds won’t do it normally.”
There might not be many parallels between those investing in stock markets and people who work in football but both have one feature in common: there are strong emotions in play which might lead one to make terrible moves unless they are fully conscious and aware of what they’re doing. That is why Mauboussin argues over the importance of noting decisions.
It is a philosophy based on a discussion with Daniel Kahneman, one of the most brilliant men of our lifetime and who gave birth to the new science of behavioural economics. In particular, Kahneman’s work helped to bring to light a number of biases that influence people’s actions.
“Many years ago when I first met Danny Kahneman…when I pose him the question, what is a single thing an investor can do to improve his or her performance, he said almost without hesitation, go down to a local drugstore and buy a very cheap notebook and start keeping track of your decisions.” Mauboussin said in that same interview.
“And the specific idea is whenever you’re making a consequential decision, something going in or out of the portfolio, just take a moment to think, write down what you expect to happen, why you expect it to happen and then actually, and this is optional, but probably a great idea, is write down how you feel about the situation, both physically and even emotionally. Just, how do you feel? I feel tired. I feel good, or this stock is really draining me. Whatever you think.”
“The key to doing this is that it prevents something called hindsight bias, which is no matter what happens in the world. We tend to look back on our decision-making process, and we tilt it in a way that looks more favourable to us, right? So we have a bias to explain what has happened.”
Do It Yourself
While football is a simple game, the decisions made by those who coach or run a club are often extremely complex. Often managers’ reactions during games are quasi-instinctive and heavily influenced not by rational thought but by past actions. Unraveling why a decision was taken can be just as complex.
Writing is a way of facilitating that process. The simple act of forcing yourself to put thoughts into words actually helps in giving them clarity and shape.
The journal that a coach maintains does not have to be a work of art. To all extent and purposes it can be illegible to anyone but the person who wrote it. There is no need for any jargon or deep, insightful thoughts. Don’t feel under pressure to write something that is great, just write you’re your thoughts.
What there should be a modicum of organisation (so that when you want to look back to a particular decision you can find it with ease) along with clear, direct writing that avoids any vague thoughts.
Initially it might feel like an unnatural act, it can feel like pretentious rubbish. Push past that resistance and eventually, after a few weeks you will come to appreciate just how important a tool this can be for a coach.
After all, if it was good enough for the likes of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, it should be good enough for the rest of us.
Enjoyed this? Want more? Sign up to Blueprint for Football Extra and as a free bonus you'll get a copy of our exclusive e-book Blueprint According To...Volume 3 that features interviews with six football coaches on how they go about their building their knowledge.
What marks this book out is how it was written. Rather than being based on the recollections of Twentyman himself (sadly, he passed away way before work on this book had started) it uses the meticulous notes that he used to take during every one of his scouting trips.
This was an extension of the practise within Liverpool’s fabled boot room of noting down different aspects of their work from training, recovery and tactical approaches in varying situations. These dossiers eventually became the reference point whenever the club was faced with similar situations allowing them the luxury to judge whether to take a similar approach or not.
Bill Shankly took over at Liverpool in 1959 and the boot room was established shortly afterwards. It is testament of how visionary that group of people was that the practices that they adopted are still as effective today as they were more than fifty years back.
Essentially: every coach should be journaling regularly, documenting decisions taken and the reasoning behind them.
Never Trust Your Memory
To appreciate why that is there is the need to move away from sport and into the realm of psychology. People act in the manner that they do because over the years their behaviour has been shaped by their own experiences. The problem, though, is that those experiences and memories might not include all the details; they might be inherently biased. There will be occasions when a positive result influences one’s recall of a choice or vice-versa.
Imagine if someone were to ask you to think back to a time when you missed the train and describe your experience. The odds are that you will recall a negative experience. This will also contaminate any future thoughts that you have and, if that same person were to ask you to imagine how you would feel the next time you missed the train then the likelihood is that you would predict a bad reaction.
All this is not conjecture but precisely what Dr Carey Morewedge and his colleagues from Harvard University found in 2005. During their study they asked a set of people to recall the last experience of missing the train, another to recall their worst experience and another to think back three past experience.
Their findings showed that those who had been given free reign to think of one experience made the most negative prediction. Further studies strengthened this theory that people tend to make overly positive or negative predictions if they were to rely exclusively on their memory: they fall prey to their memory bias.
This, clearly, has a number of implications in a football environment. Let’s say that your team was thinking of bringing over a new player who has a particular character trait that might cause issues in the harmony of your squad. If you’ve just come from a good season then you might be swayed into thinking that this too will work out well and that you’ll manage to integrate that player.
That might well turn out to be the case but, regardless, that decision was not made on the right basis. Awareness is key to overcome any bias. In such a circumstance, if a manager has records of previous transfers and thoughts before they were completed then he might notice instances that might be similar to his current situation. Reading them and thinking of how they turned out would probably allow them to make a better informed decision.
It makes it harder to justify a certain decision when you have a divergent piece of evidence in front of you.
Accurate And Honest Feedback
Michael J. Mauboussin is an unikely source to find inspiration for football coaches. He has no history with the game (as far as is public knowledge at least); he is instead the managing director and head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse and an adjunct professor of finance at the Columbia Business School.
He has, however, also authored a number of books that look into decision making. And it is the research that he has put into the latter that is influential
In an interview with The Motley Fool, he said, “when you’ve got a decision-making journal, it gives you accurate and honest feedback of what you were thinking at that time. And so there can be situations, by the way, you buy a stock and it goes up, but it goes up for reasons very different than what you thought was going to happen. And having that feedback in a way to almost check yourself periodically is extremely valuable. So that’s, I think, a very inexpensive; it’s actually not super time consuming, but a very, very valuable way of giving yourself essential feedback because our minds won’t do it normally.”
There might not be many parallels between those investing in stock markets and people who work in football but both have one feature in common: there are strong emotions in play which might lead one to make terrible moves unless they are fully conscious and aware of what they’re doing. That is why Mauboussin argues over the importance of noting decisions.
It is a philosophy based on a discussion with Daniel Kahneman, one of the most brilliant men of our lifetime and who gave birth to the new science of behavioural economics. In particular, Kahneman’s work helped to bring to light a number of biases that influence people’s actions.
“Many years ago when I first met Danny Kahneman…when I pose him the question, what is a single thing an investor can do to improve his or her performance, he said almost without hesitation, go down to a local drugstore and buy a very cheap notebook and start keeping track of your decisions.” Mauboussin said in that same interview.
“And the specific idea is whenever you’re making a consequential decision, something going in or out of the portfolio, just take a moment to think, write down what you expect to happen, why you expect it to happen and then actually, and this is optional, but probably a great idea, is write down how you feel about the situation, both physically and even emotionally. Just, how do you feel? I feel tired. I feel good, or this stock is really draining me. Whatever you think.”
“The key to doing this is that it prevents something called hindsight bias, which is no matter what happens in the world. We tend to look back on our decision-making process, and we tilt it in a way that looks more favourable to us, right? So we have a bias to explain what has happened.”
Do It Yourself
While football is a simple game, the decisions made by those who coach or run a club are often extremely complex. Often managers’ reactions during games are quasi-instinctive and heavily influenced not by rational thought but by past actions. Unraveling why a decision was taken can be just as complex.
Writing is a way of facilitating that process. The simple act of forcing yourself to put thoughts into words actually helps in giving them clarity and shape.
The journal that a coach maintains does not have to be a work of art. To all extent and purposes it can be illegible to anyone but the person who wrote it. There is no need for any jargon or deep, insightful thoughts. Don’t feel under pressure to write something that is great, just write you’re your thoughts.
What there should be a modicum of organisation (so that when you want to look back to a particular decision you can find it with ease) along with clear, direct writing that avoids any vague thoughts.
Initially it might feel like an unnatural act, it can feel like pretentious rubbish. Push past that resistance and eventually, after a few weeks you will come to appreciate just how important a tool this can be for a coach.
After all, if it was good enough for the likes of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, it should be good enough for the rest of us.
Enjoyed this? Want more? Sign up to Blueprint for Football Extra and as a free bonus you'll get a copy of our exclusive e-book Blueprint According To...Volume 3 that features interviews with six football coaches on how they go about their building their knowledge.
Monday, March 6, 2017
How Economics Explains Why Clubs Don’t Give Young Players A Chance
Each year, clubs at the highest levels of the game spend millions on their academy or youth system. Each year, promising players train in these academies. And, each year, they fail to get an opportunity to show what they are capable of.
It is an anomalous and fairly ridiculous situation that in many respects could only happen in football. No other business would invest that much money and then fail to use what came through. At least no business acting rationally would act that way.
The thing is that football clubs (as does any normal business, for the matter) act irrationally. There is rarely any grand strategy in place and this is evidenced by how quickly confidence in a manager can deteriorate after a run of bad results, regardless of what that manager had achieved in the past.
For the past forty years, economists have been looking at ways to explain such irrationality. The foundation of behavioural economics, this new branch in the science, was laid by two Israeli professors - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman – who set economics down the path of looking at what influences people’s behaviour to determine how they act and why they do so in such a manner (for more information on these two and their work, read Michael Lewis’ fantastic book The Undoing Project).
In doing so they looked at a number of psychological factors that influence people’s decision and prevent them from acting in a rational or consistent manner.
It is such factors that have to be looked at in order to understand what stops clubs from trying to maximise the investment that they make in academies. And there’s plenty worth looking into.
One in particular stands out.
Any project like a football academy has to be based on a long term vision. That much is obvious. Yet it contrasts with most managers’ focus on the present. It is a vicious circle that clubs effectively bring on themselves by failing to stick to long term projects.
It is a behaviour that behavioural economists will be familiar with, having observed and documented it in what has become known as the present bias. This is the tendency to over-value immediate rewards at the expense of long-term ambitions, regardless of the impact that it might have later on in life.
A classic example of this is when a person fails to save up any money, opting instead to spend it in order to fully live ‘the moment’. Eventually a time will come when it is too late to start saving up and that individual has nothing on which to turn.
That is what clubs are doing with their academies. The absence of a long term project forces everyone on the playing side to focus on the immediate outcome. Managers, knowing that their job could be at risk with a series of bad results, will opt for his more experienced players on whom he can rely more heavily.
Young players are more likely to make mistakes. Regardless of their talent they may not by physically ready or might be too slow to react; making critical mistakes in the process. Those are the mistakes that in truth they need to make in order to develop and learn yet managers rarely have the luxury of allowing them that room to grow. Managers need players who can deliver immediate results.
They are biased in favour of those players who can help them in the present.
This is costing clubs heavily. It is a short term view for a number of reasons starting from the obvious that the performances of older players tend to decrease rapidly once they hit a particular age. The outcome here is that the club would then have to look for another player to replace him, thus spending more money to do so.
What’s worse is that such spend is the equivalent of throwing money away. For while that older player might ensure immediate reliability, the value of such experienced players rarely appreciates. Within a couple of years that player will have to be moved on and often only a fraction – if any – of the initial outlay is recovered.
This contrasts with the value of a young player that tends to appreciate notably as they gain experience, confidence and start to express their ability on a more consistent basis. Financially, the development of a young player is easily more beneficial than going for established ones.
Still clubs opt not to do so. Again this is hardly surprising for behavioural economists who have an explanation as to why this happens: they are falling prey to hyperbolic discounting. Without going into the technicalities of what this term means, essentially it refers to the decision making process whereby the farther away a potential return is, the more it is discounted and less it is valued.
It is only when clubs get to a situation where they have nothing to lose by trying something different that they really start to shed such bias. A typical case was that of Borussia Dortmund who, after going to the edge of bankruptcy in their bid to regain their status in German football, opted to put their faith in young players (and a young coach). Their rewards were immediate and significant: two league titles and a Champions League final.
Judging by the players that they have bought over recent months, Borussia Dortmund have made sure not to fall in their old routine – or fall back on their bias – by signing promising young players. It is a brave move but, if the rules of behavioural economics are anything to go by, it could also be the right one.
Sign up to Blueprint for Football Extra and receive a weekly round-up of great football coaching articles.
It is an anomalous and fairly ridiculous situation that in many respects could only happen in football. No other business would invest that much money and then fail to use what came through. At least no business acting rationally would act that way.
The thing is that football clubs (as does any normal business, for the matter) act irrationally. There is rarely any grand strategy in place and this is evidenced by how quickly confidence in a manager can deteriorate after a run of bad results, regardless of what that manager had achieved in the past.
For the past forty years, economists have been looking at ways to explain such irrationality. The foundation of behavioural economics, this new branch in the science, was laid by two Israeli professors - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman – who set economics down the path of looking at what influences people’s behaviour to determine how they act and why they do so in such a manner (for more information on these two and their work, read Michael Lewis’ fantastic book The Undoing Project).
In doing so they looked at a number of psychological factors that influence people’s decision and prevent them from acting in a rational or consistent manner.
It is such factors that have to be looked at in order to understand what stops clubs from trying to maximise the investment that they make in academies. And there’s plenty worth looking into.
One in particular stands out.
Any project like a football academy has to be based on a long term vision. That much is obvious. Yet it contrasts with most managers’ focus on the present. It is a vicious circle that clubs effectively bring on themselves by failing to stick to long term projects.
It is a behaviour that behavioural economists will be familiar with, having observed and documented it in what has become known as the present bias. This is the tendency to over-value immediate rewards at the expense of long-term ambitions, regardless of the impact that it might have later on in life.
A classic example of this is when a person fails to save up any money, opting instead to spend it in order to fully live ‘the moment’. Eventually a time will come when it is too late to start saving up and that individual has nothing on which to turn.
That is what clubs are doing with their academies. The absence of a long term project forces everyone on the playing side to focus on the immediate outcome. Managers, knowing that their job could be at risk with a series of bad results, will opt for his more experienced players on whom he can rely more heavily.
Young players are more likely to make mistakes. Regardless of their talent they may not by physically ready or might be too slow to react; making critical mistakes in the process. Those are the mistakes that in truth they need to make in order to develop and learn yet managers rarely have the luxury of allowing them that room to grow. Managers need players who can deliver immediate results.
They are biased in favour of those players who can help them in the present.
This is costing clubs heavily. It is a short term view for a number of reasons starting from the obvious that the performances of older players tend to decrease rapidly once they hit a particular age. The outcome here is that the club would then have to look for another player to replace him, thus spending more money to do so.
What’s worse is that such spend is the equivalent of throwing money away. For while that older player might ensure immediate reliability, the value of such experienced players rarely appreciates. Within a couple of years that player will have to be moved on and often only a fraction – if any – of the initial outlay is recovered.
This contrasts with the value of a young player that tends to appreciate notably as they gain experience, confidence and start to express their ability on a more consistent basis. Financially, the development of a young player is easily more beneficial than going for established ones.
Still clubs opt not to do so. Again this is hardly surprising for behavioural economists who have an explanation as to why this happens: they are falling prey to hyperbolic discounting. Without going into the technicalities of what this term means, essentially it refers to the decision making process whereby the farther away a potential return is, the more it is discounted and less it is valued.
It is only when clubs get to a situation where they have nothing to lose by trying something different that they really start to shed such bias. A typical case was that of Borussia Dortmund who, after going to the edge of bankruptcy in their bid to regain their status in German football, opted to put their faith in young players (and a young coach). Their rewards were immediate and significant: two league titles and a Champions League final.
Judging by the players that they have bought over recent months, Borussia Dortmund have made sure not to fall in their old routine – or fall back on their bias – by signing promising young players. It is a brave move but, if the rules of behavioural economics are anything to go by, it could also be the right one.
Sign up to Blueprint for Football Extra and receive a weekly round-up of great football coaching articles.
Monday, February 13, 2017
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.
Enjoyed this? Want more? Sign up to Blueprint for Football Extra and as a free bonus you'll get a copy of our exclusive e-book Blueprint According To...Volume 3 that features interviews with six football coaches on how they go about their building their knowledge.
Monday, December 12, 2016
How The Bosman Ruling Broke Small Clubs
When Ajax lifted the Champions League trophy in 1995 it was hardly a surprise. Their previous successes in the competition marked them out as European royalty even though over twenty years had passed since they had last triumphed in the competition. What’s more, it was perfectly natural for a club coming from a weaker league to win.
In the ten years prior to Ajax’s success there had been winners coming from Romania (Steaua Bucharest), Portugal (Porto), Holland (PSV Eindhoven) and Yugoslavia (Red Star Belgrade). Such successes had become somewhat commonplace.
What made Ajax’s victory all the more remarkable is that it came with a team built around individuals who had progressed through the club’s youth system. Six out of the starting eleven had been at the club since they were children whilst the scorer of the wining goal – second half substitute Patrick Kluivert – was also an academy graduate.
Twelve months later Ajax were back in the final but this time missed out in a penalty shootout with Juventus. It was to be one of the final hurrahs of the smaller clubs. Since then the Champions League has practically always been the domain of Spanish, German, English and Italian clubs. Only once – 2004 with Porto - has it gone to teams not from one of those four countries and that was a freak year where the other finalist was also from a non-elite country (AS Monaco).
Indeed, if you were to exclude that 2003-2004 edition, there hasn’t even been a finalist that wasn’t from one of the top four countries.
That is a situation which is unlikely to change. Football has moved on and the free market forces in which the game operates has driven competition out. Three European leagues in particular dominate earnings – England, Spain and Germany – and they can attract the best players. More significantly they can strip others of their best talent making it all the more difficult from anyone outside this elite to break in.
Money, however, explains only part of it. Spanish and Italian clubs were, historically, much more financially powerful than others and always tended to attract the most exciting of players. Yet they never dominated the European Cup in such a manner.
Indeed the defining change for European football came in December of 1995 – the same year in which Ajax had claimed their title – and happened far away from any football pitch. The leading figure in this revolution was an unknown Belgian footballer who had brought a case in front of the European Court of Justice.
That is when the Bosman ruling was passed.
Ajax were one of the first to suffer from this ruling and also one of the clubs to suffer most severely. Within months the core of their young side was ripped out as three of their brightest talents – Patrick Kluivert, Clarence Seedorf and Edgar Davids – all moved to Italy on a free. They were the kind of players on whom Ajax would otherwise have expected to found a dynasty and had they stayed then the likelihood is that they would have won even more European titles.
Even if they had been sold they would have earned Ajax enough money to effectively rebuild their team. After all these were players who would go on to be among the best of their generation. Instead, they got nothing.
In time, clubs learned to adapt yet that meant a certain degree of self-immolation. Players were given longer contracts which meant a bigger commitment for clubs who were not necessarily always in a position to afford it. The risk was that these players wouldn’t turn out to be as good as had been hoped and end up being a drain on the club’s resources.
Yet that was a risk that clubs became used to. So much that now as soon as a players starts showing signs of fulfilling his potential then he’s immediately handed a new and better contract. As soon as that doesn’t get signed or a players starts getting closer to the end of his contract then the alarm bells start ringing. Often the end result is the same with the player getting sold at a fraction of his market value. Some money is better than no money. Everyone knows that, including the players, their agents and the clubs who are interested in them.
This makes it almost impossible for a club to slowly build a squad that is good enough to challenge. Unless someone ultra-rich comes in – as is happening with Paris St German – then it is virtually impossible to build.
Even a relatively big club like Borussia Dortmund is struggling. In 2013 they reached the Champions League final yet saw their biggest domestic rival take away two of their best talents – Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski - for what is a pittance. Although Dortmund have invested wisely it is still getting increasingly more difficult for them to challenge both domestically and continentally.
From one extreme the pendulum of power has shifted to another. Where once clubs used to be in a dominant position now it is the players who are in control. This is the legacy of the Bosman ruling.
That should not excuse the practices that clubs used to adopt – such as the one that forced Jean Marc Bosman to start his fight – nor should it blind anyone to the reality that clubs still show no sentimentality towards any player that is no longer considered as needed. Supporters aren’t much better, often calling for a player to be sold as soon as he starts to show any signs of decline or claiming that they should be ‘left to rot’ should any player indicate that perhaps they might want to move to a bigger club.
It is only right that players should try to do what is best for their career. That is what most people do in their day-to-day lives; looking for a better job when they realise that they have enough experience or knowledge to do so. What is different, however, is that players don’t work for a corporate institution but rather an entity that towards which thousands devote their thoughts, hopes and passion.
The Bosman Ruling stripped that element from the equation. It gave players the liberty to take charge of their career and forced clubs to look at their players as assets to be managed as such; allowing them to accumulate value to be disposed when this hits its peak.
It is the Bosman Ruling that helped pave the way for the creation of the current environment where the financially strong are those who hold all the power. There is still the possibility that a smaller club with a particularly intelligent recruitment policy can manage to achieve success – see Leicester last season – but that possibility is becoming increasingly slimmer.
The reality is that unless all the stars happen to align there is no way for such a club to slowly progress until it is in a position to force its way into a challenging position.
If you enjoyed this article subscribe to Blueprint for Football Extra, an e-mail newsletter where you receive weekly links to other great articles, exclusive content and previews to all our interviews. Join here.
In the ten years prior to Ajax’s success there had been winners coming from Romania (Steaua Bucharest), Portugal (Porto), Holland (PSV Eindhoven) and Yugoslavia (Red Star Belgrade). Such successes had become somewhat commonplace.
What made Ajax’s victory all the more remarkable is that it came with a team built around individuals who had progressed through the club’s youth system. Six out of the starting eleven had been at the club since they were children whilst the scorer of the wining goal – second half substitute Patrick Kluivert – was also an academy graduate.
Twelve months later Ajax were back in the final but this time missed out in a penalty shootout with Juventus. It was to be one of the final hurrahs of the smaller clubs. Since then the Champions League has practically always been the domain of Spanish, German, English and Italian clubs. Only once – 2004 with Porto - has it gone to teams not from one of those four countries and that was a freak year where the other finalist was also from a non-elite country (AS Monaco).
Indeed, if you were to exclude that 2003-2004 edition, there hasn’t even been a finalist that wasn’t from one of the top four countries.
That is a situation which is unlikely to change. Football has moved on and the free market forces in which the game operates has driven competition out. Three European leagues in particular dominate earnings – England, Spain and Germany – and they can attract the best players. More significantly they can strip others of their best talent making it all the more difficult from anyone outside this elite to break in.
Money, however, explains only part of it. Spanish and Italian clubs were, historically, much more financially powerful than others and always tended to attract the most exciting of players. Yet they never dominated the European Cup in such a manner.
Indeed the defining change for European football came in December of 1995 – the same year in which Ajax had claimed their title – and happened far away from any football pitch. The leading figure in this revolution was an unknown Belgian footballer who had brought a case in front of the European Court of Justice.
That is when the Bosman ruling was passed.
Ajax were one of the first to suffer from this ruling and also one of the clubs to suffer most severely. Within months the core of their young side was ripped out as three of their brightest talents – Patrick Kluivert, Clarence Seedorf and Edgar Davids – all moved to Italy on a free. They were the kind of players on whom Ajax would otherwise have expected to found a dynasty and had they stayed then the likelihood is that they would have won even more European titles.
Even if they had been sold they would have earned Ajax enough money to effectively rebuild their team. After all these were players who would go on to be among the best of their generation. Instead, they got nothing.
In time, clubs learned to adapt yet that meant a certain degree of self-immolation. Players were given longer contracts which meant a bigger commitment for clubs who were not necessarily always in a position to afford it. The risk was that these players wouldn’t turn out to be as good as had been hoped and end up being a drain on the club’s resources.
Yet that was a risk that clubs became used to. So much that now as soon as a players starts showing signs of fulfilling his potential then he’s immediately handed a new and better contract. As soon as that doesn’t get signed or a players starts getting closer to the end of his contract then the alarm bells start ringing. Often the end result is the same with the player getting sold at a fraction of his market value. Some money is better than no money. Everyone knows that, including the players, their agents and the clubs who are interested in them.
This makes it almost impossible for a club to slowly build a squad that is good enough to challenge. Unless someone ultra-rich comes in – as is happening with Paris St German – then it is virtually impossible to build.
Even a relatively big club like Borussia Dortmund is struggling. In 2013 they reached the Champions League final yet saw their biggest domestic rival take away two of their best talents – Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski - for what is a pittance. Although Dortmund have invested wisely it is still getting increasingly more difficult for them to challenge both domestically and continentally.
From one extreme the pendulum of power has shifted to another. Where once clubs used to be in a dominant position now it is the players who are in control. This is the legacy of the Bosman ruling.
That should not excuse the practices that clubs used to adopt – such as the one that forced Jean Marc Bosman to start his fight – nor should it blind anyone to the reality that clubs still show no sentimentality towards any player that is no longer considered as needed. Supporters aren’t much better, often calling for a player to be sold as soon as he starts to show any signs of decline or claiming that they should be ‘left to rot’ should any player indicate that perhaps they might want to move to a bigger club.
It is only right that players should try to do what is best for their career. That is what most people do in their day-to-day lives; looking for a better job when they realise that they have enough experience or knowledge to do so. What is different, however, is that players don’t work for a corporate institution but rather an entity that towards which thousands devote their thoughts, hopes and passion.
The Bosman Ruling stripped that element from the equation. It gave players the liberty to take charge of their career and forced clubs to look at their players as assets to be managed as such; allowing them to accumulate value to be disposed when this hits its peak.
It is the Bosman Ruling that helped pave the way for the creation of the current environment where the financially strong are those who hold all the power. There is still the possibility that a smaller club with a particularly intelligent recruitment policy can manage to achieve success – see Leicester last season – but that possibility is becoming increasingly slimmer.
The reality is that unless all the stars happen to align there is no way for such a club to slowly progress until it is in a position to force its way into a challenging position.
If you enjoyed this article subscribe to Blueprint for Football Extra, an e-mail newsletter where you receive weekly links to other great articles, exclusive content and previews to all our interviews. Join here.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
The Case For The Use of GPS In Football
Football is traditionally slow in adopting new technologies. Analysts are still looked at with suspicion (at best) by those who believe that the only way to judge a game is by looking at what you can see on the pitch rather than at what the numbers say.
It took years for goal line technologies to be introduced even though their benefit – as we’re seeing now – was obvious. And, despite this, there are still those vehemently against the idea of introducing any new technological support for referees.
The same applies on the coaching side. The idea of having proper nutrition took years to take hold.
The irony is that other sports where resources and popularity are more limited than football are much more forward in their adoption of technology. Australian Rules Football is a very prominent case in point. This sport that to outsiders might appear one where brawn is the only pre-requisite is also one of the earliest adopters.
Global Positioning Systems (GPS), for instance, has been in use in Aussie Rules for more than a decade. So integrated is their used in AFL that in 2012 it was extended to measure activity in junior football.
“The key thing about this study is that it is the first time we have ever gathered information like this on kids playing football and the first time we’ve been able to quantify how our kids are experiencing sport. The study is unique and groundbreaking in that we’re getting real data about what kids do when they’re involved in junior football.” So said at the time Associate Professor Pamm Kellett who was handling the research aimed at measuring player’s activity during games as well as how long they were on the field, the amount of exertion used and how fast they were running.
Football is a completely different world. At around the same time that AFL was being involved in that forward looking experiment, football was just dipping its feet into the pool. The pioneer was David Casamichana, a Spanish coach involved with Rayo Cantabria de Santander (a semi-professional Spanish third-division team) monitoring their GPS use during training and friendly games; at the time FIFA banned their use in official games (the ban was only lifted towards the end of 2015).
Despite the limitations of the technology at the time – the GPS that he had available tracked movement every second meaning that movement that took place in a fraction of that was not measured – Casamichana’s worked proved the value of this tool. It allowed teams to measure just how much their players ran, how often they were involved in sprints (thanks to an accelerometer) and, ultimately their fatigue.
Based on this he found that centre backs and centre forwards are the ones that run the least distance. Contrary to that, midfielders run most but they cover least distances in sprint. When they do sprint, however, they top the table for high intensity.
On top of it all, his studies found that as games wear on the intensity begins to decline.
All of that might seem obvious but that is because it discounts the finer level of detail that can be obtained through GPS. Not all midfielders play the same role within the team meaning that not all have the same characteristics. Having that data at hand provides another tool that coaches can use to fine tune their side.
It also helps improve the quality of training. If you know the characteristics of different positions than you can provide different preparation. Having access to such data allows you to view the session as a whole rather than just one sprint whilst it provides you with historical baselines with which to compare a group of players or an individual coming back from injury.
Indeed this data can be used to help prevent further athletic injury given that it is possible to gauge when an individual is getting close to his limit that provides you with the ability to stop them before they hurt themselves.
All such knowledge can be used to improve the intensity that a team can show during a game. A team’s ability to keep on going during a match for longer than their opponents can provide a significant advantage.
And the future will see even more extended use of GPS, in particular during games.
In an article late in 2015, Wycombe midfielder Matt Bloomfield explained the benefits that he saw from GPS. “Every footballer is different and some of the lads pay more attention to the information given to us than others.”
“Some lads are really interested in the feedback and check their stats first thing every Monday morning, while some aren't so interested and will only deal with the stats when told to. And then there are the lads who pretend not to care but still check when no-one is looking!”
“I'm fascinated by it all so I'm always asking for feedback and information about what I should be able to do and how far I should be running. It's all part of the competitive edge needed to build a career for yourself.”
“I'm sure that the technological advances will continue and I will always embrace them while always trying to gain that edge.”
Sadly, not everyone is like Boomfield. Indeed, Plymouth manager Derek Adams complained when Wycombe used those devices in a game between the two sides. "Somebody could head it and injure themselves, or somebody's finger could get caught in it,” he said. "There are a number of things that can go wrong. Somebody could get choked if they are pulled too hard.”
Admittedly, Adams also said that what he wanted was clarification and it would be wrong to label him because of this one incident. Yet such thinking is, sadly prevalent among the football fraternity.
It took years for goal line technologies to be introduced even though their benefit – as we’re seeing now – was obvious. And, despite this, there are still those vehemently against the idea of introducing any new technological support for referees.
The same applies on the coaching side. The idea of having proper nutrition took years to take hold.
The irony is that other sports where resources and popularity are more limited than football are much more forward in their adoption of technology. Australian Rules Football is a very prominent case in point. This sport that to outsiders might appear one where brawn is the only pre-requisite is also one of the earliest adopters.
Global Positioning Systems (GPS), for instance, has been in use in Aussie Rules for more than a decade. So integrated is their used in AFL that in 2012 it was extended to measure activity in junior football.
“The key thing about this study is that it is the first time we have ever gathered information like this on kids playing football and the first time we’ve been able to quantify how our kids are experiencing sport. The study is unique and groundbreaking in that we’re getting real data about what kids do when they’re involved in junior football.” So said at the time Associate Professor Pamm Kellett who was handling the research aimed at measuring player’s activity during games as well as how long they were on the field, the amount of exertion used and how fast they were running.
Football is a completely different world. At around the same time that AFL was being involved in that forward looking experiment, football was just dipping its feet into the pool. The pioneer was David Casamichana, a Spanish coach involved with Rayo Cantabria de Santander (a semi-professional Spanish third-division team) monitoring their GPS use during training and friendly games; at the time FIFA banned their use in official games (the ban was only lifted towards the end of 2015).
Despite the limitations of the technology at the time – the GPS that he had available tracked movement every second meaning that movement that took place in a fraction of that was not measured – Casamichana’s worked proved the value of this tool. It allowed teams to measure just how much their players ran, how often they were involved in sprints (thanks to an accelerometer) and, ultimately their fatigue.
Based on this he found that centre backs and centre forwards are the ones that run the least distance. Contrary to that, midfielders run most but they cover least distances in sprint. When they do sprint, however, they top the table for high intensity.
On top of it all, his studies found that as games wear on the intensity begins to decline.
All of that might seem obvious but that is because it discounts the finer level of detail that can be obtained through GPS. Not all midfielders play the same role within the team meaning that not all have the same characteristics. Having that data at hand provides another tool that coaches can use to fine tune their side.
It also helps improve the quality of training. If you know the characteristics of different positions than you can provide different preparation. Having access to such data allows you to view the session as a whole rather than just one sprint whilst it provides you with historical baselines with which to compare a group of players or an individual coming back from injury.
Indeed this data can be used to help prevent further athletic injury given that it is possible to gauge when an individual is getting close to his limit that provides you with the ability to stop them before they hurt themselves.
All such knowledge can be used to improve the intensity that a team can show during a game. A team’s ability to keep on going during a match for longer than their opponents can provide a significant advantage.
And the future will see even more extended use of GPS, in particular during games.
In an article late in 2015, Wycombe midfielder Matt Bloomfield explained the benefits that he saw from GPS. “Every footballer is different and some of the lads pay more attention to the information given to us than others.”
“Some lads are really interested in the feedback and check their stats first thing every Monday morning, while some aren't so interested and will only deal with the stats when told to. And then there are the lads who pretend not to care but still check when no-one is looking!”
“I'm fascinated by it all so I'm always asking for feedback and information about what I should be able to do and how far I should be running. It's all part of the competitive edge needed to build a career for yourself.”
“I'm sure that the technological advances will continue and I will always embrace them while always trying to gain that edge.”
Sadly, not everyone is like Boomfield. Indeed, Plymouth manager Derek Adams complained when Wycombe used those devices in a game between the two sides. "Somebody could head it and injure themselves, or somebody's finger could get caught in it,” he said. "There are a number of things that can go wrong. Somebody could get choked if they are pulled too hard.”
Admittedly, Adams also said that what he wanted was clarification and it would be wrong to label him because of this one incident. Yet such thinking is, sadly prevalent among the football fraternity.
Monday, July 18, 2016
The Benefits Of Writing Down Ambitions
There aren’t many children who dream of becoming accountants when they grow up. It is neither glamorous nor stimulating but boring and tedious. It is fair to say that many who chose it as a career do so because it is a good bet for a decent job and wage. Trust me, I know: I’m an accountant myself.
The thing with accountancy is that you know what you have to do in order to get there. Either get into university to get a degree or else study in your spare time as you work in a related job during the day. The path leading to accountancy is pretty clear.
It is usually the same for most professions. You have to work hard to get there but, still, you know pretty much that if you do that you will make it.
The story is pretty different in so far as art and sport are concerned. You might want to be a great singer but what must you do to get there? Different artists take different routes and what works today might not next year.
Same goes for sport. The desire to become a footballer (or at least be the best player you possibly can) is quite natural but there are different routes to getting there. Jamie Vardy had to keep up believing in his ability for years whilst someone like Marcus Rashford got his chance at the highest level mainly because of injuries to others. Talent is important and so is hard work but they’re far from the only requirement.
All of this makes the process difficult. Your coaches might be telling you what it is you must do but if you leave your progress wholly in the hands of other it is unlikely that you will succeed. You have to own your progress.
A good way of doing so is listing the five most desired qualities of a player in your position. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, list what qualities you believe are needed if you are to excel. Let’s say that you play in midfield and would like to model yourself on the likes of Xabi Alonso. Then you know that you will need exceptional passing, strong shooting accuracy, tactical intelligence, stamina and physical strength.
Those will form the basis of your goals. The next step is that of seeing where you are on each one. You might do well in your passing, stamina and strength so that tells you straight away that you need to work harder on your shooting and ability to read the game.
Suddenly you have a path that you can follow. You can measure yourself better because you have something against which you can actually measure yourself. You know what you have to aim for.
Naturally, this does not mean that you can ignore all other aspects of the game but that you know on which to focus more. Great players usually put in a lot of extra training to improve certain aspects of their game, they have a greater desire to achieve. More than that, however, they also have a focus on where they should be putting their energy.
The finest free-kick takers for instance tend to be players who spend a lot of time practising their free-kick. They might have some natural skill to start off but when they decide that this is an area that they would like to improve they do so by putting in the work.
That is a crucial point. Commitment towards getting somewhere does not lie in the simple act of having it in writing but by consistently putting in the work necessary to do so.
Try This Out: Step-By-Step Instructions
Get your players to identify a players who plays in their role that they admire and would like to emulate. Naturally each player makes his own choice.
Ask them to study that chosen player, looking for the details of what makes him stand out from the rest.
After they have studied their player tell them to note down the five characteristics that make him so special. Help them out so that they’re as specific as possible. “Scores a lot of goals” is not a good characteristic but should be broken down so that it is clearer. It could be “times his runs well” or “strikes ball well with both feet”.
The next step is to ask the players to think about how well they themselves rate in each of those characteristics. It is important that they think about this exercise and it is not something that they do offhand. Again, get them to write their thoughts and, at the end, ask them to rate out of ten how they see themselves.
Afterwards comes arguably the most important step which is getting them to think what they can do in order to improve themselves on each of those characteristics. Using the previous example of “strikes the ball well with both feet”, one task could be to do some additional training shooting with their weaker foot so as to improve their ability in that respect. Once this is done every player should have a list of goals in the form of characteristics that they would like to possess along with a path to getting there provided by the list of action points.
It is important that all this is noted down. There is a lot to say for physically writing everything but if the players prefer to note it down on an electronic device, let them. The most important thing is that they regularly look at and think about this exercise.
Schedule meeting with them at regular (but not too regular intervals; perhaps bi-monthly) points in the season so that you re-evaluate. Talk together about whether they’ve progressed in each characteristic, whether they are seeing enough progress, if they’re being too harsh on themselves or if there are any different training routines they could try out. Always let them do as much of the talking as possible: let them take charge of their personal development.
It is important that you use your judgement at each stage of this exercise. You can decide whether your age group is mature enough to handle such an exercise. Similarly, whilst you may believe wholeheartedly in the process, be ready that some individuals will not see the benefit in it. Try to convince them of the merits but forcing people through it will rarely work.
The thing with accountancy is that you know what you have to do in order to get there. Either get into university to get a degree or else study in your spare time as you work in a related job during the day. The path leading to accountancy is pretty clear.
It is usually the same for most professions. You have to work hard to get there but, still, you know pretty much that if you do that you will make it.
The story is pretty different in so far as art and sport are concerned. You might want to be a great singer but what must you do to get there? Different artists take different routes and what works today might not next year.
Same goes for sport. The desire to become a footballer (or at least be the best player you possibly can) is quite natural but there are different routes to getting there. Jamie Vardy had to keep up believing in his ability for years whilst someone like Marcus Rashford got his chance at the highest level mainly because of injuries to others. Talent is important and so is hard work but they’re far from the only requirement.
All of this makes the process difficult. Your coaches might be telling you what it is you must do but if you leave your progress wholly in the hands of other it is unlikely that you will succeed. You have to own your progress.
A good way of doing so is listing the five most desired qualities of a player in your position. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, list what qualities you believe are needed if you are to excel. Let’s say that you play in midfield and would like to model yourself on the likes of Xabi Alonso. Then you know that you will need exceptional passing, strong shooting accuracy, tactical intelligence, stamina and physical strength.
Those will form the basis of your goals. The next step is that of seeing where you are on each one. You might do well in your passing, stamina and strength so that tells you straight away that you need to work harder on your shooting and ability to read the game.
Suddenly you have a path that you can follow. You can measure yourself better because you have something against which you can actually measure yourself. You know what you have to aim for.
Naturally, this does not mean that you can ignore all other aspects of the game but that you know on which to focus more. Great players usually put in a lot of extra training to improve certain aspects of their game, they have a greater desire to achieve. More than that, however, they also have a focus on where they should be putting their energy.
The finest free-kick takers for instance tend to be players who spend a lot of time practising their free-kick. They might have some natural skill to start off but when they decide that this is an area that they would like to improve they do so by putting in the work.
That is a crucial point. Commitment towards getting somewhere does not lie in the simple act of having it in writing but by consistently putting in the work necessary to do so.
Try This Out: Step-By-Step Instructions
Get your players to identify a players who plays in their role that they admire and would like to emulate. Naturally each player makes his own choice.
Ask them to study that chosen player, looking for the details of what makes him stand out from the rest.
After they have studied their player tell them to note down the five characteristics that make him so special. Help them out so that they’re as specific as possible. “Scores a lot of goals” is not a good characteristic but should be broken down so that it is clearer. It could be “times his runs well” or “strikes ball well with both feet”.
The next step is to ask the players to think about how well they themselves rate in each of those characteristics. It is important that they think about this exercise and it is not something that they do offhand. Again, get them to write their thoughts and, at the end, ask them to rate out of ten how they see themselves.
Afterwards comes arguably the most important step which is getting them to think what they can do in order to improve themselves on each of those characteristics. Using the previous example of “strikes the ball well with both feet”, one task could be to do some additional training shooting with their weaker foot so as to improve their ability in that respect. Once this is done every player should have a list of goals in the form of characteristics that they would like to possess along with a path to getting there provided by the list of action points.
It is important that all this is noted down. There is a lot to say for physically writing everything but if the players prefer to note it down on an electronic device, let them. The most important thing is that they regularly look at and think about this exercise.
Schedule meeting with them at regular (but not too regular intervals; perhaps bi-monthly) points in the season so that you re-evaluate. Talk together about whether they’ve progressed in each characteristic, whether they are seeing enough progress, if they’re being too harsh on themselves or if there are any different training routines they could try out. Always let them do as much of the talking as possible: let them take charge of their personal development.
It is important that you use your judgement at each stage of this exercise. You can decide whether your age group is mature enough to handle such an exercise. Similarly, whilst you may believe wholeheartedly in the process, be ready that some individuals will not see the benefit in it. Try to convince them of the merits but forcing people through it will rarely work.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Essential Qualities of a Football Coach: Passion
Anyone who is involved in jobs with a heavy vocational calling need to be constantly questioning themselves over the reason for which they are doing such work. If you’re a nurse or a doctor, for instance, then caring for people has to be your main priority. Same goes for teachers who must put the education of those placed in their charge as the reason for which they go to work every day.
That is not to say that money shouldn’t be important to these people or that they don’t deserve high salaries. Indeed, the experience of the Finnish education system – one that regularly ranks as the world’s best - where teaching jobs are both highly valued and well remunerated proves that this isn’t the case. But these are jobs that need individuals for whom money isn’t the main motivator.
Clearly, the same applies to football coaches in particular those who are involved with the development of children. There is no doubt that they should be paid well in professional environments but it is worrying when coaches take up roles purely because of the money that is on offer. Not because they will necessarily do a bad job of it but as eventually their output will start to suffer.
People are naturally inclined more towards others who are passionate about the work they’re doing. They’re influenced by how people act and if they see someone who is clearly enjoying what they’re doing then it will show in how they respond.
The crucial thing is that passion cannot be faked. It filters into the way that one delivers a session, in how deeply they care about people’s improvement and how far they’re willing to go in order to ensure that the players they’re coaching deliver on their potential.
Importantly, passion is also a critical factor in how a coach goes about ensuring that they improve themselves. Regardless of their line of work, a passionate individual will typically be more interested to look out for anything that might be of help on their job. A passionate individual won’t simply go through the motions but will understand why every aspect of their job is carried out and think about ways of improving on each one of these facets.
This does not mean that anyone who is passionate about coaching is capable of doing so. Indeed, some of the worst excesses seen on pitches the world over are carried out by people who are undoubtedly passionate.
Even so, that little bit of fire in your belly – to go with a cliché – is necessary to push you ever harder so that you improve yourself and deliver ever better results. Frankly you cannot be involved in a role that can determine people’s future without that little bit of passion.
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That is not to say that money shouldn’t be important to these people or that they don’t deserve high salaries. Indeed, the experience of the Finnish education system – one that regularly ranks as the world’s best - where teaching jobs are both highly valued and well remunerated proves that this isn’t the case. But these are jobs that need individuals for whom money isn’t the main motivator.
Clearly, the same applies to football coaches in particular those who are involved with the development of children. There is no doubt that they should be paid well in professional environments but it is worrying when coaches take up roles purely because of the money that is on offer. Not because they will necessarily do a bad job of it but as eventually their output will start to suffer.
People are naturally inclined more towards others who are passionate about the work they’re doing. They’re influenced by how people act and if they see someone who is clearly enjoying what they’re doing then it will show in how they respond.
The crucial thing is that passion cannot be faked. It filters into the way that one delivers a session, in how deeply they care about people’s improvement and how far they’re willing to go in order to ensure that the players they’re coaching deliver on their potential.
Importantly, passion is also a critical factor in how a coach goes about ensuring that they improve themselves. Regardless of their line of work, a passionate individual will typically be more interested to look out for anything that might be of help on their job. A passionate individual won’t simply go through the motions but will understand why every aspect of their job is carried out and think about ways of improving on each one of these facets.
This does not mean that anyone who is passionate about coaching is capable of doing so. Indeed, some of the worst excesses seen on pitches the world over are carried out by people who are undoubtedly passionate.
Even so, that little bit of fire in your belly – to go with a cliché – is necessary to push you ever harder so that you improve yourself and deliver ever better results. Frankly you cannot be involved in a role that can determine people’s future without that little bit of passion.
Join Blueprint for Football Extra to ensure that you don't miss future articles and get the full transcript of the interview plus a free e-book in the process. Other Blueprint for Football e-books available here (international version here).
Monday, May 30, 2016
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.”
Join Blueprint for Football Extra to ensure that you don't miss future articles and get the full transcript of the interview plus a free e-book in the process. Other Blueprint for Football e-books available here (international version here).
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.
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.”
Join Blueprint for Football Extra to ensure that you don't miss future articles and get the full transcript of the interview plus a free e-book in the process. Other Blueprint for Football e-books available here (international version here).
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