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.
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.
And Why Some Players Are Better Off At Smaller Clubs When Juventus signed Brazilian striker Amauri from Palermo in 2008 in a deal worth over €22 million, the feeling was that despite the fee this was going to be a great deal for them. Juventus were still struggling to recover from their forced demotion to the Serie B a few years earlier so this was a statement of intent of their willingness to spend big to return to their former glory. More than that, Amauri was an experienced player who had excelled at Palermo scoring twenty three goals in just over fifty games. He had strength, technique and a willingness to work hard; all of which hinted that a move to a big club - where theoretically he would be surrounded by better players - would elevate him to one of the finest strikers in Europe. It didn't happen that way. Amauri did reasonably well in his first year at Juventus, scoring eleven times. Those, however, came mainly in the first part of the season. From then on scoring seemed to become an alien concept for him as he flailed about in an attempt to make the transition. Nothing seemed to work and in the end Juventus had to give him away in order to get rid of him. There is no top club that, in the last decade alone, hasn't gone through a similar experience. For Liverpool there was Andy Carroll, Anderson at Manchester United, Mohamed Salah at Chelsea, Roberto Soldado for Tottenham and Lukas Podolski at Arsenal. You could name whole league sides out of players who joined Real Madrid and Barcelona only to quickly find that they didn't fit. In most cases, football typically comes up with one of two explanations. The first is that the player simply wasn't good enough; that whilst he had the talent to occasionally shine for a smaller club he didn't have it in him to play on those levels on a regular basis which is what is expected when you're at a certain level. The second reason is that the new club simply wasn’t suited for him. There will always be some sympathy for Carroll at Liverpool for instance because the club’s attacking focus wasn’t based on looping balls in for him, which is where he excelled. Equally, some of these transfer disasters are easily predictable - again Carroll is a case in point - whilst others, like the highly talented Nani's inability to become a regular at United, baffle. That all this happens, however, shouldn't come as too much of a shock, at least not if you look at research which has been done and which came up with the Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Syndrome. This research, which has focused overwhelmingly on academic students, found that an individual who attended a high-ability (in the sense of a school where high achievers tend to go) school had a greater possibility of lower academic self-concepts than another individual who went to a low-ability school. Or, to put it in another way, when you put someone in an environment that is geared (and expects) high achievement there is the tendency that such an individual shrinks away rather than rising to the challenge. They end up either failing or else coming towards the bottom of their classes. At the same time, if someone who is equally talented goes to a less demanding school but one where he can build on the confidence that he is among the better students then such an individual tends to excel. Indeed, as far back as 1966, American sociologist James A Davis was warning parents against sending their children to those that are typically considered as the better colleges if there was the chance that they would be towards to lower end of the graduating class. This, clearly, has deep implications on football. How many parents, for instance, are blinded by the glamour of the big clubs when they come calling? How many have uprooted promising young footballers from a smaller academy because a bigger club offered them the opportunity only to see that, rather than improve, their son actually does worse? That is not to say that such parents are willingly sabotaging their children's career. For a start, the probability of making it as a professional footballer is extremely low wherever you are playing. Also, there is the question of facilities that are available to the academies of the bigger clubs. It is hard to blame a parent for thinking that their child could do better in an institution that provides him with all weather facilities, indoor pitches, an impressive array of physios and ultra-qualified coaches. Even so, if the academic research is to be transposed to football it would appear that the benefits are not as huge. There are a lot of theories as to why this happens but, often, when an individual - let alone a young teen with the changes and insecurities that age brings with it - feels that he is among the best in his team he will act in that way. He will be more willing to rely on his ability, take risks and stand out. Placed in a team where he is one of many - talent wise - there is the chance that he loses that edge. He might doubt himself and pass the ball whereas previously he might have taken a shot or beaten his man, for instance. Rather than improving, he stagnates. There are reasons for this. Mindsets, about which Carol Dweck has written and spoken extensively are probably at the forefront. Individuals with a fixed mindset – that is, who feel that their talent is fixed and cannot improve – wither when placed in a demanding environment.
There is no direct research on this, however. What researchers have clearly identified as a prime differentiator is intrinsic motivation: those individuals who find the drive to improve within themselves, rather than needing external motivation, tend to do better. In football terms, a player who moves to a club because he feels the pressure to accept the deal of a bigger club as others would perceive him as ‘crazy’ to pass up such an opportunity, rather than because he feels it within himself that he has to try this challenge is clearly making the move for the wrong reasons. If any proof were needed, this surely should provide people with a reason to take a step backwards and think about a move that should further their career but could ultimately kill it off. For more information on the Big Fish Small Pond effect, look up the work of Professor W. Marsh who is the main expert in this field. Blueprint for Football is giving away copies of Blueprint According To...Volume III, the e-book that features interviews with six coaches on their football philosophies and how these were developed. For details of how to get your copy, go here.
As the club’s technical director, Victor Satei has had a very direct role in shaping the philosophy of Gulu United, the Uganda based club that is trying to foster a project that educates and, at the same time, prepares players for top level football. In this interview he talks of the process he went through in joining the club and what he has learned from the experience.
Blueprint for Football: How did you get to know of the Gulu United project? Victor Satei: I received a message from Adrian Bradbury (Gulu United's International and Academy Director) who wanted to discuss a possible project he was looking to pursue at the time. We sat down for coffee and he described his story and what he had in mind, I was in from the moment he started describing it.
BfF: What is your role? VS: As the clubs techincal director, my company and I are responsible for the technical development of the coaches and players. We worked hard alongside Adrian to lay out a plan that was simple enough to execute and effective enough to put us on the right path.
BfF: What differences and similarities do you see with kids you normally encounter in Canadian youth clubs? VS: At the end of the day both parts of the world have their advantages and disadvantages.
In Northern Uganda you have children that are fearless, super athletic and love to play football but lack any type of elite structured environment. In Canada you have an amazingly multicultural country with children that are eager, super athletic and passionate about football but they are drowned with overly structured environments from too young an age, often gaining bad habits that later become too difficult to be undone. At Gulu United players are housed in a full-time program offering both education and football. We have recruited the region’s top young talent and we're developing them as top level footballers who are educated.
BfF: Were you afraid to go to a country with the reputation of Uganda? VS: No, Adrian filled me in on what to expect so I was not worried.
BfF: How has this experience helped you develop as a coach? VS: I'd say the most developmental part of the journey up to now is how far it challenges your adaptability. You face different scenarios on a daily basis that cannot be planned for, you have to be ready to change things and adapt on the spot. As the first full-time professional football academy in Uganda, we've worked hard to shift the culture and beliefs surrounding youth player development making discipline and hard work our two main focal points followed by a commitment to excellency. I look back and am so proud of how much progress we've made, there has been great support from everyone back home in Canada and our staff can't wait to reach our goals.
When Pele said that an African country would win the World Cup by the year 2000, it was a bold prediction yet one that wasn’t met with the ridicule that it would have elicited just a few years earlier. More and more African players were arriving into European football and establishing themselves among the best. Given the continent’s size, its love for the game and the seemingly endless talent supply it seemed only a matter of time before African nations were challenging the world’s elite. Six World Cups have later, however, African teams have yet to threaten the status quo. Indeed, no African country has ever progressed past the quarter finals (although fate hasn’t always been kind on them). Although they’re no longer the whipping boys they once were and there is an abundance of talent no country has really made its mark.
There are a lot of theories as to why progress has stalled but perhaps one of the most solid is that put forward by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski in their book Soccernomics. One of the four factors that they identified as vital for international success is the financial situation of a country, specifically their GDP per capita (the other factors are home advantage, historical soccer experience and population). In a chapter titled “The Curse of Poverty: Why Poor Countries Are Poor at Sports” they explain that in countries facing a difficult economic situation there are knock-on effects on population such as malnutrition and inadequate administration. Given the chaos that surrounded Ghana’s participation in that last World Cup – where $3M had to be flown in to pay players’ bonuses and avert a threatened strike – it is hard to refute this latter fact. Indeed, there are numerous examples of deficient administrations across the whole continent. And if the national associations – who benefit from FIFA’s financing – struggle so much it is difficult to imagine that matters can be much better at grassroots level. “Developing countries have been all but shut out of the lucrative business of football, despite a passionate culture of the game, peaceful and emerging economies and a growing population of determined youth.” That is blunt and hard-hitting opinion of Adrian Bunbury who has been working in Uganda for the past ten years. “Some of the best youth are making it to Europe and the Middle East, but are forced to
leave home to pursue these opportunities due to a lack of quality local training, competition and club sophistication. Foreign, well-funded, academies are poaching youth players, reaping the economic benefits and not reinvesting locally.” “This is a brawn, brain and economic drain that must change. The current structure, at most, educates and enriches only a few individuals.” “It is a problem that can only be solved with local partnerships, investment, training and education.” This is where the organisation that Adrian works for – Football for Good – steps in. “The goal is to step beyond charity. Charity is finite. We're aiming to build something that's sustainable. The question we continue to ask is that if the power and value of football comes from the grassroots, why does so little value return there?" “What we want to do is lead and seed football academies that unlock the competitive advantages of war-recovering and developing regions. We want to develop talent to build sustainable local clubs and academies through participation in the multi-billion dollar global business of player transfers.” “This is “Fair Trade Football” that educates, trains and mentors disadvantaged youth, leads social change and provides financial returns to the communities it serves.” “Gulu United Football Club, based in war-recovering northern Uganda, is the first partner academy for Football for Good and the only full-time youth football academy and scholarship program in the entire country.” “We are starting in northern Uganda, already have a partner in Zimbabwe and aim to grow across sub-Saharan Africa building academies and communities the right way.” That the choice to kick off this project in Uganda, where there has been so much war and strife in the past, isn’t coincidental.
“Founded in 1990, the club folded after suffering through over two decades of civil war and unspeakable violence. However, northern Uganda is no longer a dark and dangerous place. There is an entrenched football culture and the youth of this isolated region of over six million compete with a disciplined desperation that clearly communicates this opportunity.” “This is a generation who know nothing but war. They are starting over here in the north, but there is incredible progress, energy and 'community'. It is not a question of if we will be successful, but when.” Football can play an important role in that process. “There are numerous organizations here focused on a myriad of health and social issues. At the same time, there is incredible ingenuity in the areas of health, mobile, etc. and we see football in this region in the same way. This is not charity in the traditional sense. There is a community building and entrepreneurial opportunity here through football.” And Adrian has staked more than his personal effort in making this a successful project. “In January of 2015, I moved my family to Uganda to launch the Gulu United youth academy.” “Most people see this region and the current landscape, as an ongoing and unending catastrophe. Football for Good however, sees an opportunity, a clear competitive advantage and a grassroots social business innovation.” Whilst most people might balk at the ‘business’ element of the venture, the focus is very
much on the social. “All of our youth players are full-time students on academic scholarship,” Adrian explains. “Sure, every youth player will be training (and aiming) to become a world- class professional, but only our very best will make it. However, all youth who participate, or even come in contact with the program, will benefit.” “Football for Good will deliver local scholarships and international education opportunities, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, leadership and community building skills that go well beyond the game of football. Our success will mean a sustainable football club and academy, in turn creating an ongoing investment in youth, local entrepreneurs, ingenuity and community development.” Inevitably, given the lofty ambitions, selection of players was a thorough process. “The program opened with 50 full-time youth (who are also on academic scholarships). This group was selected after a 6-month identification phase where close to 1,000 of the region’s top young footballers were evaluated.” And that is just the start. “Going forward, we will travelling throughout northern Uganda to identify the best U14 and younger players to join us and grow our group in 2016.” Apart from the educational opportunities that getting selected offers to the children of the Gulu United academy, there is the additional benefit of top level football coaching that they receive. “We have eight full-time local coaches, who are led by our UEFA A licensed technical director Victor Satei.” “We have our own philosophy of 'positive possession & brain-based' football with a real focus on free flowing attacking football. There is an evolving training program that continues to improve (but not without it's bumps along the way). I'm here full-time and also coach, while Victor has been here for two 6-week stints in 2015 to work with the players and continue to train and develop our staff.”
“Our focus, however, is on the player. We are aiming to develop fast – physically strong and quick – slow –smart and opportunistic – head turning footballers.” All of this sounds very European in its philosophy and execution. The main difference, however, lies in the facilities which for most European academies might seem quite Spartan. “We have two full-sized "grass" pitches – in truth they are very much dirt pitches- and all of the balls, cones and bibs we need.” “Boots continue to be a problem, with the fields here doing plenty of damage to our footwear. I'm also a big believer in hanging 'just enough' when it comes to facilities. We are not here to pamper our kids, we here to help them grow in a demanding environment with an opportunity go abroad.” Whilst few have attempted academies of this kind, Europeans coming to Africa to set up academies with the aim of selling as many young players to European clubs as possible is not exactly unheard of. It is for this reason that it is important to reinforce the care that Gulu United take of their players. For one thing, they will not be sold to any club that comes along. “This is a work in progress but we will be providing the initial links and guidance for the players. We need the right environment for our boys and be certain that the support is there for them to have success.” This ideology doesn’t apply to those players who do get to move abroad. “Once a Football For Good or Gulu United player, always one of our players,” he emphasizes. “We won’t just follow them, we’ll be with them every step of the way. This is our family and these are our kids.” Inevitably, there has been interest from European clubs in this project. But whilst Adrian says that at the moment they’re thinking over the process, he has words of praise for Brentford. “They have been a great friend of Gulu United and Football For Good.” “The club has hosted us, sent coaches to Uganda and helped guide our academy development program. We hope to deepen that relationship in the months and years to come. This is a club that may seem like a minnow to outsiders, who has real ambitions and understands ‘value’ and youth development.” Ambition is certainly an adjective that applies to Football For Good, and Adrian himself. “Along with an established academy program here in Gulu, we also aim to have Football For Good be a global leader in sub-Saharan Africa in providing academy development, targeted consultancy, player identification and the nurturing of world-class youth soccer talent that leads to new market and transfer opportunities, economic sustainability and community building,” he says. Nor does he lack confidence. “In five years I will hit 50 in the month of April. My birthday is going to be spent sitting in the stands somewhere in Europe watching a Gulu United youth academy product play first team football.” “And from there, anything is possible.” Special thanks to Victor Satei for bringing this excellent project to Blueprint for Football. To learn more, people can visit: Football for Good: www.football-for-good.org Gulu United FC: guluunited.com Four Four Gulu: fourfourgulu.wordpress.com
Whilst a coach has to be curious if he really wants to develop, there is another side of the equation which is a coach’s ability to fuel curiosity in others. As any parent will confirm, children are full of questions (it has been estimated that between the ages of two and five, children ask around 40,000 questions) which seem to multiply the moment that you answer any one of them. This is a natural element of their growth process and it is through this process that they learn about the world around them.
Children should be asking questions not least because it is a sign that they are actually learning to the extent that they will remember it later on. As Ian Leslie writes in his book Curious, “when people learn something rapidly they often learn it superficially; that is, they are more liable to forget in the long term.” How the adults around those children respond to their questioning has a direct impact. Someone whose questions are answered will learn and think up of additional questions that will eventually lead to them making mental links with other subjects. By answering such questions, one is essentially fueling their cognitive abilities. On the other hand, if those questions go unanswered, then the child quickly learns that it is useless asking questions and stops doing so. Sadly, that will be the only lesson that they learn. It is easy, then, to see why it is important for coaches to absorb this information. Sadly some coaches regard questions as a threat to their authority when in truth they should be encouraging them. In today’s game, one of the most important attributes of a player is their intelligence; how they react to different situations and their ability to read how the game is flowing. For some, this ability comes naturally – just as some have a natural aptitude for certain academic topics like maths or languages – but that does not mean that the rest cannot learn. Indeed, that is where a good coach becomes vitally important because they are the ones
who realise that their responsibility lies beyond teaching players how to carry out specific skills but in fueling in them the desire to learn more about the game. These are the coaches who will challenge their players on why they made certain decisions during a game and who will be ready to answer any resulting questions. It will make them better players and, by being willing to answer questions, help to motivate them which is a handy by-product of the players knowing why they are doing things. It is through this process of probing the players into thinking and asking questions about the game that coaches can help their players gain a level of insight that would have otherwise been impossible for them to achieve. This is not exactly a novel idea. One of the maxims that underpins Ajax’s (as well as most of Dutch football) development program is that of getting players to fill in at various roles rather than pigeonholing them into a fixed one. The logic behind this is that such a move allows the players to gain a different perspective. A midfielder might get to understand why a striker might want a ball to be delivered early or why they can’t make certain runs. In other words, it places in front of them a completely new way of viewing the game and urges them to start asking what they need to do differently to solve whatever new problems they’re faced with. It is, essentially, a way of feeding players’ curiosity and making it an inherent trait of their academy. It challenges them to look beyond the boundaries of ‘their’ role and gets them to think how each action fits into the overall tactics; and how differing tactics require different things from them.
There is proof of this. In 1946, a Dutch psychologist by the name of Adrian de Groot studied chess grandmasters and amateur players. What he found is that masters have stored in memory more positions than amateurs meaning that they can instinctively recognise the patterns emerging from their opponents play. This gives them a huge advantage because they have more time to think about what their own next step should be. Unlikely as this might initially seem, there is a direct link with football. The talent that we most admire in the greatest midfielders – Xavi or Pirlo, for instance – is their ability to ‘read’ what is happening around them. Despite the incessant pace at which modern football is played, they somehow always seem to find the time to pick the right pass. In an interview that Blueprint for Football had done with Geir Jordet, professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, he spoke of players’ perception and their ability to visually examine what is happening around them. Through his research Jordet shows that a player’s ability to ‘know’ where others are on the pitch is neither accidental nor solely the function of his skill. Instead, it is all down to how much he looks at what is happening around him before he gets the ball. “What I've done,” he said, “which I don't think many people have done, is to actually go in and analyse exactly what happens with some of the best players in the world in the seconds before they get the ball. And there is so much activity going on.” “There is so much looking, there is so much searching and there is so much exploration. That is why I find the players who explore the most actively in that period before they get the ball they also perform better when they get the ball. I think that there is a need to focus a bit more on that side of the game then what people usually do.” Therefore, whilst master chess players can look at a chess board and immediately recognise what play each player is trying to execute, the best midfield players can take a look around them to realise what is going to happen. Neither level of expertise comes about through incident or, much less, is through an innate ability. Instead it comes about through specific training and their desire to question what happens after each play. Indeed, Jordet recommended specific exercises to help players achieve such perception most of which include placing the players in situations where they have to ask themselves what those around them are doing. In other works, it involves getting them curious about what others are doing and how their roles fit into what is happening.
This article was largely inspired by Ian Leslie’s book ‘Curious’ and by discussions with the author himself who kindly agreed to be a beta-reader. A first part of this article will focus on the need for coaches to foster their own curiosity. For full disclosure purposes it is noted that a copy of Curious was provided by the books’ publisher. Also, a small fraction of any book purchased by following the links in this piece make their way back to Blueprint for Football.
In his own inimitable (and, occasionally, slightly obnoxious) way, the Dutch fitness coach Raymond Verheijen likes to label coaches who have not adopted more modern ways of training as dinosaurs; creatures from a bygone era where the physical demands on players were less taxing and whose coaching has not evolved to handle a game that requires a more enlightened approach. It is very much a blunt statement that is at least in part made to generate publicity and get people talking about his own theories for the physical conditioning of players. Yet, undeniably, there is also an element of truth to it.
Football is a highly conservative game – just look at the continued resistance to the introduction of video technology to aid referees - and 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. They believe only in what has worked for them in the past and only obvious success elsewhere can get them to consider anything that differs from that. 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. Curious for Curiousity’s Sake? 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. For coaches, such curiosity is vital if they want to grow and innovate. Yet identifying what they should be curious about is a bit difficult. The truth is that we never know what knowledge might come in useful in the future; what might help one make connections that others aren’t able to see. Whilst I’m not overly fond of examples that are based on Steve Jobs – there is a great deal of revisionism whenever he is put forward as a test case - this point is best explained by one element of his success at Apple. Despite having dropped out of Reed College, Jobs still took a class in calligraphy which had nothing to do with what he had been studying or was planning to work at: he undertook those lessons because it was a subject that intrigued him. Undoubtedly for many that would be considered a frivolous waste of time that should have been spent working on something that might have directly impacted his future. Yet, years later, when he was part of the team developing the first Mac those apparently frivolous lessons kicked in to help him come up with the idea of having different typefaces and fonts. It was a minor innovation but it revolutionised the world of personal computing and beyond. As Leslie puts it, “the more we know, the better we are at thinking”. Broader View Does this mean that football coaches should be taking random courses in the hope that something that they come across there might come in useful in the future? Of course not. Yet 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. Or by examining the path that Sir Clive Woodward took to leading England to winning the World Cup. And that is only rugby. The same can be said of other team sports like basketball or hockey. Even individual sports like cycling and rowing have a richness of information and ideas. Seeing what these do probably won’t provide immediate answers by they act as a fertiliser for the brain so that when you come across a challenge it will be primed to look beyond the boundaries of football for possible solutions. 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 Ideas Come From” calls this the slow hunch. “Rather than coming out of the blue, we believe that 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. “Instead of focusing on the creation of ideas and trying to force them into being, one is better off focusing on understanding the relevant phenomenon in depth. Then it simply becomes a matter of being open to the ideas when they show up – be it in casual conversation, intense data crunching or, as sometimes in Mozart’s case, on a sleepless night.” Collaborate The great thing, of course, is that today it is easier than ever before to get such information.
Thanks to the internet there is a treasure trove of information that is easily accessible and available to everyone. It doesn’t beat actually talking to individuals and learning from them or seeing them execute their strategies, but it is undoubtedly a great start. And, indeed, if you want to make those individual connections the internet facilitates matters more than ever before. Twitter, for instance, can be powerful tool for football coaches. Through it they can make connections like never before and talk to fellow coaches who have different experiences to them. This is a kind of curiosity that Leslie identified in Leondardo da Vinci, one of the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind, who was a very social person talking to other experts to learn off them. “People who are deeply curious are more likely to be good at collaboration,” Leslie writes. “They seek new acquaintances and allies in the process of building their stock of cultural knowledge.” But it isn’t just renaissance Italian thinkers who acted in this manner. Look at most of the top managers in the history of the game – particularly over the past three decades – and you will find that they spent some time travelling to see how top teams prepare. Many will tell you that this was a valuable part of their education, as it provided them with insights and ideas that they would eventually use to develop their own philosophy. The willingness to make such trips – or at least a determined and sustained desire to see what is happening elsewhere - is vital. When we think of great people, those who have made the biggest breakthroughs in science, we immediately assumed that what made them different is their intelligence. That, however, is partly correct. Because, whilst intelligence does play a vital role it is not an exclusive factor.
Indeed, there have undoubtedly been more intelligent people who haven’t managed to make such contributions. A hungry mind, one which eagerly looks for information, is vital. This was determined by Sophie von Stumm, a lecturer in psychology at Goldsmitshs University, who through a series of studies, proved that intellectual curiosity – “the tendency to seek out, engage in and pursue opportunities for effortful cognitive activity” – is as important as intelligence. And if Pep Guardiola felt that he needed to see how Marcelo Bielsa worked before launching his own project at Barcelona, why should anyone else hold back from fostering and expressing such curiosity? This article was largely inspired by Ian Leslie’s book ‘Curious’ and by discussions with the author himself who kindly agreed to be a beta-reader. A second part of this article will focus on the need for coaches to foster curiosity among their players. For full disclosure purposes it is noted that a copy of Curious was provided by the books’ publisher. Also, a small fraction of any book purchased by following the links in this piece make their way back to Blueprint for Football.
