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.
Over the past years there has been an increasing realisation of the importance of intelligence in football. Defining and measuring a concept as nebulous as intelligence is difficult, however. Andres Iniesta might provide the key to changing that. Keeping on the theme of the brain in football, here’s a piece by John Haime that talks about building and sustaining confidence in footballers. Something that I plan to look into in greater detail during 2017 is physical literacy. If you have any thoughts, questions and ides, do feel free to share them. In case you missed it, there’s been a lot of fuss in Scotland over Ian Cathro getting the job of Hearts manager because he never had a significant playing career. Given his experience in coaching, I can’t believe that people are actually talking about this but, still, it was encouraging to see Rangers manager Mark Warburton come out with is opinions. AND FINALLY... “Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing; and your attitude when you have everything" - Imam Ali If you like this list of links, why not join Blueprint for Football Extra, the newsletter that delivers the links and more directly to your e-mail inbox every Monday night? Click here to join.
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). What do you need to be a top goalkeeper? Obviously talent is a necessity as is physical presence but what else? We spoke to Ruud Hesp, formerly a goalkeeper with Barcelona and currently the goalkeeper’s coach at PSV Eindhoven, about the various facets of the art of goalkeeping. The Most Important Ability A Goalkeeper Needs The thing that you need to have is to be stable in your head; to be able to get along with pressure. For me, for example, when I played for Barcelona I didn’t feel the pressure from the public and the press because I didn’t read the papers, I didn’t see the television and I was only thinking about my own pressure. I was only thinking about playing well and if I didn’t do that then people could only be disappointed but not angry because I knew that I was doing everything to perform well.
I trained well during the whole week. For me every training (session) was an opportunity to improve. So when I started the game I had the confidence of being prepared for the game. And then you need some luck also apart from the qualities you have. You have to be free in your head. Reaction After A Mistake What I try to give our goalkeepers at PSV is that you have to think about what happens. Briefly, but you have to think about it. What kind of mistake did I make? And it sounds very stupid but ask yourself: did I do it on purpose? No, I didn’t do it on purpose. So, people cannot be angry at me, they can only be disappointed. Then what you have to do is to analyse your mistake. Is it a goalkeeping mistake? Is it a positioning mistake, did you place yourself in the wrong spot? Did you come out when you shouldn’t have? Is it something with your feet that you did wrong? I can give you an example. When I played for Barcelona against Chelsea in 1998, we lost at Chelsea 3-1 so needed to win 2-0. We were leading 2-0 and I received a ball that I played badly. I wanted to kick it long but instead gave to the Chelsea striker Tore Andre Flo and he scored; 2-1. In the end we won and went through but at that moment we still had to play 15 minutes to score another goal. After that mistake, in the next minute Frank Lampard shot on goal because maybe he thought that I was insecure or my confidence had gone. And it was a ball that was swerving in the air. The ball came just to the right side of me, I got it and I held it. That was the first moment after the mistake.
Afterwards I was trying to analyse what happened and I realised that I had been able to analyse the mistake as one with my kicking, not a mistake of catching the ball. So I instinctively realised that a mistake of my passing should not influence my goalkeeping (shot stopping). And that is what I try to explain to our goalkeepers, even our youth goalkeepers. One mistake does not have to influence other parts of your goalkeeping. But that comes with experience. That’s difficult in the beginning. Training For Handling Mistakes You don’t know in advance but you can train. You can train it by putting the goalkeeper in those situations. In training you can play bad balls and if he makes a mistake then the next ball has to be good. And if you try to get the goalkeeper in a lot of bad situations then he has to react to that and do the good thing. So you have to bring him in bad situations to get him in a positive situation. In the beginning that is very difficult because they get frustrated but if that happens a lot of time then it gets natural and automatic reaction after they do a mistake. But that also needs a lot of experience. That is also why they say that a goalkeeper is at his peak after twenty seven years because by then he has played a lot of games, he’s had a lot of situations, so he knows what to do.
Ability With Feet And Hands Goalkeeping has changed and playing with your feet is important. But still what is most important is the goalkeeping with your hands, choosing position and things like that. So, what we try to do is to train the goalkeepers in playing with ball – passing and kicking – in exercises that involve goalkeeping. That means they have to shoot a lot, they have to play in position games and when the outfield players do passing exercises goalkeepers join them. It is also important for the players to know the capabilities of the goalkeeper in playing with his feet. So many times our warming ups include a lot of football actions because about ten years ago when it all changed everybody began to train the football things and not as much the goalkeeping things. And, in my opinion, that went too far. The most important is the goal. The goalkeeper is the only one who can use his hands so that has to be a hundred percent. He is also allowed to use his feet but that is secondary. So most important is training the hands and then the feet.
On Commanding The Penalty Area It is difficult and that also needs experience. But if you start training that aspect from a young age then you can develop it. Also, it depends on character. If you’re a quite person it is difficult for you to be dominant during the game. But if you want to succeed you have to. So it is important that they start getting that feeling from a young age. What we try to do at PSV is to give them some words that they have to use according to the situation. That way if they grow up or get to another team then they know what to do. At the same time the players know that they mean when they state those words. If you train that from a young age they get used to it. It becomes a habit.
When I started out as a goalkeeper professionally I was a quite boy but then I came into a team that was made up of very opinionated men so if I wanted to survive I had to do the same. So in order to integrate I had to do the same. I had to train myself because in those days, whilst there was a goalkeeping coach, he was only shooting balls to the goal. They were not working with a philosophy about how to improve the goalkeepers. Nowadays we have a lot of plans and we do a lot of logical things. In the old days we used to shoot balls. It was nice but now we try to be a bit more specific. What does a goalkeeper need to play well? We constantly ask ourselves that. Preparing For Big Games For me, if we show them pictures of opponents then we are not doing so to worry them but to remind them of the opportunity that they have. Wow, you’re going to face Messi! We show them their qualities and they have to be prepared for that. But we present it to them as a chance to do well, not a reason to worry. They get videos sent home so that they can be prepared but again it is for the opportunity to stop people from scoring. If you present it like that then the goalkeepers gets into the game with another feeling. You should never give the impression that the opponent is too good for you.
Special thanks to Thijs Slegers, the press officer at PSV Eindhoven, for his assistance in the setting up of this interview. Other snippets from the interview with Ruud Hesp are available here.
Goalkeepers, it is often said, are different. You have to be when in a game where the ultimate aim is to put the ball between the goalposts you dedicate yourself to stop it from doing so. There is often little glory to be had and the expectation that you are willing to do anything – including throwing yourself into trashing boots – to get hold of the ball. It is a tough, unglamorous and thanklessness job. So why would anyone decide to become a goalkeeper? “I wasn’t good enough to play outfield!” Ruud Hesp laughs as he recalls how it was that he picked up goalkeepers’ gloves for the first time. “I was always big. I started as a striker, moved to midfield and in the end I was a central defender because I was the biggest player and I could head the ball well so they moved me over there.” It is there that he would have stayed if fate hadn’t intervened. “When I was twelve years old I played at an amateur club and the goalkeeper was sick, the second goalkeeper had to play a table tennis game so they said ‘Ruud will you go in goal?’ because I was playing goalkeeper at my school. I played very well in that first game and they said ‘you stay in goal’. And I liked it. So it was a coincidence that I became a goalkeeper.” This seems to be the conventional path for most goalkeepers. The main difference for Hesp was that he was good enough at it to make a career out of goalkeeping. Most of this career was spent playing for mid-size clubs who often lagged behind the three giants of Dutch football. He was good enough to catch the attention of Dutch national coaches but call-ups never turned into appearances. Then, at the age of thirty two, he received a surprise call: Barcelona wanted to sign him.
Louis Van Gaal had just been re-appointed manager and it was on his recommendation that Hesp was approached. Barcelona had signed Vitor Baia the previous summer but whilst the Portuguese was at the time considered among the world’s finest goalkeepers not everyone was convinced. “Van Gaal had already tried to sign me for Ajax but there was Edwin Van Der Saar there and I knew that he was better than me. I didn’t fancy going to Ajax to be a reserve so I turned him down. Clearly, he must have thought highly enough of me that he mentioned me when he moved to Spain.” “After a couple of weeks, Baia got injured and I stepped into his place.” Hesp retained his place even when the Portuguese goalkeeper recovered – indeed, Baia was loaned back to Porto midway through the season - and he eventually went on to win two league titles, a European Super Cup and a Copa Del Rey in his three years with the Catalan giants. “Barcelona are the biggest club in the world and playing for them was amazing,” he says. After Barcelona he went into coaching and was the goalkeepers’ coach of the Dutch national side that reached the World Cup final in 2010. “When Edwin Van der Saar played his first national game I was the second goalkeeper,” he recalls. “When he played his last national game I was there as the national team’s goalkeeping coach.” By that stage, Hesp had started to put the experience that he had garnered to the benefit of others as a goalkeeper’s coach and the main current beneficiaries are the PSV goalkeepers, where Hesp works.
There is a particular moment where the benefit of this experience stuck out. “I can give you an example. When I played for Barcelona against Chelsea in 1998, we lost at Chelsea 3-1 so needed to win 2-0. We were leading 2-0 and I received a ball that I played badly. I wanted to kick it long but instead gave to the Chelsea striker Tore Andre Flo and he scored; 2-1.” “In the end we won and went through but at that moment we still had to play 15 minutes to score another goal. After that mistake, in the next minute, Frank Lampard shot at goal because maybe he thought that I was insecure or my confidence had gone. And it was a ball that was swerving in the air. The ball came just to the right side of me, I got it and I held it. That was the first moment after the mistake.” “Afterwards I was trying to analyse what happened and I realised that I had been able to analyse the mistake as one with my kicking, not a mistake of catching the ball.” “So I instinctively realised that a mistake of my passing should not influence my goalkeeping (shot stopping). And that is what I try to explain to our goalkeepers, even our youth goalkeepers. One mistake does not have to influence other parts of your goalkeeping. But that comes with experience. That’s difficult in the beginning.” The benefit of his experience played out even off the pitch. “Before Barcelona I played in Roda and we had a lot of foreign guys who couldn’t speak the language.” “They walked past supporters who wanted to speak to them but they couldn’t talk back. I always thought to myself that if I ever moved to another country I wanted to know the language because I wanted to speak to the people. And it is easier on the pitch.”
“So there was a translator who was always helping the new foreign players with the press conferences. He started doing the same with me for one month but afterwards I started doing them in Spanish.” “I made a lot of mistakes but afterwards the journalists came to me to tell me that it was great that I was doing so after one month. They appreciated it and they gave me tips of what to say in certain situations. So I started talking Spanish really quickly. And I also asked people. Speaking the language is very important.” Hesp is clearly passionate about his job and loves what he does but there he admits that being a coach is second best to actually playing. “As a goalkeeper you think you have control of the situation and you can influence the situation. As a goalkeeper trainer your influence lasts until the players get on to the pitch. Then it stops. That is the big difference.” “As a goalkeeper coach you cannot make corrections on the pitch. Then it stops. That is the big difference.” “When I started as a goalkeeper coach I was more nervous than when I was a player.”
“Being a goalkeeper is the most beautiful thing to do and being a goalkeeper’s coach is the second most beautiful thing to do. I enjoy coaching young players because they’re hungry to learn about the game and eager to hear what you have to say. I really enjoy what I’m doing at a very beautiful club.” At PSV he is tasked with coaching not only the first team players but also those players coming through the ranks meaning that he is tasked with continuing the rich Dutch tradition for great goalkeepers. “I think that it is because in Holland we spend a lot of time training goalkeepers. Even in the old days. In Holland everyone had his goalkeeper’s coach and that has been the case for a lot of years. Before other countries started having a goalkeeper trainer in Holland we already had that,” he says of this tradition. “We always thought in Holland that goalkeepers were very important and that they are the foundation of the team. You can have good players but if the goalkeeper isn’t good enough then you have a problem. A house is built on a good foundation. It is the same with goalkeepers.” “That is why in Holland we spend a lot of time on goalkeeper training. When I started my career in professional football it was only shooting at the goal but I got the attention.” “I’ve had a lot of goalkeeper trainers myself and now I’m doing it. It is good to have a goalkeeper coach because he sees and feels the thing you feel. For me (as a coach) it is much easier to see into the head of a goalie. A goalie can come to me and ask me things on why it happened and I can talk to him about it.”
“These days games are decided by details and having a good goalkeeping coach can be a very important detail.” “Today all players are very fit, they have power, and they are well conditioned. So in those cases you look for the details and it can help make you champions.” Special thanks to Thijs Slegers, the press officer at PSV Eindhoven, for his assistance in the setting up of this interview. Enjoyed this article? 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).
“I watch the goals on my phone to get me in the mood and to give myself a vision of how I want the game to go. As the season has gone on, I have got more clips, but that’s good. The clips now last around 15-20 minutes, which is normally what the coach ride to a stadium takes - so it is perfect. It gets me in the right mood.” That is how Daniel Sturridge described his pre-game ritual in the run-in of the 2013-14 season when he scored twenty four times and Liverpool came close to winning the league title. It is a clever way to fill what could easily become a negative space – the coach ride to the game - where anxiety and nerves might build up to ruin a player’s performance before a ball has been kicked.
It is also one of the more practical ways through which video analysis can be used even at the highest level. The practise of trying to visualise success has now worked its way into many professions, not just sports, yet few have the luxury of being able to see themselves successfully doing what they want to do. Video can provide that luxury. The popular belief is that the use of video lies largely in the analysis of past games as well as to provide insight into future opponents and it is quite an accurate perception. Yet, as the Sturridge example show, it is a tool that can be used to achieve much more than that depending there is real knowledge on how to do so. This latter aspect is crucial. Whilst at a professional level there are people with the specialised training to do so – video analysts and sports psychologist in particular – at lower levels it is very much based on intuition. Coaches try to implement something because they are convinced that video can help but often have to do so within the limitations of time, ability and resources that they have. Yet the possible impact of video analysis is huge especially if you consider the massive advances in technology that has put such analysis within the reach of a larger number of people than ever before. Know What Needs To Be Done “I’m finding that a lot young players are very good at self-assessing,” Craig Easton – the former Scotland U21, Dundee United, Leyton Orient and Swindon midfielder who is currently working as a youth coach – recently commented. “This in turn helps them think more about what and how they can improve.” If there is one thing that recent studies in psychology have taught us, it is the importance of
being able to look within yourself in order to develop. Carol Dweck, the Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and the author of Mindset, coined the phrase growth mindset which essentially means that ability to look at recent successes and failures in order to determine what lessons can be taken forward. What distinguishes people who achieve extraordinary things from the rest isn’t simply the intellect or physical ability but also how they allow experiences to shape them. Even if you take the past decade alone, there are dozens of footballers who failed to achieve what they should have not because of lack of talent but because of their attitude. This knowledge adds a layer of responsibility on coaches (and teachers). It is no longer enough to teach children how to execute a task, you have to allow them to learn to see where they got it wrong and how they can change matters. Obviously, video is ideal for this purpose. Observing oneself and others is one of the strongest mechanisms for transmitting behaviours, attitudes and values. This is commonly referred to as experiential learning: the process of learning through reflection on doing. Often it is difficult to comprehend abstract ideas like when a striker should make a run or the moment when a defender should step up for the offside trap to work. This process, however, is rendered significantly simpler when there is a video that the individual can see of himself and through which he can drill into the mechanics of what he got wrong or right. Importance of Guidance For this to be effective there is the need for someone to point out the minutia – how to recognise when and what type of run to make, for instance - and provide the necessary guidance. This does not mean constant handholding - which is both impossible and impractical - but it does require a certain level of individual attention that is often triggered by specific practical dilemmas.
Yet learning can be of a different nature as video provides the individual with more information than ever before to deal with potential threats during upcoming games. Seeing what a direct rival likes to do allows the individual to prepare himself for the threat so that when they face each other on the pitch there is already a pattern in his head and he does not have to spend time thinking of how to handle a specific movement. Essentially, video is the perfect mechanism for showing individuals how to carry out those minor changes that can have a significant uplift in their performance as well as giving those same individuals a way for evaluating their own performance. Eventually the aim is for the individual to be able to analyse his own performances and those of upcoming opponents to such an extent that he will be able to gauge what he did wrong during games or what he needs to be aware of. The need for external inputs will be minimised. Sometimes, however, players need more than that. Complacency and the temptation to
blame others for ones’ own mistakes can be too hard to resist if all one is doing is looking at his footage on his own. It is why group sessions where the whole team reviews footage of past games, dissecting them in order to identify what they got right and what needs to be improved, are important. Such a group analysis holds all players accountable and provides the jolt that is occasionally needed in order to step up and improve focus. Not everyone is a fan of this approach and it is easy to understand why. Criticism isn’t always easy to take especially if teenagers (for whom the image that they hold within the group is extremely important) are involved. No one likes to be pulled up in front of others or have their weaknesses discussed in public. At the same time, the ability to learn to deal with this pressure of being in the spotlight is also a necessary skill especially for those who are in professional academies and who hope to make it to the highest level. If one does not learn to cope with having a couple dozen people looking at how he did, what hope does he have of handling the pressure of performing in front of thousands of people? Getting The Right Message Across That, however, does not excuse the coaches from taking care of how they deliver any group video analysis session and, in particular, the message that they project. In such situations it is the confident players who tend to thrive taking on the comments without letting them effect their view of themselves.
Less confident players, however, are usually less comfortable in these sessions and rather than helping them such public analysis can bring their game down. It is largely because of these players that coaches need to ensure that the aim is clear of these sessions is clear – that of improvement – so as to ensure that no one feels the need to hide. Ranting, then, or being overly aggressive when going over individual mistakes should be avoided because such actions nullify the positive intentions behind the exercise. There are other pitfalls that coaches have to look out for. Overly long session invariably become boring and repetitive which again nullifies the benefits of the whole analysis. On the flip side, coaches have to beware not to overly hype players. Watching clips of goals before a game – ala Sturridge - is a good way of getting a player to visualise their success and create mental pictures that can be used during the games. Yet another player watching a similar video with the wrong kind of music can do more than that: it may end up with that player sent off or getting injured by ‘pushing’ him to go into rash challenges. As with anything video analysis does not work for everyone. There will be those who consider it to be a useless waste of time for whom it will be extremely difficult to buy into such analysis. Coaches should be aware of such players to ensure that their cynicism does not influence others whilst at the same time avoid falling into the trap of trying to force it down anyone’s throats. The important thing is focusing on those for whom such analysis does make an impact. Even if the potential impact is slight, coaches have the responsibility to learn as much as they can and do whatever is in their power to maximise it.
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As someone who tended to do well at school, quickly getting to grips with ideas that others struggled to absorb, I grew up thinking of myself as rather good academically. My teachers told me I was and so did my parents so eventually that became part of my identity.
On the other hand, I always struggled with more manual and physical tasks. Sports, for instance, didn’t come as naturally to me and so, while I loved watching it and envied those with greater ability than me, I never really did anything to challenge that concept. I simply accepted that I wasn’t cut out for sports. In time such beliefs spread elsewhere. I loved writing, finding it easy whilst others sweated at it. When I tried learning French, however, I struggled massively and eventually concluded that languages weren’t my strong point, even though I was fluent in three by that point. Why am I sharing all this? Because those beliefs are what this book is all about. More specifically, it is all about how we – and those around us - straightjacket ourselves through such belief. The words that we tell ourselves or are told have a powerful impact on how we think. As Dweck points out in the book, there is research which shows that tests can be impacted negatively simply by reminding people of their racial background before the test kicks off. Mindset is filled with such examples and how they impact people’s daily life. It is such, frankly, a life changing book that will lead you to question your own beliefs, how you act and what you tell others. This is a book that everyone should read regardless of where they are in their life. Naturally, it is much more valuable if you have a group of players in your care. It makes you appreciate more how to deal with them and how to talk to them if you want them to progress. It also makes you realise that regardless of a player’s ability, you can make them better by guarding the way you talk to them so that you don’t put artificial limitations on them.
Why is it that some players show exceptional talent at one side but then look utterly lost when they move to a bigger club? Often this is blamed on a generic reason - character - when in truth the big-fish-little-pond syndrome explains it better. The main points of this syndrome are listed here: - Research has shown that an individual who attend a high-ability school had a greater possibility of lower academic self-concepts than another individual who went to a low-ability school. - When someone is in an environment that expects high achievement there is the tendency that such an individual shrinks away rather than rising to the challenge. - To put this in context if two fish of roughly equal size are put into different ponds - one large and one small - there is the probability that the one in the smaller pond does better. - In 1966 American sociologist James A Davis warned 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. - When an individual feels that he is among the best in his team he will act in that way. Placed in a team where he is one of many - talent wise - there is the chance that he loses that edge. - 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 when placed in high achievement surroundings. Go here to read a more in-depth piece about the Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Syndrome.
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.
