More often than not, I have been asked football questions by very respectable members of society and footballers. Footballers in this context refers to all who play, manage and administrate the game. The general ineterst hinges on the game's philosophies, styles and then touchline and dressing room management.
Before I take you down that road, what is of interest to me is how people think that an animated coach is a good coach. He telss the players what to do. He gestures and points figures everywhere. I do that a lot, never finding time to sit myself, but that is not coaching.
Coaching is a lifestyle. All your philosophies of life are transplanted to the players and embedded in their lives too, if their are to play well for the coach. Unfortunately, many coaches do not live to see the tea break after signing a contract. That is the deathbed of football. As in any management position, management styles differ from dictatorship to democratic. I will not go through the long list in between and the jargon.
What then is coaching and what does one do and say in the dressing room pep talk and on the touch line? Ideally, in both cases, nothing. A coach's job is done at training. The job has limited talking and too much teaching. Skipping the preliminary stages of the game of coaching technique, let us look at a professional side of tactical training. Here, players must be taught is practical terms with demonstrations where to stand, run, or behave and the reasons why. This is repeated forever and ever.
Propaganda and humour must be intertwined to get both the attention and positive results. Again, repetition is the key but it must never reach a boring stage and instructions must be very clear. It is the degree of the coach's clarity and ability to demonstrate his ideas that makes or breaks a career. First, the thoughts must be chronological to make progressive sense. The idea must be practical enough to solve whatever playing problems the team needs solved.
At the end of explaining the idea, demonstrating by the coach and rehearsing by the players - first at walking pace and zero difficulty and then increasing the challenge by introducing obstacles and variations, a match is played and every move observed and compared to the notes as previously given. Initially, at any given opportunity of an error committed, play is stopped and the shortfall either pointed out straight away by the mentor or a question thrown out to the team to see if anyone saw what went wrong.
The same is done for a job well done. In case of a flop, a rehearsal is performed in a 'stop - start - stop - start' situation until the move comes out. Here coaches will differ in tolerance. Some will be content with 50 % achievement, others 80 % so that time is not wasted dwelling on the same issue. I will not move on until things are done right.
Most of the concepts here will apply to different aspect of training in totality in an ideal situation. All a coach has to do, is make sure, he is understood. He must first understand his subject very well and tattoo that onto his players. The more he shows the grasp of his philosophy, the more respect he gets from his players. They will try to please him at all costs and win him games. This process takes ages to be embedded into any human being of ordinary generation.
Come match day, a coach will need a few things to REMIND players. It must be what he has taught them over the previous training periods. It cannot be everything of course. Human capacity is limited the amount of data assimilated, worse under tense and nervous moments before matches. Here, visuals like boards should be used. During the match, notes are taken concerning what is going right, in comparison to training, and how things can be improved. Statistics is taken to prove some points and to help design further training methods.
Quite a number of things go wrong during the match. The coach's worry is usually a few simple mistakes that players should not be making. It may take reminding a few guys one or two points, hence the pointing of fingers and throwing of arms. There is nothing hew to say to the team. The same is true at half time. The coach does not ask players to do things they do not know. He cannot coach them. All he does is remind them about the training they had. Anything fancy with big words and emotions, is a waste of time and usually done to impress the ignorant journalists.
For a record, it is usual for a coach to shout and signal to a player who responds by a thumbs-up. If you have the opportunity and the gust, ask the player what the coach said to him. You will be surprised that he gave a thumbs-up for hearing nothing. Sometimes it is the same in giving instructions before a substitute comes on. They are too eager to play and only hear the coach’s blah blah. I usually talk my substitutes during the match. They follow the match and my thoughts as well.
The general management of the dressing room at this time must be dominated by attending to injuries, individual worries and general relaxation and rehydration. Have you seen the team owners walking into the dressing room during half-time? They do it to destroy the coach they are paying a lot of money. That is the best way to lose a good coach like myself.
Instead of asking what the coaching say in the dressing room before matches or at half-time, or on the touch-line, ask what the players have been taught at training. Then you will know what the instructions being given are.
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