Reader,
This week I saw a quote from Arsene Wenger which stated, “Between the ages of 5-12, it’s better to have no coach at all than a bad one.”
I’m not sure when Wenger said it, but I know it’s been floating around for a while and when it popped up in my feed it got me thinking about, why?
It’s likely, this quote comes from a place that suggests poor coaching could stifle creativity, create poor habits, or simply take away from the football experience leading to disengagement.
In my work supporting coaches, one of the most common issues I see across the board is noise. Noise in the form of instruction, emotion, commentary or perhaps just coaches who feel they need to fill the void with their voice in order to validate their existence.
Using our voice is one way of intervening. Other ways could be body language, individual targets, task design, or in contrast, we could do nothing at all and this still has an effect.
As a young coach, I believed a key part of my role was ‘motivating’ my players. Whether this was an attempt at an inspiring team talk, giving them a “rev-up” at halftime, or telling them what to do to get a result, I had probably watched too many Hollywood movies and look back now knowing I had a lot to learn.
22 years later, I try to be much more considered about how I intervene, and the bulk of these tend to be individual, based on the needs of the player and with the aim of not stopping the flow of the session where possible.
Of course, there are moments when coaches have opportunities to make a significant impact with halftime talks, pre-game tactics or post-game reflection, but we need to be clever with how we go about it. I like to think of it as finding the balance between inspiration and information.
Three things to consider
- Consider the impact of every intervention you make. When you choose to use your voice, give instruction, praise, support, and feedback. All of it comes with a trade off.
- Give yourself time to let your sessions breathe. Often we tend to want to jump straight in and ‘help’ the players, or instruct, to share the knowledge in our heads. But if you step back, give the players time and check if they understand the task and the rules, you can now use your eyes and ears to assess before potentially stepping in.
- Embrace the chaos and accept that in player development (and even performance contexts) mistakes are inevitable. The game can look messy with young players especially, but if the practice looks like football and the players are making decisions, and most importantly – enjoying themselves, you’re on the right track.
One thing for you to try this week.
Plan your sessions with a high percentage of ball-rolling time.
For example, if you have 60 minutes for practice, see if you can ensure the ball rolls for 45 minutes (75% ball-rolling time). This means good planning is required.
Quick water breaks, well-planned activities and only a handful of interventions might be possible in this 15-minute window, so you need to be deliberate and concise. As one coach developer once told me, “Get in and get out!”
One critical resource on the topic.
Check out this excellent Masterclass Discussion with Professor Stephen Rollnick, Edu Rubio and the PDP team on effective coach communication.
