Can’t make Messi but ensure it’s fun
Good coaching is actually simple. Just remember to get out of the way of the talent, writes Bill Harris.
OPINION: The six qualities Belgium look for when scouting for young players (and Belgium, 10th in the world, know what they’re talking about): ● a winner’s mentality ● emotional stability ● personality ● explosiveness ● insight in the game (football intelligence) ● ball and body control
This is news to those who think the game is all about skill.
How many of the above do our coaches work on with our budding Messis?
Yes, coaches work on ball control, but do little or nothing on body control, ie co-ordination and balance. Some token work with speed ladders perhaps.
Football intelligence? Coaches tell the kids where to be when this or that happens.
But the game is unpredictable, and when the kids have to read situations for themselves (can I intercept the ball, where’s the ball going next, what’s my opponent going to do), make split second decisions, react to changing situations, well, they seem to either have it or they don’t.
Coaching won’t help nearly as much as experience.
With explosiveness so important, it’s surprising that teams don’t spend more time on it.
Hands up anyone who’s played in a team where the fastest guy, skilful or not, was your most valuable player? But speed is hard to gain, and a slow player is never going to be fast, which perhaps explains why it goes in the too hard basket.
Do Kiwi coaches work on personality or emotional stability (other than telling a crying kid ‘‘Hey you’re doing really well out there’’)? That, coaches think, is for the parents to sort out.
And winner’s mentality? Not only do we not work on it, we actively discourage it. ‘‘It’s about development, not results,’’ is the common refrain. Winning doesn’t matter.
That’s true, but wanting to win does. Fortunately, the kids with winner’s mentality retain it, even if authorities withhold results and league tables for fear of hurting our little darlings’ feelings.
Looking at those six qualities, do some coaches, with their magnetic boards, motivational emails to their juniors, and lengthy team talks for the peewees, think they’re a little more important than they are?
Who’ll be the kid from any team who goes furthest in the game? Provided he’s born with good basic tools, it’s the kid with good intrinsic motivation to be the best he can, who spends the most time on his skills. This can’t be imposed on him by parents with dollar signs in their eyes, and any effort to do so will likely make him quit.
To repeat a quote: ‘‘I don’t believe skill is the result of coaches. It is a result of a love affair between the child and the ball.’’
Hmm. So if a player’s skill is determined by what he does in his own time, and the other five are also largely outside the coach’s control, what value can the coach add?
Coaches like to think they ‘‘produce’’ players. Manchester United pride themselves on their Class of ’92. Giggs, Beckham, Scholes, Butt and the Nevilles. But if United produced those players, why didn’t they produce another six like them the next year? Or the next?
No, United simply recruited the top youngsters around, and the players matured into the top players they were going to be. At Barcelona, why hasn’t the famed ‘‘La Masia’’ school turned out more Messis, Iniestas and Xavis in the last 15 years? Because they haven’t found them.
Our own Ryan Nelsen, GETTY IMAGES Winston Reid and Chris Wood? Did anyone coach them to be the big strapping athletes they are? Who gave Vaughn Coveny and Wynton Rufer the pace that was critical to them becoming great All Whites strikers?
The skills those five developed to complement their athleticism were acquired against a wall at home, in the playground at school or in the park down the road. Voluntarily.
They had instruction along the way, some of which might actually have helped.
But basically, the job of any coach working with our kids is simple.
Keep it fun. Keep it purposeful. And keep out of the way.