Soccer Edition 68

Welcome to the Soccer Newsletter. Today's newsletter deals with relationship building between coaches, players and teammates.

If you look at the results of the last FineSoccer survey, you will see that most of the people who responded, you will see that most of the coaches who responded felt that coaches should be allowed to stay with their teams for more then 5 years. The interesting thing is that while 39% of the people felt that a coach should stay with a team for 5 years or more, only 9% are currently with their team for that long (go to http://finesoccer.com/survey.htm to see the results and to participate in the new survey).

Coaching a team for one season barely gives a coach enough time to really get to know the players tendencies and to get them all playing the same system and style. In this first season, the coach can start to make corrections and adjustments but this is still when the coach and the players are starting to really develop a relationship (anyone who doesn't think it's important for a coach and player to have a relationship should just delete this newsletter and move on because you are NOT going to agree with anything else I write).

As the player and coach start to understand each other, they SHOULD be able to relate better to each other. The idea that all players should be treated the same is both archaic and incorrect. Instead of treating all players the same, a coach should concentrate on treating each player as an individual and fairly. While some players are very sensitive and don't handle criticism well, others can handle criticism well but don't handle being singled out, other players have other traits that need to be handled separately. If a coach doesn't take the time to really understand each of their players and each of the player's traits, then the next question that needs to be asked is whether this person is really a coach at all? Learning about each other takes time and caring and to think this can happen overnight is ludicrous. I believe that without this type of a relationship, a coach cannot be successful (keeping in mind that I am defining success in terms of developing better soccer players and helping to spread the love of the game).

In a coaches second year of working with a team, these types of relationships can really be used to make a better team (by having the players really understand what a coach is getting at as well as the coach having a pretty good idea of what each player wants and needs. There are some clubs out there (although not many) that limit a coach to staying with their team for two years only and I believe that those clubs are limiting their coaches ability to really get the most out of their teams (one or two of these clubs have been successful using this policy but most that had it have since changed with the times). By knowing not only what the team needs to get better but also what each individual needs to get better, the coach can really do a better job in working with the team.

The third year with a team, things should really be jelling. Both the team and the coach know each other and if their relationship is done properly, they should be working toward a common goal.

How long do I think that a coach should be with a team? The best answer I can give is that I don't know. It depends on the individual and the situation. I do think that there is a point where a coach and team can get stale but that really depends on the people involved. I do NOT believe there is a set time period at which all coaches have been with their team too long. This is a very personal decision that only the coach and team can make. When they feel that the team can't get anything more out of the relationship (or when they feel that the team can get MORE out of a relationship with someone else) then it's time to look for a change.

As a bit of an aside, I remember reading an article in Sports Illustrated some years ago. It was about a high school cross-country coach who had won many state championships in a row. The article said that one of his keys was that he made sure to use each runners name everyday in training. His point was that the best runners received a lot of attention and the worst runners (certainly not his word) also received a lot of attention but the average runners received very little attention. I thought about this a great deal and started to make an effort to use every players name every session. It made me more aware of how easy it is to not develop a relationship with each player because if I had to force myself to use a name, you could imagine what type of relationship (or non relationship) I had with the player. Interestingly, I met with a very successful college soccer coach this weekend and he told me that he had a team rule that each day, when a player first sees the coaches, they must come over and shake each of the coaches hands. It sounds like a small thing but by doing this, it creates an interaction automatically. Small things can make a huge difference when it comes to being successful/

Developing relationships will help make the difference between a good coach and a bad coach. However, it takes time and caring. Unfortunately, too many coaches are willing to take the time or to care enough to be successful.

I do feel the need to put in the disclaimer that some coaches take the relationship building a bit too far when it comes to males and females. I am surprised at how much leeway that parents seem to give coaches with their children.

If you have any ideas on how to create relationship building, it would be wonderful if you would share them on the FineSoccer Forum at http://finesoccer.com/forum.htm or by sending an email to comments@finesoccer.com.

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Have a great day!

Lawrence

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