Knowing and Managing Yourself

For this latest module at Ohio, we are focussed on management and leadership. These are very important areas in the coaching world. Our task is to take a group to a new destination. Of course that is leading and managing. We started off with a lot of self reflection questions. Below are my answers.

Part 1

How do you cope with failure? – Failure is necessary, although sometimes difficult to take. I calm down and remind myself of the bigger picture.  Reassess and see if changes need to be made. I try to stick to the plan, and always work towards that end goal. We have to accept that we can’t win all the time, and that you can play the game of your life and still lose. Sometimes it’s just not your day, but you shouldn’t lose sight of that end goal, and keep striving to achieve it.

What are the ways you bring out the best in others? – I make them believe that they are capable. I see my job not as someone who shows them how to do it, but who finds it within them and helps them unlock it. I use a lot of goal setting. Work backwards from the end result, and take measures to achieve the steps along the way. All the little victories add up, and with praise and encouragement along the way, players will get closer to that end result.

How do you handle pressure and adversity? –Very well. There isn’t a person alive who hasn’t had to deal with pressure and adversity, it’s just some see it as a learning opportunity or a challenge to overcome, and others take glory and comfort in the sympathy of others for the bad things that happen to them. Crying about it won’t get me there. Sympathy will not help me. When adversity is experienced as a group, you can use it to bind you together, and to strengthen you as a unit. Shared adversity gives you something in common that can ignite a fire within. I handle pressure with confidence. The situation or the environment should not and does not dictate how I will act. I only consider what is necessary, and disregard that which holds no bearing.

How do you exhibit patience and persistence? – With constant reminders of the key performance indicators. If achieving your goals was easy, it would be no fun. You will have to make mistakes, you will have to fail, and you will have to experience pain. I know that, and I also know that it is all worth it for what I want to gain. We must continue, despite the setbacks that come our way. I do not lose my temper (though I sometimes pretend I have to get a reaction out of the players) and remain clear of thought, often free of emotion. A loss is annoying, and a setback is frustrating, but if you give up, you don’t deserve that success you want. Winners never quit, and quitters never win.

How do you create balance in your life each day? – I believe I am bad at this, as I feel like I am always in coaching mode. My phone is always close by, and I am always quick to respond to team matters. I go to the gym five or six times a week, I practice my languages, I read, go out socially, and try to adhere to a timetable and a structure. I definitely need to be far better at letting time go by and not worrying so much.

How do you give respect to others? – By being honest, upfront, genuine, humble. I lead how I believe I would like to be lead. My game is not to belittle or embarrass players, but to set the bar high, and make them truly believe that they can get there, if they put their mind to it. I don’t lie. The truth is the easiest thing to remember, and we have lots to remember as coaches. Actions do speak louder than words, and where some players may think I am hard at the beginning, they will release I care about them when they begin to notice the little things, like the encouragement, the support, and the level of preparation. Some players act disrespectfully, but if you retaliate with disrespect, then you are just as bad. Counter it with respect, so you are not in the wrong. Be polite and lead by example.

How do you deal with criticism? – Ascertain where it is coming from and why they may be saying it. I was bullied a lot as a kid, which created a quiet and shy nature. I had to develop a thick skin. There’s two main ways that I deal with criticism, and it really does depend on the source. Is it a parent whose kid didn’t play? They’re upset and emotional, I know best, I always act fairly and with the interest of the kids at heart, so ignore it. Any threats to my integrity as a human being are swiftly ignored. I know 100% that I am doing things as fairly as I know. If the criticism concerns my ability, then it depends on the credentials of who is saying it. When it comes from a less experienced coach or someone who doesn’t coach at all, I am polite, but it goes in one ear and out the other. If it comes from someone I respect and admire, then I am all ears. Tutors and assessors are great sources of knowledge. We have to listen to that kind of criticism as it can help us get better. Soon I will embark on a very important high level coaching course. I want them to criticise me. I want them to find ways in which I can improve. Then I will take measures to make that a reality.

How do you make good decisions? – By following a structure. I like to plan so that decisions are made rationally and with good knowledge, rather than in the heat of the moment, often blinded by adrenaline. Where possible, I like to have plans to cover a variety of different angles. If X happens, we do Y. This eliminates worry and frees up processing room in your brain by not having it filled with needless decisions. We can’t analyse every single piece of relevant information right there and then as it happens, but we can plan for eventualities. When having to make in the moment decisions, I do not let emotion filter in. I sometimes wonder if Spock would have made a good coach. Many have said I am too calm, and likened me to a computer or a robot. It’s not often you see someone make a good decision while yelling and screaming.

How do you show that you care? – I put my life and soul into it. That has to count for something? I lead by example, which shows I am vested in the program. I am always there for the players and have gone out of my way to deal with issues that affect the team. Where I can make a difference, I do. Whether that is staying up late to design an individual fitness regime that may not be used, giving up my free time to meet a player and parent after an emotional vital loss, giving up my own time and money to make things better in crisis, and sending texts and calls asking about injured players, just to see how they are feeling. It’s difficult with work and other commitments to always be the first there and the last to leave, but I do that where possible. I have on many occasions spent an hour with players after training simply because they asked for advice on the way back to the car. I think that not all my players would say they feel cared about, but actions speak louder than words. I try to go above and beyond in every area. Players do need to feel cared for, but I do bend over backwards enough as it is. Sometimes neglecting other important areas of my life.

How do you celebrate? – Calmly. The job is never done. There is always another game. Even when you win the championship, how long is it until you begin your defence of that title? The moments of joy after so much sacrifice and only last a few seconds. It sounds like a completely unsatisfying quest that has no end. After winning the World Cup, players want to go back in four years’ time to try again. They say it’s not as good as the first, but they are trying to relive that high. That sounds like an addiction. I suppose it is.

How do you accept responsibility for your actions? - Never blaming the field, conditions, officials, luck. Always looking within. Always asking what could we, or what could I have done better. Believing firmly that we are responsible for our own destiny. With my youth teams, to relieve the pressure from the players amidst a large horde of screaming parents, I tell them “When we win, it’s credit to the players. When we lose, it’s my fault.” When I know I’ve made a mistake, I’m quick to apologise.

Part 2

Why do we exist? – My team is the reserve team, so we are looking to create players who are capable of playing for the first team. We take in younger players, we help rehabilitate injured first team players, and if anyone consistently performs highly for us, or the first team have a gap in their squad, they will be looking for our players to step up and fill in.

What is our purpose? – As a club, our purpose is to provide high level soccer to each one of our girls. We take them in at a young age and progress them through the age groups with the aim of creating players that are capable to represent us at a high competitive level. We want our first team to progress through the leagues and become one of the top sides in the country, and to do that, we must create players who are tactically and technically proficient.

Who are our stakeholders and what do they value? – We have parents, sponsors, and a small group of fans. The parents that have to pay for their daughters to play at a young age want to see quality coaching, competitive fixtures, good facilities, and that their daughter is given a fair chance to improve and demonstrate her skills. The sponsors wish the spread their brand recognition, but appear to be here mainly to see the club progress. I feel that they have a vested interest, mainly as they have friends and family members within the club. Seeing their brand on the front of our shirts is obviously good for business, but more important for them is seeing the players perform well and enjoy themselves. The fans, largely made of family, friends, and a small amount of people in the community, are going to games for moral support to the person they know. We are not a well-known team, and women’s soccer is not popular. We certainly don’t have any ultras or hooligan factors.

What is value to the student-athlete? – Our players are not student athletes as we represent a club rather than a college. The value to them is that they get to pursue an interest and a passion. Women’s soccer is increasing in popularity thanks to the success of the professional league and the third place finish of England women in the 2015 World Cup. Some may wish to progress to higher levels when they are older. Some players enjoy playing at the competitive level we are currently at. For some, it also provides a social life and a means of keeping fit.

What should our mission be? – To create players that will improve and support the first team, aiding them in their endeavour to progress through the leagues to become one of the best in the country. Whether we realise it or not, we can also be an example to disenfranchised girls and women out there, showing that women have every right to play soccer, despite the outdated view that it is a man’s sport. Success on the field will help that, but we could make it part of our mission to reach out to schools and establish links within the community.

Part 3

Why do I coach? – I coach because I love the sport. I am totally immersed in all things soccer. I am a passionate fan, I have been a dedicated player, I am a referee, and all this manifests itself into the coach within me. I love the thrill of the challenge, and the journey that we embark upon as a group. Whatever the task ahead, I want to take my team from where they are, towards their potential. I have chosen this as a career because I wouldn’t see the point in getting up every day to work with people I don’t like, for a cause I don’t believe in, to make someone who doesn’t care about me a richer man. I don’t want the same, I don’t want the mundane, I don’t want the comfortable or the easy. The highlight of my week never has been and never will be do spend my Friday and Saturday nights with the same group of people going to the same places. I live for game day. I live for practices. I live to see players reach that next step.

I am willing to work for it, and I have had to do many things that were difficult, make sacrifices, and spend a lot of time doing the jobs that no one wants to do. In England, mandatory education stops at sixteen. Ten years later, I am still in education, one year away from graduating with a master’s. A lot of people my age are making much more money than me as they have stable careers, and are not having to pay for education, but at the age of twenty six, I have worked in many different countries across three different continents, doing a job that I love. My friend and his girlfriend have just bought a house together and are now on a cruise around the Mediterranean. They are truly happy, and as much as I would like that, I am not prepared to give up on my dream. After many years abroad, I am now back living with my parents, barely making enough money to afford gas to get to practice, but I would not trade it. I know what I want to achieve, and I know that sacrifices have to be made to achieve it. It would be easy to quit, but I plan on living another sixty years or so. Quitting is for cowards. I wouldn’t want to live the rest of my life with the shame of trying my best, making sacrifices, and then deciding that enough is enough and that I want the easy life. If your desire and determination is strong enough, you can achieve those goals. It’s like my old boss used to say; “We can all achieve our dreams, if we have the courage to pursue them”.

Why do I coach the way I do? – A lot of how you coach, particularly at the beginning, is shaped by your personality. As a person, I am naturally polite, kind, and humble. These are good traits to build upon as a leader and as a person, but you also need to be confident, enthusiastic, commanding, driven, disciplined. As an assessor once remarked about me when I failed one of the early licenses in coaching “You’re not exactly the life of the party”. I have had the second set of traits all along, but they have not been outward in my personality. Confidence has been a huge issue. I have always been confident in my knowledge, but not confident in the confidence others may have in me. I have learnt that. I have made it a priority to work upon that, and now when I coach, I very much am the life of the party. It’s like being on TV or speaking to large audiences. At first you are shy, perhaps nervous, and never really come out of your shell. Now I have no problems with that at all. I have made my weaknesses my strengths.

What has helped me coach the way I do now is years of practice, a multitude of experiences, and endless coaching education. I look for every chance I get to gain another license, go on another coaching course, go to a CPD event. This provides opportunities for feedback, assessment, analysis, and to reinforce the good, and improve the bad areas of your coaching persona. Most of my experience has largely come under the influence or guidance of either English or American soccer ideals. Even in Singapore and Kuwait, I worked for English companies with an English ethos. Both the American and English ideals are very similar, and have been shaped by stealing the best bits from the French, Germans, Spanish, Dutch, Brazilians, Italians, and even the Belgians. We all know that coaches are the best thieves. From here I have learnt how to maximise player development, and to create a philosophy that is adaptable to different ages and abilities, dependent upon who I am working with. It all comes from the same book in my mind, so what I do with the U6 team could be relatable to what I do with my ladies, just a much more simplified version that builds up over time. My three values are effort, respect, and creativity. That is applicable to every team of every age and ability. I want to see you work hard, I want to see you play fairly, and I want to see you have fun and use your magic.

What does it feel like to be coached by me? – This is going to depend largely upon the personality of the player. I have found I connect more with the players who arrive at practice first, stay the longest, and ask the most questions. These aren’t often the best players in terms of technical ability, though sometimes they are. They help with equipment, they ask for advice and guidance on areas of their game that we are not covering in the session, and they confide things in you, almost like they are looking for your approval. The players that are lazy and disrespectful are the ones that I clash with. I cannot tolerate that, regardless of ability.

Sometimes I can be strict when I need to be, and that will set a tone that we are not here to waste time. When players complain about things that are boring or difficult, but are necessary, I do not back down. For example, fitness testing. I am looking to improve the player tactically, technically, physically, and psychologically. We test it, we monitor it, we improve it. Then you become better. The less motivated players probably think I am boring and will remind them of the teachers at school that tell them to stop talking and to do their homework. The highly motivated ones will see me as someone in their corner, that has always got their back, and who will strive to get the best out of them, who will challenge them and take them to new heights. Some players used to see me as a pushover or a soft touch, and that can’t be said any more.

How do I define success? – Improvement. Being better than we were. Ascertaining goals and then achieving them. Again, this is largely dependent upon the player and the team. I have had to have discussions with players and parents about this, who want instant success and have different definitions. A prime example, when in Mexico, my U7 boys lost to an elite team that was run by FC Barcelona. They destroyed us 18-1. They had players who at that age, receive the ball on the chest and strike with their laces into the top corner from twenty yards. My boys picking their noses and chasing butterflies. If we make our goal to be as good as them by next week, we will fail. If we look to win the league, the league which they are also in, we will fail. We have to make realistic and attainable goals, which we achieve over time, and move onto higher levels. Going back to my three values; did we try our hardest? Did we play fairly? Did we have fun? Three yesses, and we have achieved our primary goal for the game. You can’t ask for more than that.

Another game we lost 14-0. Our opponent had an exceptional player that was involved in either scoring or assisting about twelve of their goals. The parents were so upset you would have thought we were at a funeral. What were the boys doing? Running around, hitting each other with inflatable tubes, having a great time. They had been playing soccer just thirty seconds ago. Did they try their best? Did they play fairly? Did they have fun? Of course they did.

Improvement is the name of success from my point of view as a coach. Can we be a little better than we were before? Miracles will not happen, and success is not just achieved overnight. Lionel Messi said upon his “overnight success” debut for Barcelona; “It took me seventeen years and one hundred and forty seven days to become an overnight success”. Every little gain you can make is a step in the right direction. Every inch that you can claw towards your target is a success. Not everyone sees that. With my ladies team that play at quite a high level, I am the new coach there, and they are a relatively new team. I tell them that winning is not the goal, but performance is. If we perform well, the win will come. Sometimes it does happen that you can play bad and still win, but that is not an effective strategy. Performance is the goal, winning is a by-product. I tell them it all adds up, piece by piece. We will play each team twice, and I want us to do better every time. If our first encounter finishes 1-1, our second should be 1-0, or 2-1. We always want an improvement. In every little area, can we be better? During the game, the second half should be better than the first. In the first half, we only created two scoring opportunities, and gave them four scoring opportunities. In the second half, our goal will be to beat that. By determining the goal, by measuring the success rates, you will begin to gain thousands of little victories. The little victories add up to big extrinsic successes, such as championships and trophies. That would be great, but we are nine months away from that. We need to focus on our first game this Sunday. We will determine our key performance indicators, see how well we perform against those, and move on from there.

I tell my players, and it is a philosophy that I take to heart, that we cannot all be the best. There is only one MVP, there is only one gold medal, there is only one winner. If we forever define ourselves against that, we will fail repeatedly. Instead, be the best you. Be the best that you can be. If I have all the players in the team striving towards their best, the team improves, that makes the players improve once more as individuals, and slowly, we climb up that ladder, becoming closer to our potential. On the recent announcement of fitness tests this week I heard cries of “That’s unfair”, “I have been injured an am unfit”, “I’m one of the slowest in the team, everyone will beat me”, and “If my friends don’t try hard, I might lose interest and probably won’t either”. That’s very sad to hear. I informed them that their results would be recorded individually, and that they are not looking to compete against each other, but only against their recent performance. The best you can be is not determined by others around you. If you achieve a low score, achieve a better score next time. If you achieve a high score, get an even higher score next time. Don’t worry about how anyone else does apart from yourself. If you can beat your score, that is success. If you maintain that improvement, that is success. It all adds up, eventually, piece by piece, brick by brick.

Reading this back, I come across as far more intense than I would have originally thought. That's a little scary. Perhaps I really should consider the quiet life, and start filling my life with boring TV and pubs.

Refereeing: What's Stopping You?

Hi guys n' gals, ever considered becoming a soccer referee? Much empirical research has shown that many spectators, both at home and at live games, can in fact actually do a much better job than that wanker out there.

The factors we determined by which they could referee produced astounding results:

• The ability to be able to see incidents clearly from as far as one hundred yards away.
• 20/20 hindsight, knowing exactly what to do in every situation, after witnessing multiple slow motion replays from many different angles.
• Complete non-bias, as obviously most referees are being bribed by the other team. This can often be proven when you find them wearing the opponents' shirt under theirs, getting rides to and from the game with the coach, and celebrating all goals that go against your team.
• Having bottle, as apparently this is a very important factor in refereeing, particularly in the English game. Our studies conclude that many referees in England "lack bottle," which greatly affects their decision making when judging penalty claims.
• Most people who don't referee have actually played the game, as we all know, every referee in existence absolutely hates football and has never kicked a ball in their life.
• Super Speed, much like The Flash, allowing you to never be behind play, even for three seconds.
• 360 degree vision, allowing you to see all the action in every direction, never missing an off the ball incident.
• Jedi-like powers of perception that allow you to anticipate the play well in advance, and always be in the right position, every single time.
• The ability to see the future, as we all know that yellow cards prevent players from kicking other players and from mass confrontation. No longer will referees have to rely on retrospective action where they can only card a player after something has happened. With futuristic vision, the referees of tomorrow will be awarding cards well in advance of any incidents, meaning that foul play has become preventable.

Unfortunately these bionic sideline refs will forever be just that, as they listed a number of reasons as to why they will not bestow their talents upon us:

They don't want to take the job of the referee. These are partially blind, middle aged fat men, who, according to some, have mild learning difficulties, cannot see into the future, and who have lost their bottle. What chance do they stand in life? Refereeing seems to be about the only option they have.
• You couldn't pay them enough. It is often found that unskilled labourers make well in advance of £25 an hour, and so giving up a small portion of their time to aid the development of grassroots football "just for twenty quid to run around a field blowing a whistle" is not something they wish to waste their precious time on, as standing at the side, shouting obscenities, and setting a good example for our kids is far more financially appealing.
• Their talents would be wasted. Having eyes in the back of your head, lightning speed, and reliable precognition are better off used for curing diseases, ending hunger, and attempting to coach the national team from your armchair.
• Others may get jealous, as their meteoric rise the the Premier League after officiating in just one game at their local park would lead to riots.

What can we do though? In all seriousness, this has been an issue for many years. The FA has tried to fight it, but it is something ingrained in our culture. Petulance is something experienced in everyday lives, it doesn't just happen in football. The FA can only prevent it from affecting our game, and punish those who do it, they can't change the psyche of the society.

Walking away from the Saints game, after they played Midtjylland in the Europa League, I can hear many people complaining about the referee. I personally didn't see a lot wrong with his performance. He certainly won't be making any headlines. There are a few things worth noting here. Two guys next to me were going crazy after a free kick was awarded to the opposition on the halfway line. The referee was literally two yards away from it, whereas we were up behind the goal. Who do you think has the better view? Why are you idiots questioning someone who was clearly much better positioned than yourself?

Saints had a goal that was ruled out for a foul. Correctly. I even have a photo of the clear foul. Of course though, even in the face of evidence, we still hold onto our prejudiced beliefs. Saints were later awarded a penalty, correctly, which they scored. To many people, of course the referee was just levelling things up for the goal he cancelled earlier. As time went by, some of the Midtjylland players started to go down and stay down a bit too easily. One of them was actually hit in the face, I did see that clearly, but he is abused and jeered at by the fans. The mum in front of me was leading the abuse, right next to her two kids. Would she be doing the same if one of her kids was down? But while the Midtjylland players were time wasting and feigning injury, who received the abuse? That's right, the referee, even though he handed out two yellow cards for time wasting and awarded six minutes injury time. What more do they want? What do they genuinely expect the referee to do?

The guy in front and just to the left, who spent most of the game txtin sum bird, with great lines such as; "u mite not believ dis but I am not as confident when meetin sum1 for the first time", and "I fink u can tell if ur atracted 2 sum1 soon after meetin dem" piped up with "How much are they paying you, ref?" Good one mate. Well funny. Top banter. He was about thirty, and his phone was so old that he had to tap each number multiple times to get the letter he wanted. But of course, it's the ref who is an idiot. You idiot.

So why is everyone talking about the ref and not the game? Two reasons I believe; we all want something to blame, and people don't actually know that much about football. The two can even overlap; we don't realise how awful we are, and we don't want to admit the other team is better than us, so it's the ref's fault.

Where does it all come from? Football is now a billion dollar industry, and the tiny margin for error could mean huge financial implications. Sadly, it is true. Staying in the Premier League means so much financially that teams don't try as hard in the cups or in Europe. No one cares about the season we finished tenth, but we all remember the finals and semi finals, the amazing away days, the exciting cup runs, the giant killings etc. The clubs have different goals to us. The manager needs to keep his job, and a large part of that is down to profits made. That's also why many clubs don't take risks on youth players. If you play some of the kids, it may take them a year or two to adjust, and in that time, you risk falling down the league, and that is a huge decline in income.

Where teams now try to affect everything they can to gain those precious inches, many put pressure on the referees, either during pregame press conferences, or the game itself from constant berating. In an attempt to deflect blame after games, most managers will say the referee cost them the game. It's a good tactic in the sense that it relieves stress from the players and coaching staff, but it is completely immoral for talented millionaires to blame an impartial official that gets paid just a fraction of what they earn, and someone who isn't actually competing for a championship. Remember, the referees are just doing a job. Unless in Italy, they don't actually gain anything other than their match fee for refereeing the game.

Have you ever seen two people in dispute over an issue, who both witnessed it the same way, and yet have completely different recollections of what happened? Don't you hate being caught in the middle of that? It happens a lot in car crashes. Even the one who cut across three lanes while texting still believes they did nothing wrong. If this was between two friends and they asked you to mediate, chances are that whichever way you decide, you will be a friend down after the incident.

A point I make to a lot of people is that a player can have an absolutely dreadful game, then go on to score the winner, and becomes a hero. Think Torres scoring for Chelsea Bus Company in the Nou Camp. A referee can get 99% of decisions right, but will be lambasted for that one that was wrong. I think it was actually proven once by something like Opta Index that refs in the Premier League do get around 98% of decisions right. That's far more than any player can hope to achieve in a single game. Of course this story wasn't carried by mainstream media. We want to continue living the lie that referees are idiots. It gives us comfort that when walking away from the ground, our team would have won 4-0 if it wasn't the referee. Ignorance truly is bliss.

What about respect? Some people in football spout the wonderful line "referees have got to earn my respect". You are an idiot. An idiot. People like you hold back our game and our society by about four hundred years. How can one person be such an idiot? It really does blow my mind how you can be such an idiot. Do you really think that the referee cares about you and your respect? Do you really think your respect is worth that much to someone? Is it like gold or something? You absolute idiot. Stop being such an idiot. Get over yourself, you idiot. Trust doesn't have to be earned. Respect doesn't have to be earned. Just in the same way that innocence doesn't have to be proven. That's why we can now live in multi cultural societies, rather than building huge walls to keep out the outsiders, while we throw rocks and piss at them. Go away you arrogant, self centred idiot.

Let's all just be a bit nicer to each other from the start. Let's teach our kids to be nice too. People take things more personally when it affects them directly. I have mentioned this before, using the work of both Gladwell and Ariely. It's true though, and you can see it for yourself. We believe we belong in football, but the truth is, most of us are victims in incredibly powerful advertising campaigns. Branding is so important in modern football. So the fans feel it just as much as the players and the coaches when a decision goes against them. There is a difference though, as for those on the playing side, it is an obstacle in the way of their personal and professional gain. For fans, whose emotions, self efficacy, and self esteem are tied in with the success of their football club, it threatens their very own perceptions of themselves. My team must win or else others will think I am a loser with an inadequate sense of self worth and a lame job and an ugly wife and stupid kids. The enlarging bald spots, the increasing beer belly, the lack of satisfaction from other areas in life, the fact your middle aged wife doesn't look at you in the same way she did before you were married, all of that can be erased if you are seen to have picked a winner at football. And then that prick of a referee went and gave the other team a penalty that was clearly a dive! Idiot should have gone to specsavers! That feels better.

The referee is useless wanker, and I am a handsome virile alpha male, and all women want me. My wife should worship me.

These feelings are easily transposed onto our kids. If some idiot of a ref makes a decision against the team of my baby, he's a pure evil bastard that is standing in the way of my baby's happiness. And what's the rational thing to do when we don't get our way? Shout and scream obscenities until we feel better! Be nice to others only if they are nice to you, kids! If someone disagrees with you, then they are a useless twat, and you should tell them! If you don't get your own way, just complain until you do. As soon as anyone questions you, cite the moral high ground, and it is yours!

It's sad, it really is. Sport is a reflection of society. People who frequently break the law think that all police are out to get them. People who drive like morons blame everyone else. Our kids see this, and they turn out just like us. They learn from what they see. Now just because someone won't be nice to you, doesn't give you the green light to be unpleasant to them. Be the bigger man. Be the change that you want to see in the world. If we were all just that tiny bit nicer to people, the world would be a much nicer place.

And if you abuse the referee you are a dick, and if you blame the referee it's because you're just terrible at football.

Thank you for reading.

The Aggregation of Marginal Gains: Every Little Helps

Do you kind of want it? Would it be nice to have? Is it something to do if it fits in with your schedule? These are not the words or sentiments of champions. Champions get up early. Champions go to bed late. Champions risk everything. Champions make sacrifices. Do you?

In this piece I will talk about marginal gains. This is the idea that everything positive you do can benefit the team and individuals over time, by making every aspect just a tiny bit better.

Here's an American to help us understand better.

It's actually a fairly easy concept to grasp, and probably something we strive for in many areas, yet don't realise we're doing it. Like in order to become a better person, one might learn a new language, exercise more regularly, spend more time with family, dedicate more time to sleeping, be more organised, not make stupid purchases, plan a better diet etc. There are many more examples, but think of how more wonderful you would be with better sleep, better diet, were fitter, healthier, more social, were better with money. By affecting every area, even just a little, you suddenly realise what a massive step forward you have taken.

Remember the South Park episode where the boys came together to defeat the nerd on World of Warcraft? Sacrifice, determination, teamwork in abundance, but they spent hours in the forest killing wild boars as it slowly improved their XP, helping them level up.

Some steps are easier than others, which depends heavily on both the difficulty of the task and also the incentive. People tend to work harder for positive reward rather than negative punishment, so it is easier to fund money for a holiday than it is to pay bulls. There's always that one idiot who claims to be hard up, yet still has enough for a pint and some cigarettes. The rationale is that we would rather look for that reward, for that thrill, in the here and now, as opposed to making sacrifices for the long run.

The term first entered the public lexicon around 2012 following the success of the British Cycling Team.

No one is going to credit the victory to having the right kind of seat, are they? "It's all down to the fact that my bum felt one percent better throughout this race. Thank you." So what's the point in doing it, right?

Due to the success of British cycling,

road users now have to endure this.

Before then, if you said to someone "let's make everything within our control just that tiny bit better" they would probably reply with "yeah, I reckon that will work". Now it has become the obsession of top level athletes and coaches all over the world. There is no more reckon. This is a way of life. Do you know that top athletes even have their pillows and mattresses customised? If gives them a better night's sleep, aids recovery, and creates a sense of familiarity and routine. Could you really be bothered to do that? Neither can the athletes, but the teams spend huge amounts of money on rearranging hotels and creating sleeping pods for their players, just to gain that extra little advantage. Just to gain that one inch.

Where do we start? List absolutely everything that is in your control, or at least have a small influence over. Now get rid of whatever seems immoral. Are there any lines you won't cross? I will never encourage my players to hound the referee in the hope we may get one extra decision go our way in a game. I don't want to win that way. Erase anything on that list that crosses your lines. Now, split everything into two piles. What can you change immediately, and what will change over time? Right now I can make sure that all players wear shinpads in every training session. They all have them, and that is the rule. Instant change, instant gain. What else? We can definitely do a cool down at the end of each session. We know how to do that, so can begin immediately.

Aristotle.

What about the things that will take more time? Here we have components such as stamina, tactical discipline, decision making etc. And break these down. Make them very specific. Now create a timeline. Base it on the ability and potential of the players, the time you have with them per week, and when you feel you should be achieving it. Anything that can be tested and quantified should be. Regular fitness tests to help the team reach that goal.

Below are some examples of how we can gain that extra inch. Take a look, and see which ones you can implement. This list is by no means exhaustive. And remember, you can have excuses or results, not both.

Training:

• Arrive early.
• Have everything set up ready before you begin.
• Begin on time, not five minutes past.

• 

  Fight together, and fight for every inch.

  Time breaks at only thirty seconds, rather than just letting them go.
• Have a drinks area so that no one has to run off to the other side of the field.
• Limit your instructional talks to no more than thirty seconds.
• Learn key words and establish phrases to help minimise time spent talking, and to avoid information overload.
• Have pumped up balls and good equipment.
• Enforce a no talking or other distractions rule. This keeps focus and high intensity, and allows you to get your point across in thirty seconds or less without stopping and having to tell them to shut up.
• Enforce a no complaining rule, or a no whining zone. Negativity spreads like wildfire and can destroy performances.
• Have an agreed upon set of rules so you don't have to waste time thinking if a player should be disciplined or not. If the boundaries are clear, it is easier to tell if they have bee overstepped.
• Do not do anything too complicated as it confuses them, which slows down the intensity, and wastes time which could otherwise be spent playing. If you really have to do something complicated, build upon it over time, so the players can recall the previous steps in weeks gone by.

  

  Who is the coach and who are the players?

• Wear training kit. Then everyone feels like a team, and is more likely to be in a high performing mindset, rather than a piss about with your mates frame of mind.
• Have a routine and stick to it, making transitions easier from one part of the session. For example thirty minutes fitness, thirty minutes technical, thirty minutes tactical, thirty minutes small sided game. The players know what to expect, and it makes planning easier.
• Always plan, and always have a backup plan. Always include progressions and regressions if it is too easy or too difficult.
• Make the session fluid so that all you have to do is pick up one or two cones, then you can move into the next exercise, rather than having to lay everything out again.
• Have the coaches easily identifiable. Make them stand out. If the players are in red, have the coaching staff in yellow. Who here is the coach? Oh him over there in the yellow. Easy.
• Have others around you to share the workload. When you have important decisions to make and a whole group of players that need your keen eye, you can't waste time arsing around with administration duties. Someone else can figure out player registrations. You get in there and coach or observe what needs to be done.
• Play with nets and fences so that time isn't wasted getting the balls.

Cool down. Definitely not a scientific masterpiece.

Like I said, not exhaustive, but all this done in conjunction will make for better training sessions. Over two hours, you will spend about ten minutes more playing and training, rather than arsing about. Six sessions, and you have clawed back an extra hour of practice from all that previously wasted time. Not to mention that the quality will be about ten percent better too, as it will be more intense.

Bikers.

Every little gain has a knock on effect that manifests itself into other areas. It's like a snowball rolling downhill. We will complain that our players act a certain way, like they are lazy or distracted, and how that ruins sessions, and that we waste too much time explaining things again and going over mistakes, but what if we broke it down and tried to find out why? Do you let them get away with it when they are late? Do you let them train in the wrong kit or the wrong shoes? Are they stood around for ages while you talk endless rubbish about the Austrian Wunderteam of the thirties, and that you like the ideas of Brendan Rogers, but just think he's a bit of an idiot, and that actually the Germans dominated football in the seventies, not the Dutch? We've all seen it. Some of us will have done that ourselves. It's time to stop. When explaining a game, this is all you need to mention; the area, the teams, the rules, how to score. Play.

It all adds up. Look at dny successful coach, and you will notice their attention to detail. They care about things that you would not have deemed important or worthy of even caring about. They focus on the finer details. If you get the little things right, the big things will fall into place.

Now let's have a look at how we can apply the principles to performances within a game. We have just made training more effective and you can notice the differences in the players.

This speech will never not work.

• Thorough warm up - Better mentally and physically prepared going into the game. More switched on in the first ten minutes. Could prevent two early goals in a season. Not much.
• Thorough cool down - Better chance at preventing injury. Means our players will miss less games and will suffer less overuse injuries. May get an extra two games out of two players by avoiding injury. One of them could be an important player who goes on to score one winning goal in a game they may have been injured in.

  

  Fail and come back stronger.

• High pressure - Better organisation and quicker to the ball in the opposition half of the field. It may win us a corner or so per game. If we work on the idea that five corners equals one goal, over five games, we may score one extra goal from forcing errors in their defence.
• Tracking back - Sometimes the defence can deal with it, but we need to prevent overloads. By following your runner, you could stop them from scoring. You could do it one hundred times and only intercept the ball once, but if everyone does it, we could prevent one goal per game.
• Set pieces - It depends on the level at which you play, but goals coming from free kicks and corners account for a significant proportion of goals scored. Better organisation in attack and defence may score us an extra four goals per season, and it may prevent four goals per season.
• Fitness - Certainly killed us on Sunday. If we had ninety three minutes in us rather than just ninety, we win the game 1-0. Our opponent continued for all ninety three minutes, scoring two goals in injury time and winning 2-1. Being fitter might only prevent five goals per season.

• 

  SWP and Lampard, now featuring in Gangs of New York.

  Analysis - Can be time consuming and boring, but worth doing. Videos of games, highlighting team and individual performances, showing errors and how we can adapt certain aspects of the game. For example, looking at the attacking runs of the wingers might enable them to put in an extra cross or two per game. Not much, but it is an inch worth gaining. Both wingers put in two extra crosses per game, that's four more crosses for the CF to run onto, that could give us an extra goal every other game.
• Know your role - If every player has a little bit of a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities, they improve their performance. Even as much as five percent per player would be like having an extra half player on the pitch. Improve every player performance by ten percent and we are then figuratively playing twelve versus eleven. How much would it help to have an extra player on the pitch? Especially against tough teams, we would love to play with twelve. Even if it seems unimportant, like the right defender and the left defender bombing forward to join in with attacks, it gives us another player in an attacking area. That's another resource. That puts the odds slightly more in our favour. Overlapping fullbacks may only give us an extra goal per three games.

These are just some examples, but I will add it up, using a twenty game season to make the numbers easier.

Goals prevented: 2, 20, 4, 5 = 31

Goals scored: 4, 4, 10, 6 = 24

Now these are just rough estimations, and it depends on the team you are playing, as well as your own strengths and weaknesses. The point is that it demonstrates how every little inch counts. Twenty four scored and thirty one prevented are very high estimates, but who knows? It's something to strive for.

I will make a comparison using teams from the English Premier League last season. After the final thirty eight games, the following positions looked like this, with goals for, goals against, and goal average.

1st. Chelsea - 73 - 32 - +41
4th. Manchester United - 62 - 37 - +35
10th. Crystal Palace - 47 - 51 - -4
17th. Aston Villa - 31 - 57 - -26
20th. QPR - 42 - 73 - -31

Goals convert into points. Manchester United in fourth finished seventeen points behind the Champions Chelsea. The difference in their goal difference was six. Six 1-0 wins gives you eighteen points, enough for Man Utd to move above Chelsea into first place. Likewise at the bottom. QPR were relegated with thirty points, and Aston Villa were safe with thirty eight. The goal difference was five between the two teams. Five 1-0 wins gives QPR an extra fifteen points, which would have put them at 14th place, meaning they would still be playing Premiership football this season. Every little helps.

The players have to understand this, and it is so important for them to see the value in everything that you do. As with the parents, who still have a huge influence over the younger ones, they need to be on board too.

So how do we convince them it is worth it? Meetings, videos, presentations, reaffirming the key points, have the rest of the coaching staff truly buy into it. It will take time, and not everything can be done at once, so change the easy stuff immediately and come up with a plan for when certain objectives should be achieved by.

It will be slow, and at times even painful, but it does add up. People will tell you certain things are pointless, and will try cutting corners wherever possible. Champions don't cut corners. Champions don't half effort it. Champions are all in.

Now try your best to not let this pump you up: