I paid my dues! I deserve to play!

Whenever our group gathers someone will invariably let go with "I paid my dues!" drawing a round of chuckles from those present.  The members of this group played on the same team years ago. We were a better than average team, but not an exceptional one. As can often be the case, the friendships established through competing together against others has lasted through the years. There are many good memories that bind us together. Great plays, championships won and lost. Fellowship before and after games. "I paid my dues!" is the single memory that most resonates with this group.

The team gathered throughout the preseason to work on technique, tactics, conditioning and developing an identity of who we would collectively be on the field of play.  We struggled through difficult practices, various bumps bruises and injuries, learning to play together against other teams. Well, most of the team did.  There was this one guy who signed up and paid to play, but was largely absent from preseason activities.

On opening night the team was jazzed with nervous energy. We were excited to get the season underway. We were pumped!  Ready to go into athletic battle with our buddies and see how we measured up against another team. I mean OPENING NIGHT, right!?

We came out strong and the game was going our way. Everything was clicking and we went up big early. Comfortably in control at the break our coaches were reminding us to stick with the game plan in the second half. We were to treat the second half as if the score were 0-0. Be disciplined and play as we practiced, as we had prepared to play and as we played in the first half.  That's when Donny stood up and proclaimed "I paid my dues! I deserve to play too!"

Well, Donny was the guy who skipped practices and other team functions. He missed out on so much preparation to play that I didn't even think of him as a teammate. He was more ... well, in the context of the team ... he just was.

As we prepared to play the second half the coach asked Donny to remain behind.  They had a short talk before joining us on the field.  About the only thing I remember is Donny looking very angry as we took the field.  After we won the game and were coming off the field congratulating one another I do not recall if Donny was present or not.  I never saw Donny in the context of the team again. What had been a friendly off-the-field relationship took on a decided chill.

Our coach eventually shared with us what was communicated to Donny at halftime of that first game. The message was an eye opener to me and I think to each of my teammates. After a fast start to the season we had hit a lull. No, not a lull, we were in a prolonged losing streak. This is when Ross, our coach, shared with us the gist of the message he had delivered to Donny.

Donny had paid his money for the right to be a part of our club, our team. This is what Donny meant when he had proclaimed "I paid my dues! I deserve to play!"  Coach Ross had a bit different idea about what it meant to pay one's dues.  He told Donny he would not give him anything that was not earned, including playing time. To give playing time to anyone who had not earned it through properly preparing to play would be lowering the club and team standards. When Donny had begun to explain he had to work, suffered an injury and had had other commitments, Coach Ross shut him down with a simple "No excuses."  Coach went on to point out that even being present at practices was not good enough. There would be no reward for merely participating. Everyone was expected to give a full effort every day.  Healthy and active or injured and inactive physically - it did not matter. You need to be attentive and contribute. There was no room on a successful team for laziness or mediocrity in effort given to the team. He ended by telling Donny that he had been disrespectful to him as the coach, his teammates and perhaps most importantly to the opportunity paying his monetary dues had afforded him.  Furthermore, by disrupting halftime of a team event with such a display of selfishness he had announced how unappreciative and ungrateful he actually was as it concerned representing the club and the team.

So, while the lasting impression we have of Donny is "I paid my dues!"  the lasting lesson Donny contributed to is monetary dues hold little to no value in team sports.  The actual dues that matter most in team situations are being present and contributing positively in whatever manner one can. Those were the expectations for our team. Those were standards we set and upheld.  No excuses. Just give the best, most intelligent, effort to the team each and every day.  Being present is not enough - ask "what can I do for my team" and do it.  Even when injured - conduct stretching, practice the team's communication, do rehab work in an effort to return to play or be a cheerleader offering encouragement to your teammates. Be active in the team process. Never take for granted the opportunity to be a part of the team.  Pay your (non-monetary) dues!

Your expectations?

Anyone who coaches knows the off season can be even more hectic and stressful than the regular season. Amid scheduling scrimmages and matches, planning for camps, summer tournaments, fundraisers and the like I have also been considering the current state of our program and how to take the next step forward. The evolution of our culture must continue and to be perfectly honest this is the one facet of our program that concerns me the most. I keep coming back to one word -

EXPECTATIONS

In the context of sports we often see expectations framed in the idea of a team being able to handle high expectations for a coming season.  Will they rise to the occasion or crumble under the pressure? But expectations come in many forms. For me, the most disconcerting moment of last season was hearing core players express their belief an opponent would kick our asses while they were still in the locker room before a match. Their sentiment about that day's match was in stark contrast to my own expectations which were to come out, compete and just maybe get the win!

This has been very much on my mind as I plan for the 2017 season. Some of these players might be back with us next fall. If they are, will their defeatist attitudes be back with them?  Will their expectations have changed? Or will they continue to be a drag on the program?

What do they expect of themselves?                                 What do I expect of them?

What will their teammates expect of them?                      What will they expect of their
                                                                                           teammates?

Is there common ground to be found?

If not, is progress in the process of establishing a winning culture even possible?

This is a very serious question to consider for it has been my experience both individuals and teams usually get exactly what they expect.

I desire a team of individuals who expect to win every time they step onto the pitch. It might be the single most important characteristic I look for in an individual. This must be our expectation from the Head Coach through the coaching staff to the Captain(s) and extending throughout the team to the very last player on the bench.

For these reasons, the selection of Captains carries more importance this coming season than usual. Sometimes a strong culture can prop up a weak captain.  This coming season my expectation is for a strong captain to advance the culture of the program.

Another consideration is, if I do not get what I expect from returning players, do I look to new players with the same expectations I have for the program? That would be a drastic short-term step, but one that might be necessary to advance the program in the long-term.

Let me be clear, my expectations are to be competitive in every match. I expect to win every time we step onto the pitch.  I expect greatness. I expect championships.

Playing Time.

I have met a lot of people through soccer and over the years have become a resource person or sounding board for many of these. There are two main concerns people raise with me;  lack of playing time and the position being played.  In today's writing I will share my philosophy on playing time and how I arrived at it.

I remember being an assistant coach for my eldest son Grant's U10 club team.  The head coach was a local high school coach by the name of Dan.  At 11 years of age, Grant was pudgy and did not look the part of a soccer player. Even back then though Grant had a high soccer IQ.  Dan didn't play Grant much and at one point even suggested Grant should maybe think about playing football. Well, okay then.  To say that Grant did not get a lot of playing time would be an understatement.  I never made a big deal over the lack of playing time. I did observe closely how Grant and others who received a disproportionately low amount of playing time responded. 

One example remains in my mind to this day for two specific reasons.  In a tightly contested match that a lot of importance was placed upon Dan reluctantly sent Grant in to play as the left back.  Grant was admonished to "just stay in position and don't let them score against you."  Conversely, Grant and I had been discussing the importance of making the most out of every opportunity he did receive.  As the attack traveled up the right flank I noticed (and Grant did too) there was a lot of open space on the weak side.  Grant began inching forward and "out of position." It was okay though, because Dan was focused solely on the ball.  As the action played itself out there was Grant running full tilt toward the back post and when the shot / cross came he was there to make a play.  No goal. That would have been too perfect an ending.  But the run itself and the subsequent recovery run were brilliant.

Flash forward a few years and Dan is now coaching a different team.  I received a call literally the night before his team was to play in a tournament. Dan needed players.  He accepted my then U12 son Treg to play for his U14 team.  Treg acquitted himself well on a team that played with 9 men.  How does one enter a tournament and be so undermanned when it comes time to play?  

These two stories are related as we will discover. 

My philosophy on playing time is simple; if you attend and participate in training, I will play you in the match.  No guarantee of how many minutes, but you will have a defined role in terms of expectations for your play while in the game.

I have seen a lot of coaches get caught up in a singular expectation for winning the match.  They will use pursuit of a win as a reason to avoid playing those considered to be weaker players. High school coaches can be especially bad in this regard but so too can club coaches.  With unlimited substitutions allowed in both high school and club soccer I find this approach to be reprehensible.  If a player is good enough to make your roster, he is good enough to play in matches for you.

Dan and I later crossed paths when I was the head coach for a U12 team and he served as my assistant. We each had a son on this club team. If you know anything about prepubescent boys you appreciate how they can run like a deer one day and stumble around like a new born foal the next as their bodies undergo the change.  I was observant of the players and when they looked like deer they got a lot of playing time. When they looked like a new born foal they received less. But everyone played.  I spoke with both players and parents alike about the fluctuations in playing time and counseled patience as these prepubescent growth spurts were temporary and in no way indicative of what type of an athlete the player would be when he emerged on the other end of puberty. Most bought into this reality in the moment. Some it took a couple of years to appreciate and understand. 

I limited the roles of the foals but not the significance of their contributions.  My guiding light is a firm belief that it is the responsibility of the coach to place players in positions and situations from which they enjoy a reasonable expectation for success. If a player was struggling to run due to "growing pains", it simply made no sense to play him on the flank where a lot of running would be necessary, right?  Why frustrate the player by placing him in a position where he was likely to struggle?

These lessons I carried with me when I took on the head coaching job at Lima Central Catholic.  This program was moribund having never had a winning season and really struggling for enough players to field a team.  That first year we had 17 players total. In all honesty, about 6 were of varsity caliber with another handful of junior varsity caliber. It would have been difficult to justify keeping the rest on a high school roster were the numbers in the program better.

I played everyone who was healthy in every game that season.

The next season our numbers in the program jumped to 29 girls and we fielded a junior varsity team for a limited schedule. That set a record for number of players in a season. Playing every girl in every match and placing them in positions / situations from which they had a reasonable expectation to experience success built a chemistry in the program that others wanted to be a part of.  That we had the best season in school history while doing so was even more incentive for others to come out for the team.

The curious case of Adam.

The head coach at our local high school was something of a legend having accumulated 330 wins over the course of his career.  I got my start in high school soccer as a goalkeeper coach under him and am eternally grateful for having had the opportunity.  Dick topped out as a coach the year the team made it to the state semi-finals.  It was viewed as a deep and talented roster with as many as 20 players receiving playing time regularly.  From that point on getting back to state consumed him and players suffered for it.

The season after having gone to state we had 53 athletes come out for soccer.  There were 36 spots available between the varsity and junior varsity teams.  Dick told me he lobbied to some extent for a third team, but was denied. He eventually kept 40 players in the program.  Fast forward a few years and we find his last season saw 32 players in the entire program and many of those would have been cut in previous years.

Why?  What changed?  It's more a matter of who changed; Dick had.

Adam played on an elite club team. He started every game and played dang near every minute as a center back on a team that won nearly 90% of its games. Adam rode the bench and often did not play for Dick as a high school senior that final season.  Why?   Only Dick can answer that but the impact of allowing players to sit the bench with no chance of playing continued to drive numbers down in the program. 

There is a direct correlation between playing time and numbers in the program. It extends to the quality of the program as well.  By the time Dick finally walked away the high school program was in a shambles having been decimated both of talent and of numbers participating.

By the way, Adam went on to play in college.   Yep, he couldn't buy playing time on a mediocre high school team yet found a spot on a college team.  That's just difficult to explain.

Now, I am sure both Dan and Dick in defense of their decision making would suggest players need to earn playing time.  This is likely a ruse to deflect away from an issue of trust, or lack thereof.  Did Dick trust Adam to play for him?  Obviously not.

And I think playing time as well as the path of the various programs mentioned here comes down to that one word, trust as was written about in Truth. Trust. Belief.  A coach can give these things to players and teams or he can deny them to players and teams.

When players or parents come to me with issues about playing time my response is to work on the player / coach relationship. Come early and stay late. Work hard. If a role is not defined for you, attempt to identify what your team needs and strive to provide that. Talk with the coach about what you need to do to improve and earn their trust to gain more playing time.  It's a shame the onus for developing a trusting relationship sometimes falls upon the player, but it is also a reality of sports.  In some instances, nothing can be done to change a coaches perception of a player. That's when it is time to change clubs, refrain from playing high school soccer or transfer to a different school if playing high school soccer means that much to you. 

Ted. No, not the movie. Ted, A soccer coach.

I received a call from Ted recently. He was down in the dumps and thinking of getting out of coaching.  I had been expecting this, but still wasn't fully prepared to discuss this with Ted.  A little background may serve to bring things into focus for the purpose of this article. 

I have known Ted for years. He was a very good high school player who went on to play in college.  He was hired into a  good school system, but one that did not allow first year teachers to coach. They wanted their teachers to get a foundation in the classroom before branching out into extra curricular activities. When the head soccer coach position came open a couple of years later Ted applied and ultimately was awarded the job.

Now, Ted is one of the most enthusiastic people I know. To say he was excited about this opportunity would be an understatement.  He knew how he had been coached as a high school athlete and also how he had been coached at the college level.  His intentions were to bring what he had learned as a college athlete to the high school level.  He wanted to reverse engineer the college athlete and bridge the gap between levels of play. This is a notion I highly applauded as I believe too often high school athletes are under-coached in the sense that too little is asked of or expected from them. Even so, I cautioned Ted to be realistic.  I counseled Ted to take stock of where the athletes were and then look to the vision he had for how they could play.  In between the starting point and his vision was where all the work would need to take place. 

All these grand ideas and an overflowing fountain of practical knowledge Ted wanted to share with the high school players never really came to fruition. Ted came away convinced high school players were incapable of what he was asking of them.  In fact, Ted called because he was thinking of resigning from the high school position. He thought maybe he would be better at coaching college athletes.  I called B.S. on this entire idea.

Let's back track just a bit.  When Ted was contemplating becoming a high school coach and sharing his collegiate experience with younger players I applauded the notion.  I also suggested Ted evaluate where the high school athletes were and where he wanted to take them.  The process of progressing from point A to point B could then be defined.  I think what happened with Ted was he noted what he wanted to change but didn't take into account all of the details of process that would be necessary to effect that change. 

Another young high school coach told me last fall that my approach with club athletes would not work with a typical high school team.  Again, I called B.S. on this theory.  It has worked with a high school team. In fact, a high school team were my original "guinea pigs" for our current coaching methodology and system of play. I took a team that in 11 years had never had a winning season, was a sieve on defense and dominated on offensive by one player and turned them into a regional qualifier behind a strong defense and balanced scoring in our second season.

I did so in part by defining where the program / team / players were while knowing where I wanted to take them.  From our starting point we built a foundation in all aspects of the game that allowed the transformation to take place. We worked on changing a losing culture into a winning one while simultaneously implementing gradual changes to how we played the game and most importantly how the game was thought.  The critical element to this was empowering the athletes to make mistakes ... and learn from them. We did not pick apart their decision making process that led to mistakes. Rather, we challenged them to think differently, to find alternate solutions to the problems they encounter.  And maybe most importantly in this regard was the possibility of redefining the problem or obstacle they encountered to allow for a broader spectrum of solutions to be entertained.

That first year was brutal for me as a coach. We lost games we should not of lost. Or more precisely, we lost games that first year that we easily won the second year.  I was confident the transformation would take place while knowing the learning curve would be steep.  This is where Ted is at this moment. His season was a difficult one for him.  Progress did not come quickly enough.  There was resistance to some of the changes he implemented.  I don't think Ted realizes how close to a break through he might actually be with this high school team. I encouraged Ted to once again evaluate where the program is and where he wants to take it.  Could he identify progress?  Then once again identify a process to take the team from current point A to the point B he envisions for them.  

When a process breaks down I have found one of the best solutions is to back track a bit. Identify the problem and then identify the problem for the team. Discuss it with the team. Break it down to the smallest detail and begin reconstructing what it is you want them to achieve. Build understanding right along side of technique and tactical application.  Give them the small picture - all the little details - so they gain a fuller appreciation of the large picture or grand scheme of things through poise and confidence in the smaller setting.

For my teams, learning patience when playing out of pressure that we might be able to then counter with speed has been a focal point.  When I first introduce the idea of being a counter attacking team everyone thinks "win the ball and go!" when there is actually so much more involved if it is to be done effectively and efficiently.

I think Ted is going to give it another go with the high school team.  As we talked I could sense Ted beginning to understand he needed to define the process better not only for himself, but for the players as well.  The proverbial wheels were churning and enthusiasm seemed to be creeping back in as well.  For Ted the process seems back on track with a better appreciation or perhaps a deeper understanding of the necessity to TEACH the process of how to get from point A to point B.  I am confident that should Ted stick with it, he will guide the program ever closer to his vision for it.

Dealing with Expectations

A valuable lesson I have learned concerns expectations placed on players, teams and coaches.  I am not sure there was a specific point in time when I realized addressing expectations was a coaching technique, but there is a necessity to train on how to handle expectations.  If we accept there are four basic facets to the game - technical, tactical, physical and psychological, - then handling expectations falls in the psychological category.

Recruiting often brings a lot of hyperbole to athletes and builds expectations for them to an unrealistic level.  When an athlete does not live up to expectations he is them considered a "bust".   One need not be a highly recruited athlete to have expectations thrust upon him. Consider the best player(s) on a high school team. These are the athletes expected to lead their team to victory, a winning season, a league title, a state championship even. 

Similar expectations can follow a coach. Successful coaches tend to be upwardly mobile and are recruited to new positions after having success in their current situation. Some coaches move every couple of seasons while others remain in the same position for years seeking to build a dynasty.

Just because an expectation exists does not mean it is based in reality.  In fact, many expectations are more hopeful in nature than they are grounded in reality. In the construct of today's youth sports where big, strong, fast can be valued over technique and tactic in pursuit of wins this is ever increasingly a truth.  Time and again I have witnessed the dominant player in U12 fade away and abandon the game entirely as other players catch up to him (or her) physically and surpass them technically and tactically. And it's not peers alone who can surpass once dominant youth players but the game itself can leave them behind.

This is where managing expectations comes in. And let's be honest about this, very few youth coaches actively seek to manage expectations.   Youth coaches tend to ride the best player for as far as that player can take them. They may seek to put a better supporting cast around the dominant player or recruit other dominant players to play along side him.  Our local youth sports organization has followed this path for the last 10-12 years to disastrous results. 

A one time well-oiled feeder program that regularly produced 10-15+ athletes for the high school teams has in recent years has produced 4 or 5 each fall.  Why the drop in numbers?  A change in philosophy that produced initial results that proved to be false in the long run.

When my sons began coming through the SSA teams were randomly selected each year. Those WCOSA league teams were not always successful against teams from opposing school districts.We put together all-star teams comprised of the best players from each team to play in local tournaments and generally had very good success. During this time the high school team was the dominant program in the area.

The change in philosophy was to begin placing all the best youth players of an age group on one team and leave them there from year to year as they progressed toward high school.  At first glance, this may appear like a good idea and while the SSA WCOSA league teams initially fared better, the high school program began a sharp decline both in terms of numbers and competitiveness.

Some of the best youth players are leaving the sport. And not necessarily to play another sport either. Those youth teams (regardless of the sport) that enjoyed so much success coming up through the system cannot achieve a .500 record on the varsity level of play. Obviously there is a short in the system somewhere.  In my opinion, this short can be found in a general category I term "Dealing with Expectations."

We need to go back to the idea of big, strong and fast (BSF) youngsters dominating youth sports physically to produce wins. There will come a time when your best BSF is not as good as an opponents BSF is.  This is adversity.  The expectation was for your BSF, your "best" player to carry your team to victory and now that has not happened. 

What now?

I remember a young lad by the name of David.  Now, David was BSF to an extreme extent. As a 10 year old he was physically capable of playing U14. He scored at will and when in goal, no one scored against him.  I coached David as a U8 and recommended that he be moved up an age group or two, It didn't happen and we never lost a game. Only one team came close to competing with us (David).   I coached David again as a U12 on a tournament team and quickly realized the need to adjust my own expectations.  In a close match I had turned to David and said something like, "We need you to bring your "A" game today. Put us on your shoulders and carry us to victory."   Yeah, definitely not one of my better moments as a coach.  I was young and dumb coaching my eldest sons team and wanting the win. I placed unrealistic expectations on David who failed to live up to them leaving everyone dissatisfied with the experience. I messed up BIG time.

I learned the lesson though. 

From that point forward my teams had no "stars" in terms of expectations.  More importantly I learned even the best players need to learn to deal with adversity and the expectations that can lead to adversity.  This is where our local youth program, the SSA, is failing kids and thusly failing the high school program as well.

As I stated earlier, when my eldest came through the youth ranks teams were randomly selected each year.  This lead to a competitive imbalance against teams from other local associations who stacked their best players all on one team.  Let's also remember that it was our local high school that was the dominant program in the area while the high schools those other teams fed into were weaker. Although the transition was slow, those roles have now entirely reversed.

My contention is that by placing all the best players on a single team and leaving the remaining teams in the program with the "leftovers" many of the important lessons necessary for eventual success were denied to players who would have benefited greatly from those experiences when they arrived to the high school program. 

If your BSF never experiences adversity, how will he know how to overcome it when it does arise?  Splitting up the best players during their youth years almost guarantees those BSF players will meet with adversity, aka losing or failing.  And if you have talent divided among multiple teams with each team having a dominant BSF of it's own (relative in nature, of course) then more players will learn how to lead through adversity.  Spreading the wealth (talent) in the youth ranks serves to develop better leadership depth.  It also serves to prepare a larger group to deal with the hyperbole of expectations.

Then when you bring everyone together on one team in middle school or freshman soccer the pecking order amongst players can sort itself out.  But now when the best player, no longer necessarily the BSF, meets adversity there is depth behind him (or her) to help guide the team through and on to victory.  The phrase used to describe such players today are "outliers", those kids for whom expectations are moderate at best, but who are capable of stepping to the fore when necessary to carry their team. They give "surprise" performances that catch opponents off guard,  The confidence necessary for such performances are rooted in their experiences in youth soccer.  At some point in time, they persevered in the youth ranks. They had that one game when they got "hot" or were "in the zone" and carried their team. The seed for the expectation that they could do so again was planted in that youth game.

So too were the realization that the BSF or best player cannot carry the day each time out.  These players need to realize they are not expected to do so each time out. The expectation is for them to be consistently good each time they take the pitch but the realization is that some days they will perform below average.  This is when other teammates need to understand the expectation for them to step up. They need successful experience in order to do so and that type of experience is found in youth sports.

I harp back to recent articles I have written where I recounted one coach's lamentations about being unable to scout our club team the last couple of springs.  "We played you 3 times this season and watched you several more. Your team is impossible to scout.  It's a different player having a big game every time we watch. You generate goals differently every time we watch.  How do you coach that?"
   
Expectations have a lot to do with it.  I consciously sought to lower the expectations for some players and raise the expectations for others.  I did not want one or even two dominant goal scorers. I wanted a team full of players capable of scoring goals.  Take the pressure, the expectations, to score off the best goal scorer and make him even more productive by doing so.  Raise the expectations for outliers to score goals by giving them the confidence to do so and enabling then to explore the game to it's fullest extent in pursuit of doing so - we raised the bar for these players and they strove to meet the expectations. Some might say we had certain players over-achieve, but not based on our expectations for them.

This past fall, the new high school coach set very low expectations for the team in general and many players specifically.  He just did a terrible job of managing the expectations in general.  The results were the worst season in decades for the program.  Many players and the team as a whole lived down to the expectations he set for them.  There was emphasis placed on BSF when such really did not exist on the team.  Too little emphasis was placed on tactical and technical considerations when a solid foundation was present to be built around.  Everything was topsy-turvy and as a result individuals and the team as a whole underachieved even to lowered expectations.

There is a very real need to establish expectations for each position on the team and for the players who will be playing those positions. Matching players to positions in this manner is important, but not necessarily the end-all for positioning.  Do not sell players short, but also do not place unrealistically high expectations on them.  Watch closely how players respond to situations. Their (re)actions will often indicate whether you need to raise or lower expectations.  And please watch how players interact with one another.  Do not mislabel an outlier nor the star - this past high school season saw the coach do both leaving a confused, disappointed and largely directionless group of players.  The players absolutely know when a coach does this.  Dealing with and managing expectations for the individual and the team is not something normally found in textbooks or coaching courses, but it should be.  It can make or break the individual, the team, the season. 

Expectations.

When you achieve at a high level every day,

 

you don't see it as high achievement,

 

you view it as the accepted norm.

What's the difference?

With every camp season I discover new facets of the game to consider. This summer the differences between programs / teams seems to always be at the forefront of my thoughts. After a recent camp session I overheard two parents discussing the prospects for the coming season.  Their children play for a program on the upswing and the conversation was about the difference between where their program was, where it is now and those programs that are still clearly better.

They ticked off a list of similarities - conditioning, weight training, summer camp, preseason tournaments, skill sessions, two-a-days, kids playing club soccer, active booster programs to support the team. The list of similarities seemingly went on and on.  The sentiment was "We are doing everything other teams do so why aren't we experiencing the same level of success?"

Standards.

Yes, every team does the same things so it becomes about the standards set for doing those things.  What are the expectations when preparing to play and is everyone held accountable to those standards? What separates the really good teams from everyone else is the difference between what is allowed and what is demanded in meeting the standards set for a team.  The really good teams demand excellence where everyone else wishes or hopes for excellence as if it is something that can be granted. 

Many teams go through the motions or play at being excellent. They talk the talk but don't walk the walk. There is little accountability for meeting and maintaining levels of excellence and so their overall standards are much lower than those of the really good teams and consequentially so too is their quality of play on the pitch.

If your team wants better success, set higher standards and demand they be met by holding everyone accountable to them.