The movie Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium was on TV several times this past week and is one of my favorite movies of all time. How does this movie relate to soccer? The Congreve Cube, of course!
One might think the movie is about a magical toy store and it's rather quirky owner, the 242 year old Mr. Magorium. It is not! No, it is about his 23 year old assistant Molly Mahoney and her need for an
opportunity to prove to herself that she was something more than she believed. Enter the Congreve Cube, a block of wood.
Mahoney mistakenly thinks the block of wood has magical powers that will help unlock her creativity and enable her to finish her first concerto for the piano. She was a child prodigy, a musical genius, who in her own mind never fully developed the talent she once displayed.
Okay, now you might be beginning to relate this story to the world of soccer, but wait just a minute. Clear those thoughts from your mind, for while a worthy path to follow it may not be the path we will travel today.
After Mr. Magorium's death it appears the toy store has died as well. The magic is gone. A once vibrant and very much alive toy store is now ordinary. Mahoney is depressed and has decided to sell the property. That is until the Mutant accountant catches glimpse of a sparkle in Mahoney's eye. The magic just might live!
And so it is that Mahoney discovers the answer to her dilemma is not contained in a block of wood called a Congreve Cube, but in the relationship she has with that block of wood. She need not do anything to the Congreve Cube except believe in it. Once Mahoney lends her magic, her confidence, to the block of wood it begins to do wondrous things on its own. It moves of its own accord and begins flitting and flying about exploring both the toy store and itself. The results are ... magical.
And slowly, with Mahoney directing as if in front of an orchestra, the toy store also comes back to life. A magical and melodious cacophony of sight and sound is awakened and springs forth about her as each toy follows the same path of the Congreve Cube in coming to life and exploring its surroundings with child-like wonder and delight. In doing so the toys, the toy store, the Wonder Emporium, re-ignites the sparkle in Mahoney she thought didn't exist or at last had been lost to her.
I have encountered coaches like Mahoney.
They have a roster full of wunderkinds who seem to plateau early. The talent present is obvious yet it just doesn't seem to work for some reason. The team and it's individual players underachieve and there exists a general feeling of unsatisfied expectations that permeates the team environment.
It's not magic that is needed.
It is belief that is required!
Just as Mahoney found belief in the Congreve Cube and empowered the block of wood to move of it's own accord and live its life with gusto and zest. Players need to be given their coaches confidence to play and explore the game of soccer to its fullest.
*********************************************************************************
Mahoney talking to the Congreve Cube:
Move.
( The Congreve Cube rolls onto its side)
Come on, you can do better than that. Move!
(The Congreve Cube moves about a counter top)
All right, don't worry. If you fall, I'll just pick you right back up. Move!
(And the Congreve Cube does! It falls from the counter top, but only to correct itself, to right its path and begin a magical tumbling flight around the Wonder Emporium!)
**********************************************************************************
The players will give back to the game everything they find and so much more. The Coach, in return for the confidence he has instilled in his players, receives more back than he could have ever dreamt of conjuring up on his own accord. Good coaches understand that great teams are the ones free to explore the wonders of the game without fear of making mistakes. The great players are the ones who are not coached to stay in position or given rigidly defines roles they must adhere to - like a block of wood - that destroy confidence and limit potential, but are allowed to explore and discover all they might become!
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Showing posts with label over-coaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label over-coaching. Show all posts
Monday
Saturday
Over-Coaching is the Biggest Challenge facing Soccer in the US.
I am going to use the former coach of our local high school team as an example of how over-coaching in soccer is retarding the development of the game in the United States. I use this example because it is one I am familiar with. The coach concluded his career with 330 victories and was recently inducted into the schools athletic hall of fame. I seek not to diminish these accomplishments in any way, shape or form. I do believe the context in which they were achieved is important to understanding why the United States as a country is still lagging behind the top teams in the world.
I learned a lot from the former high school coach. His preparation for a looming season, camps, training sessions and individual games was meticulous. He always had a plan. If there was a negative to this it would be an inflexibility to alter or change the plan. He was extremely rigid in his thinking once the plan had been formulated. Change could quite literally take years to come about. He began his coaching career as a 1-4-3-3 advocate. At some point he switched to 1-4-4-2 and it took several years of discussions and weighing the pro's and con's before he eventually switched back to a 1-4-3-3 for his last few years of coaching. I think he loved the defense of the 1-4-4-2 but loathed the lack of offense it generated for his teams.
This is where our story begins. Coach so narrowly defined the positional responsibilities within the 1-4-4-2 as to render the players robotic within the system of play. I first began to realize this when, despite executing brilliant early crosses a young right back was chastised, benched, and bounced back and forth between varsity and junior varsity before starting in the tournament and becoming a driving force to the teams success. That an outside back would come forward into the attack was anathema to the old coach. It was not part of the designated role and responsibility for the position regardless of how effective a strategy it was.
This was occurring about the time the USWNT were dominating the World Cup and Olympic scene. A big part of those teams was a young defender by the name of Brandi Chastain who came into the attack regularly. I studied her game and that of other outside backs. Players like Carla Overbeck, Cafu and Gary Neville, Roberto Carlos and Frank De Boer. What made these players effective were well-timed forays into the attack. Something the rigid and stringent system of the high school coach frowned upon. He basically over-coached the effectiveness of defenders entering the attack right out of his system.
Now, it is true that during the mid 2000's the coach began to allow a center back to come forward. This was more due to the irrepressible nature of an individual than by design, imo. At 6'3" and 210 pounds of agile mobility he wasn't going to take this force of nature off the field so he learned to work with it by having the defensive midfielder drop back into the center back role to cover for the player. This evolved to a revolving defensive triangle between the two center backs and a the defensive mid in later years. I always thought this defeated the purpose in most regards as it did not bring more players into the attack. Rather it rotated players into the attack. By this time, I was admittedly interested in how to add more players to the attack than in switching around the players that would attack.
I was coaching U14 Boys in club soccer in those days and made up my mind to "sell out" with the outside backs and encourage them to join in the attack at every available opportunity. The result was a surge in goal production, especially against man-marking teams which were still prevalent in those days. Outside backs making well-timed runs forward were seldom accounted for by opposing defenses. Allowed to roam free into the attack, they wreaked havoc on the opponents. Back in that day the only guideline I provided was "if you don't have an opponent you are responsible for marking, GO!"
Fast forward to this past spring season and my philosophy is now 1) defense wins championships.
That's it.
We have a shape we wish to defend in. When transitioning from defending to attacking and when in full attack there are no restrictions on player movement. We stress spacing and maintaining balance within the principles of penetration, depth and width, but do not assign responsibility for any of these to specific players or positions. When we lose the ball, we fill our defensive shape 1) nearest three to the ball press and 2) everyone else fill the defensive shape from back to front regardless of "your position." The result was the closest thing to total football as any of my teams has ever achieved. We were a dominant team in league, tournament and showcase play.
The contrast between teams, and I suppose between coaches, was the freedom or lack thereof the players had to work with. The old coach so narrowly defined roles and responsibilities that his teams were very predictable in their play. He basically over-coached creativity and versatility out of the players. On the other hand, I gave the players near total attacking freedom on the pitch allowing for creativity to blossom and unpredictability to flourish.
The best compliment I have ever received from an opposing coach was this: "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?"
I don't.
And that's the secret to our success.
I learned a lot from the former high school coach. His preparation for a looming season, camps, training sessions and individual games was meticulous. He always had a plan. If there was a negative to this it would be an inflexibility to alter or change the plan. He was extremely rigid in his thinking once the plan had been formulated. Change could quite literally take years to come about. He began his coaching career as a 1-4-3-3 advocate. At some point he switched to 1-4-4-2 and it took several years of discussions and weighing the pro's and con's before he eventually switched back to a 1-4-3-3 for his last few years of coaching. I think he loved the defense of the 1-4-4-2 but loathed the lack of offense it generated for his teams.
This is where our story begins. Coach so narrowly defined the positional responsibilities within the 1-4-4-2 as to render the players robotic within the system of play. I first began to realize this when, despite executing brilliant early crosses a young right back was chastised, benched, and bounced back and forth between varsity and junior varsity before starting in the tournament and becoming a driving force to the teams success. That an outside back would come forward into the attack was anathema to the old coach. It was not part of the designated role and responsibility for the position regardless of how effective a strategy it was.
This was occurring about the time the USWNT were dominating the World Cup and Olympic scene. A big part of those teams was a young defender by the name of Brandi Chastain who came into the attack regularly. I studied her game and that of other outside backs. Players like Carla Overbeck, Cafu and Gary Neville, Roberto Carlos and Frank De Boer. What made these players effective were well-timed forays into the attack. Something the rigid and stringent system of the high school coach frowned upon. He basically over-coached the effectiveness of defenders entering the attack right out of his system.
Now, it is true that during the mid 2000's the coach began to allow a center back to come forward. This was more due to the irrepressible nature of an individual than by design, imo. At 6'3" and 210 pounds of agile mobility he wasn't going to take this force of nature off the field so he learned to work with it by having the defensive midfielder drop back into the center back role to cover for the player. This evolved to a revolving defensive triangle between the two center backs and a the defensive mid in later years. I always thought this defeated the purpose in most regards as it did not bring more players into the attack. Rather it rotated players into the attack. By this time, I was admittedly interested in how to add more players to the attack than in switching around the players that would attack.
I was coaching U14 Boys in club soccer in those days and made up my mind to "sell out" with the outside backs and encourage them to join in the attack at every available opportunity. The result was a surge in goal production, especially against man-marking teams which were still prevalent in those days. Outside backs making well-timed runs forward were seldom accounted for by opposing defenses. Allowed to roam free into the attack, they wreaked havoc on the opponents. Back in that day the only guideline I provided was "if you don't have an opponent you are responsible for marking, GO!"
Fast forward to this past spring season and my philosophy is now 1) defense wins championships.
That's it.
We have a shape we wish to defend in. When transitioning from defending to attacking and when in full attack there are no restrictions on player movement. We stress spacing and maintaining balance within the principles of penetration, depth and width, but do not assign responsibility for any of these to specific players or positions. When we lose the ball, we fill our defensive shape 1) nearest three to the ball press and 2) everyone else fill the defensive shape from back to front regardless of "your position." The result was the closest thing to total football as any of my teams has ever achieved. We were a dominant team in league, tournament and showcase play.
The contrast between teams, and I suppose between coaches, was the freedom or lack thereof the players had to work with. The old coach so narrowly defined roles and responsibilities that his teams were very predictable in their play. He basically over-coached creativity and versatility out of the players. On the other hand, I gave the players near total attacking freedom on the pitch allowing for creativity to blossom and unpredictability to flourish.
The best compliment I have ever received from an opposing coach was this: "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?"
I don't.
And that's the secret to our success.
Friday
Over-coaching
Over-coaching takes away
the opportunity
for your players
to practice and hone
decision-making skills.
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