BEHIND THE PLAY #81

Murray and I had a long conversation about his book that just came out. Part one was last week. Today is the (shorter) wrap up of that talk. Great ideas on coach education and hopes for a infrastructure-laden legacy here from the World Cup.

But first “Run towards adversity.” Why?

Running towards adversity.

A friend of mine just told me this is written in the Ipswich Town dressing room. That is a mentality that transcends the game and could be an entire operating system and M.O. for humans, especially young people.

It’s so good.

But it’s not what most parents seem to be embracing for their kids. Instead, in their soccer and likely other aspects of their life (schooling comes to mind) repeated interventions posing as advocacy and support are robbing kids of the agency that they will need later in life. Insulating them from challenges is just instilling dependancy.

Agency is a process that needs to be earned through just as many, if not more, setbacks as successes. Try something. Fail! Try again. Get knocked down! Get up. Approach it differently! Persist. Make progress. Overcome. Show adversity it has underestimated you. That’s how you build confidence and leadership in young people.

Let the game happen to them. The good and the bad. Let it work its magic and disappointment on them. Let them feel those negative emotions and learn how to process them. Be there to support them through that quagmire but don’t provide the solution. Because when they solve it, whatever their “it” is, and know they did it themselves, they replace reliance with resilience and move, confidently, towards self-actualization.

No parent wants to raise a 25 year old pre-teen who still expects their parents to help them find a job, book a flight or make a meal. Not all parenting need be interventionist. Love, advocacy and caring do not have to always be dispensed like they’re a parental basket of solutions. Raise problem solvers. Put them on a soccer team and let life happen with a bit lip in the moment and an occasional guiding hand in the aftermath. Let them confront adversity with confidence; one they run to, not from.

Part 2 of my conversation with Murray Mollard, author of Winning Pitch, The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team at the World Cup and Beyond.

The coach education we need

Gregor Young: So, the next part I want to get onto is the coach education chapter that you did. It was really, really good. I'll be pulling parts of that for us to use. Especially that idea of ‘community of practice.’ It's annoying to me that I had not thought of something like that and that our idea of coach education is still so much about just CSA courses because of the mandatory aspect and that the expense of putting our coaches through C licenses, B licenses makes it cost prohibitive to do much more than that.

But what the CPL coaches are doing -Wheeldon, Smyrniotis, Hart and Sartini… I thought that was great.

Murray Mollard: Yep.

GY: Great ideas, easy to implement, sustainable and you would get buy-in from coaches as well.

MM: I tried to make the distinction in the book between coach education and coach development and the idea that everybody will understand that. That regardless of what profession you're in, you have a base level of education and you might do some professional development, but you know when you start out, you're still very much junior. You don't know that much, don't have much experience, are still learning and you need to continue to learn on an ongoing basis from your peers, those that are more senior, who have a lot of experience. You want to keep learning from those people, and you want to create opportunities and environments where you can continue to learn and let the young people who have great new ideas come up and experiment as well.

So those are the community practice ideas. Get coaches who work across age groups together and really sit down and share ideas. Yes, of course coaches want to win, of course they want to be at the top of the league, but you know what? We're all in this to develop players and develop as coaches. It could definitely be done at the youth club level.

Nobody has any secrets. As Bobby Smyrniotis said, “I’ve got 200 games you can watch. I have no secrets about my tactical strategies. That doesn't mean you're going to stop me and my team.”

How do we do it?

GY: Cooperating. Having those coaches in the same rooms does two things. It breaks down some silos and it may even reduce attrition in soccer coaching because some people just get fed up with it, even if they're good at it. Adding some community may help with staff retention so you don't feel like you're learning on your own all the time given how much of these courses are online now.

I do think that that section is something that almost everybody who works in youth soccer here could benefit from and pull some bits out of and apply at their club.

MM: Thank you. I did put some time and effort into that chapter because it was important to focus on coach development. We know that if we want great players, we really do need excellent coaches.

MM: My story about Vanni and the fact that nobody had wanted to sit down with him was astounding to me. I did suggest to a club, hey, why don't we invite Vanni to come and chat with coaches here? And I was rebuffed, or that idea was rebuffed. I couldn't believe it. To take that a step further consider Whitecaps Assistant Coach Michael D’Agostino from North Vancouver who has become a very important part of the Whitecaps success. Why don’t clubs invite him to talk to their coaches?

GY: Yes.

MM: Jesper Sorensen has done something for the Whitecaps that's taken it a step beyond what Vanni did. And I'm curious about what's the secret sauce there? What has Jesper done that's made such a difference?

GY: I spoke with someone who works at the Whitecaps and asked that. He said it’s pretty simple. He said, every player knows exactly what the team is trying to do in a game and they work on that specific role so when they go on the field even those who have little or no MLS experience don’t pull the level of play down. Nobody seems to let down the team in terms of not being able to do what's expected. It seems to be a prerequisite to getting on the field.

They work on knowing what the role is, what the intent is, and they only get on the field if they can demonstrate that they can.

World Cup legacy : bricks and mortar

GY: What do you think or hope the World Cup legacy will be here in Canada?

MM: I write about it in that chapter on bricks and mortar. Infrastructure. It comes down to persuading municipalities to build and given Langley was able to persuade their municipality to build that indoor field then it’s possible elsewhere. Just from a Vancouver point of view, you know, we would have had two FIFA training pitches but we lost the one at South Memorial. This frustrates me given how many players we have and teams we need to accommodate. It is important to let our top young players feel what it is like to play on top quality grass pitches. Soccer is meant to be played on grass. 

GY: I do think the building of these recently announced mini fields could be huge. As long as they’re primarily made available for free play they could be the biggest driver of new participation in the game.  

There’s a quote from Victor Montagliani on page 179, and it's sort of aligned with what I've been saying about the effect that a World Cup can have on the game locally. Like me, he doesn't think that that the World Cup alone is going to be enough to really create a massive spark. That these one-off high-profile events just aren't gonna sustain and grow the game here. That we need a more deeply embedded cultural effect for it to be sustainable.

Putting well-made mini fields into loads of neighbourhoods could be that cultural transformation we need to spur moving more players into club soccer. I remember being told that Germany used proceeds from their 2006 World Cup to build 1000 mini fields throughout the country.

MM: It's great! But it’s hard work getting new soccer pitches built. I've seen that in my past job. I was working on some housing issues and it's so hard to get it done given the municipal process. There's been some provincial changes but it takes such thoughtful strategy and I think Victor gets that. I say it in the book. There needs to be leaders from the game involved to get an infrastructure strategy. They need to work collectively.

GY: Thanks for doing this Murray. Hope the book is a success and people take on board the many ideas that you’ve presented.