We had a really good training session last night. The players were sharp, open to coaching, and working hard. The session began with a quick summary of video analysis of the Rochdale match. All of the staff were amazed at just how dominating we were -- we knew we had the better of the match, but the level of control of possession, territory, and scoring chances was astounding. Again, cheers to Rochdale for asking questions on the counter attack and finishing the chances they were given.
Therein lies the first major coaching point of the session last night: we gave the chances to Rochdale. The Boss diagrammed the first goal and talked through the other two and was very clear about the failures that led to those chances, was very clear about who was responsible, and also very clear about how to fix those failures in the future. As Andy was talking, I remember thinking when Mia Hamm was asked what the most important quality for an elite soccer player to have, she replied, without hesitation, "Mental toughness." Part of mental toughness, maybe the most important part, is accepting responsibility for failure. In accepting responsibility for our failure, we also recognize our own authority to improve -- I made the mistake; I can learn to fix it. To be honest, I was a little leery of opening the training session with a very clear-eyed, clinical assessment of who did what wrong where. I realized by the end of the training session that I had failed to give our squad the credit for being as tough as they are -- and underestimating the strength of your squad can be as fatal a coaching mistake as overestimating them.
In both working with the senior women's squad, and also watching the Preston North End Center of Excellence, I see that English players, at least at the elite level, are certainly more accustomed to being called to account for shortcomings that their American counterparts. In our efforts to remain positive (and I am a huge believer in Tony DiCicco's "catch them being good" approach) I fear that we sometimes do a disservice to our players by failing to be clear about their failures. Certainly, players shouldn't be berated for shortcomings, but failing to acknowledge failure and assign responsibility can be just as damaging. An English phrase that I hate, and one that I hear American coaching using more and more, is "unlucky" when a player misses an opportunity. Well, it's not unlucky if a player misses an open net: it is a technical failure, and one the player must take responsibility for, because the player can fix a technical mistake. No one can fix being "unlucky."
The difference I see at this point in my career between a good coach and an excellent coach is the specificity of information to correct shortcomings in a player, a unit, or a squad. (For that matter, within a coaching staff as well.) While I have thought for a long time that specificiy is largely a technical matter, the recognition of fine details in a match, and how the accumulation of details affects the whole, I increasingly see the difference between good coaching and excellent coaching to be a moral matter as well. We must demand responsibility from the players, but to do so in a way that we make it clear that the player can affect positive change. We do not highlight a players mistake to berate or belittle a player, but rather the mistake is brought to attention because recognition is the first step towards remediation. Yes, there are cases where we can design a session and coaching points to fix problems the player isn't aware of, but it's more difficult as we get to the elite level and the margins of error are smaller, and the attention to detail is greater.
When coaching U8s, we pretty much don't have to tell a kid they made a mistake by toe-ing the ball -- they failed to control the ball, and we just teach them the techniques to gain control. As they master hitting the ball with the side foot and with laces, the players recognize they can control where the ball is going where they couldn't when hitting it with a toe. I think maybe too often we miss the opportunity to point out as a player gains mastery to be very clear that the player had a problem, and through hard work and attention to detail, the player fixed the problem. Too often, we just tell a kid she's great, she can hit the back of the net consistently now, or change directions and pace on the dribble, or whatever, and "you are really gifted." Without the association being explicitly made between the practice and the success, I think we are doing the player, and the person, a great disservice.
As chance would have it, after last night's training session where we began with a recitation of failure (as well as considerable praise for all that we did right, because 95% of the time, we were superb) the FA Insight Live website has a presentation from Alistair Smith on generational learning differences, and he discusses the work of Carol Dweck and her model of Fixed v. Growth mindset. Very briefly, people with a fixed mindset theory of self are invested in the notion that ability is related to gifts and are largely predetermined. As a result, they attribute failure to lack of ability, seek ego-driven relational praise ("You beat Timmy! You are special!"), and ultimately evade challenges as a threat as they might possibly expose a lack of talent that a fixed mindset personality does not believe they have the ability to remedy. Those with a growth mindset believe that ability is related to effort and thus is malleable. Failure is attributed to lack of effort, and they seek task related praise and improvement feedback, and seek additional challenges to extend themselves and grow their ability.
As I said, I have come to believe that coaching is, to a very large extent, a moral exercise. I have long railed against what I term the ESPN idea of "God-given talent." Certainly Leo Messi has certain inherent traits that contribute to his dominance on the pitch. More important however is the thousands of hours he has spent with a ball at his feet, watching the game, learning from coaches, and experimenting (and that includes failing) in training. Even things we think of as fixed, such as foot speed, are not. Go tell a track coach that the speed of a runner is predetermined. He will love to match up against your team in a meet, because while you are praising your runners for having "God-given speed" she is going to be teaching her runners how to be faster.
Our players must be held accountable for their shortcomings, so they can recognize their autonomy and ability to affect change and improve. When we see "talented" players hit a ceiling and suddenly fail to develop, I think those seeds have often been planted years earlier when as a kid the player was told they were "destined" for greatness. Destiny has nothing to with it: each player, each person participates in their growth every day, and their destination is not fixed. As coaches, we influence the path that our players take by the type of praise and type of corrections we make. It is critically important that when the shortcomings of a player are exposed that we are clear it's not because "you don't have talent" but because the player hasn't yet learned the solution to the failure exposed. As coaches, we are here to help find those solutions.
I do think there is a cultural element to all of this. I find that English players tend to be more open to criticism because they believe they can improve. American players tend to be more threatened, founded on a fear their talent is fixed and thus limited. That is a gross generalization to be sure, and perhaps not entirely valid. However, regardless of whether we coach in England, Pennsylvania, Mali, or Uzbekistan, we have a duty to the player to help them develop, and a player cannot, a person cannot be empowered to improve without a recognition that mistakes aren't "unlucky", they are opportunities for growth.
The FA Insight Live materials are available for coaches who are members of the Football Association Coaches' Association. For coaches based outside of the UK, associate memberships with access to online material are available; for information, go to: http://www.thefa.com/GetIntoFootball/FALearning/FALearningPages/FACoachesAssociation . For more information about the research and work of Carol Dweck, go to: mindsetonline.com. There are links on the information pages to purchase Professor Dweck's book.
