At Christmas time and with half of the season already completed, the dances begin in the dugouts of the teams that are not in the desired situation at the beginning of the campaign. But the big question is:
Why time can be the biggest enemy in a sporting project?
Football is a capricious sport that measures your value according to your last results. This sport, which is followed by so many fans, is fundamentally about getting the ball into the other goal and not getting it into yours.
This fact, not undesired by all the technical staffs on this planet, is often a crusher of coaches, players, sporting directors and managers in general. And the fact is that many times, the regrets are conditioned by a common denominator: TIME.
I propose an exercise: Let’s imagine the start of a football season for a coach who has just arrived at a new club. Let’s assume that the first day of competition starts on the weekend of 1 September. It is normal to start the pre-season 5-6 weeks earlier, we are talking about between 15 and 20 July.
Once it’s 15 July…. what happens?
If things have gone well, the sporting management has already started planning the season many weeks before. They know which players are staying, which players are leaving and they have a profile of players they have already brought in or want to bring in.
If things have gone well, the coach has known for a few days which players he can count on and, depending on these players, he can plan a suitable model of play that will bring them closer to victory.
Training starts on 15 July. Physical training, tactical training, mental training… and above all, we have to lay the foundations on which we are going to build our play, that is to say, set the guidelines that the team has to follow in any phase of the game: attack, defence, attacking transition, defensive transition and set-pieces.
If all goes well, at least 6-7 games are played to prove that what is being built is solid and not shaky. It is important to emphasise that the results of these matches are the least important thing, as they do not give away points. What is important in these matches are the sensations that are transmitted.
And finally the 1st of September arrives and with it the first day of competition.
If things have gone well in the previous 6 weeks, we have managed to build a solid house that doesn’t wobble at the first gust of wind. But let’s not fool ourselves, we have a ready-made house that should serve to shelter us from the rain and the wind, but we have hardly been able to decorate it.
It is at this point that we start to paint the walls, to decorate it to our taste, to look at our neighbour’s house and see what things they have and what things we like to incorporate into our house.
Therefore, when we talk about establishing a language or our own language to be able to understand each other, coordinating movements of the offensive or defensive structure through gestures or looks, recognising each other through the game knowing what action I have to do to benefit myself or my teammate, all these actions require time.
And often, if the ball becomes capricious and doesn’t want to go in, nerves take over our reason and, perhaps, hasty decisions are made.
And you, what do you think?
I read you,
Goal hug.