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Great Player Make Poor Coaches

Boris Bachmann said:
Again, to be fair, the right athletes can make even the worst coach look pretty solid. (and of course, if it needs to be said, the reverse is also true)
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To his credit, Walsh was smart enough to recognize that the playbook was above our skill grade and modified the playbook accordingly.

We finished the year 10-3.
 
watchnerd said:
???

Biomechanics is a scientific discipline.

Why would it map to having a good physique at all?
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It doesn't, which was the point I was trying to make. Once again, I'm not talking about sports here, but strength training, calisthenics, etc. I think some athletes-turned-teachers think the cues they know and use are the only and best cues, and so they only use them. They might work for their body but not for others. That doesn't mean that others can't accomplish the skill in question. I think it means they just need an individualised approach.

I guess it boils down to knowing what one is talking about, that's all. A great athlete might be able to hit certain positions really well, but not know enough to cue other peoples' bodies into the correct position for them.

It's the difference between repeating what you learned in the past and learning new things to expand your teaching capabilitites.
 
bluejeff said:
I guess it boils down to knowing what one is talking about, that's all. A great athlete might be able to hit certain positions really well, but not know enough to cue other peoples' bodies into the correct position for them.
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The phenomenon is often termed:

"Unconsciously competent"

i.e. the kills are so ingrained an intuitive, it no longer requires much thinking.

Hence the 'bad coach', angle, especially if they achieved high levels of competence at a very young age.
 
Kenny Croxdale said:
As I noted there are some exceptions. However, they are minimal.

Based on the research information provided, generally great player don't make good coaches.

Do you homework and come to you own conclustion.
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I did some research. For the sport, I picked football. I figure it's a good example since it's the most popular sport in the World.

I had a look at the top 5 European leagues. I also added the champions league which pits teams from the different leagues against each other. We have to draw a line somewhere and the top 5 is the traditional one when talking about the top leagues. The champions league is the best there is.

To not spend too much time on it, I only looked at the last ten years. Still a decent timeframe given the number of competitions, and I assume we'd prefer recent times in the discussion.

Out of the 60 trophies, teams coached by a former great player won 32. More than half of the time the great player turned coach won.

In summary, I think it's a false generalization that great players make poor coaches.
 
watchnerd said:
I don't remember where I read it, but there is a saying that the best coaches are frustrated mediocre former athletes who had to try harder and train smarter to even have a chance.
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This is propably really good anwer. I agree. All the best soccer coaches I know were decent amateurs. :D
 
Antti said:
I did some research. For the sport, I picked football. I figure it's a good example since it's the most popular sport in the World.

I had a look at the top 5 European leagues. I also added the champions league which pits teams from the different leagues against each other. We have to draw a line somewhere and the top 5 is the traditional one when talking about the top leagues. The champions league is the best there is.

To not spend too much time on it, I only looked at the last ten years. Still a decent timeframe given the number of competitions, and I assume we'd prefer recent times in the discussion.

Out of the 60 trophies, teams coached by a former great player won 32. More than half of the time the great player turned coach won.

In summary, I think it's a false generalization that great players make poor coaches.
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To be fair. Almost anybody could coach those teams to win trophies... they have/had best players, basically unlimited money coffins etc..
Think about last 10-15 years.. juventus won something like 10 championships in a row with several coaches. No matter who coached. :D
And there is not even competion in French league or bundesleague. Only one team to win all the trophies. In spain there are 2-3 teams, Italy has possibly six teams who could win, but it's pretty much only top 5 league where is competion left. :)
 
Sauli said:
To be fair. Almost anybody could coach those teams to win trophies... they have/had best players, basically unlimited money coffins etc..
Think about last 10-15 years.. juventus won something like 10 championships in a row with several coaches. No matter who coached. :D
And there is not even competion in French league or bundesleague. Only one team to win all the trophies. In spain there are 2-3 teams, Italy has possibly six teams who could win, but it's pretty much only top 5 league where is competion left. :)
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I agree that at least the bundesliga and serie A have been in an appalling state during that time, though serie A is the most balanced league nowadays.

We could of course look at just the champions league. In the last ten years seven times a great player turned manager has won. In the ten years before it, 5/10 times. Ten years before that, the same.

It's also an interesting point that on a quick thought the list of trophy winning coaches is relatively narrow and some individuals are very prominent on the list.

We could go into more detail and dismiss the serie a and bundesliga, but I suspect it would make the great players just stand out more.
 
watchnerd said:
I don't remember where I read it, but there is a saying that the best coaches are frustrated mediocre former athletes who had to try harder and train smarter to even have a chance.
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Along those lines, I have said that my biggest asset as an instructor is my utter lack of talent. Anything I can do I can only because someone taught me well and I practiced it, so I can show you how to do it too.
 
Sauli said:
Think about last 10-15 years.. juventus won something like 10 championships in a row with several coaches.
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The last session that Higuain was still in Napoli were pretty hard for us to win. Same with first Conte session, first Allegri session. Pirlo also wasn't good enough for the team. Sure, the Serie A can be errrr sometime - but what about Champion League and similar tournament? I mean Juventus under Allegri and Juventus under Pirlo are totally two different team in the Champion League.
 
Antti said:
I did some research. For the sport, I picked football. I figure it's a good example since it's the most popular sport in the World.

I had a look at the top 5 European leagues. I also added the champions league which pits teams from the different leagues against each other. We have to draw a line somewhere and the top 5 is the traditional one when talking about the top leagues. The champions league is the best there is.

To not spend too much time on it, I only looked at the last ten years. Still a decent timeframe given the number of competitions, and I assume we'd prefer recent times in the discussion.

Out of the 60 trophies, teams coached by a former great player won 32. More than half of the time the great player turned coach won.

In summary, I think it's a false generalization that great players make poor coaches.
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I came across a text that I, biased as I may be accused of being, found interesting:

https://openarchive.usn.no/usn-xmlu...elseth+%7E+Telseth.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

It is rather crazy to think about how much better the Norwegian national team and Rosenborg used to be compared to today.
While Egil "Drillo" Olsen did get a lot of credit for his tactical skills, he also recieved heavy criticism for his playing style and philosophy, often being described as defensive, destructive and not entertaining. But even his crictics envied the fact that a team that in the early 90's consisted more of amateurs than profesionals, could beat the likes of England and Holland.

The author attributes a lot of the success to the fact that Drillo approached football as a science before this was common, or even accepted. Zone defence, zero tolerance against playing the ball backwards whenever there very other alternatives etc - it was all rooted in endless data collecting and studies of football. And it worked, in the sense that Norway beat a lot of teams whose set of individual skills were on a whole another level. At some point, of course, everyone elsed caught up, and science, video studies etc has a given and prominent place in modern football. For the Norwegian national team and our clubs, this has resulted in a decline, as they can no longer compete with significantly more skilled teams.

In general, would assume that being a former great player can help you become a great football coach, but that also some degree of academic understanding is a lot more mandatory now that it was a few decades ago.
 
I suppose there should be some balance here and (again) to be fair, there are a lot of reasons why you might actually want a (formerly/current) great player to be a/your coach.

Probably the most compelling reason is that it is absolutely harder to coach someone to a place that you've never been personally. You might be surprised how many coaches can NOT give useful advice unless they have "lived" it. I wouldn't say I was an awesome swimmer, but I was pretty good and had a lot of competitive and training experience with world-class swimmers. When I work with kids who are stressed out about competition, or have zero idea how to pace a race (or a workout, or a set), or don't know how to regulate their breathing, or don't know how or when to ramp up/slow down their effort, or have shoulder problems, or are in a slump, I can draw on my own experiences to help guide and instruct them.

I've had this discussion often - obviously you don't have to have done it to coach it. Mark Spitz's coach couldn't swim. But, in general, some personal competitive experience is going to be nothing but an asset.
 
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