Why do sporting teams win? Is it because they have the best players, the best technology, the biggest budget or the best fans? If you could answer this question I would imagine you’d find yourself as CEO of any number of professional teams throughout the world. I may not seem overly ambitious as I write a blog on this topic as it is pretty well known that the teams that win are those who are the best week in week out. Generally these are the teams who have the best players and therefore the biggest budgets. I was inspired to write this blog based on the number of times I hear things like “we won because you made us the fittest team” from athletes or strength and conditioning coaches say – generally about other teams – “look at all the players cramping up with 20 to go – their S&C coach mustn’t know what he/she is doing!” I think that too many people take and give credit for winning – when there is – according to Adrian Cois – no one reason for a team winning, but a number of critical aspects which need to be done well for success.
There are three elements, which make teams successful in any sport:
1. Cattle – successful teams need to have the best players in key positions.
2. Philosophy – teams win when they execute their game plan to a higher percentage than their opponents.
3. Being Healthy – if the health of your players both mental and physical interferes with either of the first two elements – a team will not be successful.
In a way my “rules” are like the rules of robotics. They interact with each other and if you don’t have all of them together at the same time your ability to be successful in the long term will be severely diminished.
Let’s start with first most crucial element – the players. How many times have you seen an old player who drinks beer during the week, is overweight and unfit – go out on the ground and perform? Regularly – it happens all of the time. They may not be able to put together a full season of games because of injury or ill-discipline (not to generalise!) but when they play – even in an unideal state – they are invaluable resources. If you don’t have the best players playing in your team in key positions – it doesn’t matter how fit, smart or tactical you are – your team will not be successful in the long run.
If you don’t have a philosophy, which the coaching staff, club administrators, medical staff and players BELIEVE in and follow through with EVERYDAY, a team will not be successful in the long run. What do I mean by philosophy? I think that this term encompasses a number of aspects, which contribute to having this element of club success functioning the way it should be:
· Playing Structure – the coaching staff need to set up a playing structure where everyone knows their roles and are accountable for their roles. Every time that a player gets the ball he/she knows what their next move should be. This is done on the training ground – you practice and practice until it is second nature so that when you play on the weekend you know what your game plan is because you have already put it in place in training throughout that week and season. For example look at the two top teams in the A-League in 2011/12, Roar and Mariners – they go at it head to head stoically sticking to their tactical structures. You shouldn’t change your philosophy week in week out. Without having concrete statistical data behind me, I will say the teams that win are the teams that execute their game plan to the highest percentage as compared with their opponents on the day.
· Discipline – you need to be consistent with discipline. I have been involved in too many teams where one rule exists for some people while one exists for another person. This does not allow trust to be developed. A player needs to know what is not acceptable and that if they make the choice to undertake that unacceptable action that there are set consequences and that those consequences are going to happen.
· Belief & Follow Through – you have to believe in what you are doing and follow through with it on a daily basis. There is no point installing a new training technique or system and letting it go by the wayside without acknowledging that you made an active choice to remove it from you regime. For example, if you say that every player needs to have an ice bath for 4 minutes after training and then let 1 player get away without fulfilling that requirement – you not only undermine your own authority but your whole team philosophy. Look at Roar in season 2011/12, I remember a stage where they had won something like 36 games in a row. There was a game where they beat Glory 4-0 at home and there was a rift on the field between two of the international players. At that time my Dad turned to me and said that it seemed odd that two players who were both scoring goals playing on a team that was winning in the way that had been to be arguing with each other. At that time there were some issues with the international players that the Roar were going to nominate for the ACL and I immediately felt like there was some rivalry which suggested that there was tension between these players. The Roar lost the next 5 games in a row. This is the type of rift, which decreases the belief in the system and detracts from the philosophy of a successful club.
I find it really difficult to stomach people telling me that my team is the “fittest”. Let’s face it; the fitness of the teams at the highest level really is negligible as they are all as fit as each other. The key to success is keeping your players healthy so that you can keep your BEST PLAYERS on the field and ensure that they don’t have an excuse not to BELIEVE in your philosophy. I would be telling fibs if I said that I don’t believe that the training techniques that I use are not better than some other techniques because I certainly think that there are some programs, which are inferior to my ideal version of training models. However the majority of this scepticism comes from looking at the program in general and these so-called inferior programs generally are missing major elements, such as true strength, power, and testing or recovery components. So essentially it is more important for a fitness coach to be able to communicate and be consistent with both players and coaching staff to ensure that players believe what they coach says, does the work to get the results and stay healthy.
It does frustrate me sometimes working as part of the machine that is a club because I feel like there are some many little things that can be solved by simply improving the three areas above and to be fair it really only takes the initial investment to get the players, the courage to stick with your philosophy in good times and in bad, and someone who is competent enough to maintain the health of your players from a performance point of view without letting their ego or lack of knowledge get in the way of the other two elements.
