Press Conferences & Tactical Understanding

The Camp Nou across the street from MBP’s office!

Welcome back to Barcelona, Spain!

The past three sessions have been packed with fantastic information, and I hope to bring you all up to date.

To kick off the learning week, we began with the mock press conferences. As I mentioned in the previous post, Dr. Rude explained that as a professional coach, one of the best ways to manage the meta-game is through the press conference. In particular, Dr. Rude discussed that each statement made during a press conference must be directly related to the personal values of the coach.

Specifically, we discussed the Jose Mourinho vs. Pep Guardiola confrontation in the media during the 2010-2011 season. Due to the dominance of FC Barcelona in the ‘game’, Mourinho went to the ‘meta-game’ to try and defeat FC Barcelona and Pep. In the build up to the 2011 UEFA Champions League semi-finals – FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid, Pep finally used the press conference to hit back at Mourinho. It is important to note that it is against Pep’s values to retaliate in such a manner, but in order to defend his players, he took action. After the retaliation, all of Pep’s players applauded him in the locker-room.

During the mock press conferences, each one of us received a description of a situation in which we would have to respond to. For me, I was a newly hired manager of a club and we lost the opening two games of the season. More specifically, I was hired with only a few weeks left during preseason, and during the opening two matches, my team only showed glimpses of good, organized soccer.

In order to make the press conference as realistic as possible, Dr. Rude and my four colleagues asked extremely difficult questions that tested and tried me, but in the calmest way I could, I addressed the questions simply and clearly, and moved from one to the other.The experience was fantastic as I never thought knowing how to execute a press conference would be part of the curriculum in a coaching course.

During sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, Dr. Rude moved on to teaching us about the next soccer structure, the player. With regards to developing soccer players, we learned that there are three main stages of game understanding that players progressively move through (hopefully) during the course of their soccer careers. The three main stages include, egocentric, summative, and collective.

The egocentric phase primarily revolves around the individual player, which translates to the 6 year old player who receives the ball and tries dribbling through the entire opponent, or the young player who decides to pick the grass because they do not have the ball.

The summative phase still revolves around the individual player, but they begin using their teammates (as secondary options). For instance, a summative player tries to first solve the game situation individually (beating three opponents with a dribble), but if the player discovers that the task is too difficult, they will then seek help from their teammates (passing the ball). As the summative player evolves, their game understanding progresses from an individual mindset to a more team orientated thinking process in which they do not have to execute an individual action before playing with teammates.

Lastly, a player in the collective phase has the appropriate level of game understanding in order to execute the tactical fundamentals necessary for the team to be successful. For instance, the left full-back has the game intelligence to overlap the left winger in order to create a 2v1 situation against the opponents right fullback in an effort to create numerical superiority in the left channel, even though there is a chance the winger will not reward the supporting run. The idea is that in order for the team to operate fluidly and synchronized, each player on the field must move in harmony.

Some of the key points to take away are related to the notion that not every player develops at the same rate, and ALL players pass through each stage of development, but when they enter and exit a stage all depends on the atmosphere in which the players are exposed to. For instance, most FC Barcelona players at the U-14 level are beginning to enter the collective stage, but a U-14 player in California could be entering the summative stage. The idea is that not every U-14 team (or any team) should be exposed to the same type of training session simply because they are the same age.

Two important questions every coach must ask and answer are:

1. What level of game understanding (tactical) does the team have?
2. What training exercises are needed in order to appropriately grow the game understanding (tactical) of the players (subsequently, the team)?

As you can see, the past three days have been quite intense in terms of the amount of information being taught, but also the depth of the information. The information being taught is truly unique, and each new day brings more motivation to learn more and be better than I was the previous day.

In the next post, be on the look out for inside information from the FC Barcelona U-19 and FC Barcelona B matches!

Thanks for reading.

Brett Uttley

Twitter: @BrettUttley & @TOGSoccer

Psychology and Paradigms

MBP School of Coaches: Class #3 and #4

In class #3 (Friday’s class), we participated in another 4 hour session, but this time, we were learning from Xavi Garcia, who is one of the most important sports psychologists in all of Spain. Needless to say, we are incredibly fortunate to be able to learn from someone like Xavi.

During the course of our first 4 hour session with Xavi, we discussed a wide range of topics ranging from identifying and regulating the emotions of yourself, the players, and the team as whole to discussing the term leadership and all it encompasses.

To begin the session, Xavi asked each one of us to share our biggest dream/goal as a coach, and one by one, each of us verbalized our goals to the group. When it was my turn, I shared the fact that my dream/goal is to coach in Major League Soccer, in addition to having a big influence on soccer in the United States – from growing the sport in terms of culture, education, and passion. After each of us shared our dreams and goals, Xavi made it very clear to us that during the process in achieving our aspirations; it is crucial to “be yourself”. He went on to tell us that it is important to spend time to learn about ourselves in a way that allows us to identify/define our values, beliefs, and emotional states in order to better create the ideal atmosphere surrounding our teams.

One of the strongest messages Xavi transmitted to us was, “a master isn’t concerned with knowing, he is really concerned with learning.” The idea is that just because something is unknown today, doesn’t mean it will be unknown tomorrow. A basic human need is growth (…or learning), and if we (as coaches), foster an environment that meets the needs of the individual players, the team therefore, will flourish and grow.

In class #4 (Saturday), we were back with Dr. Rude, and the focus of the session was on the Meta-Game. As I discussed in the previous post, the meta-game is one of the soccer structures, and the events in this particular structure impact the game in-directly.

To start class, Dr. Rude asked a few questions of us. 1. What paradigm exists in your country (essentially, is the soccer technical tactical physical, or psychological)? What is the paradigm of FC Barcelona? Is soccer a science? What certainties or laws exist in soccer? Each of us explained the paradigms that exist in our country (Mexico, USA, Holland, and Spain). When it was my turn, I shared the idea that in the United States, our soccer paradigm revolves around physicality. I went on to say that in the United States, we pride ourselves on being able to out run, out work, and out muscle our opponents. Moreover, as a whole, we tend to seek the players who are the tallest, strongest, and fastest, instead of seeking the players who can think the game (tactical).

Interestingly, each of us was not satisfied with the existing paradigms in our countries, and each country can learn from one another in order to evolve the paradigm. The idea is that the coaches from Holland felt as though their country can improve from a physical perspective while Jesus felt as though Mexico can improve from a tactical standpoint. The main take away from this particular discussion refers back to Coach Xavi’s notion that there is always a need for growth!

As the session continued, Dr. Rude explained that the MBP methodology is tactical due to the idea that the majority of the game is played without the ball at your (individual) feet. He went on to say that the only certainty/law in soccer is to score more goals than the opposing team, and the strategies to do so remain endless.

With particular focus on the meta-game, Dr. Rude explained that as coaches, we have the ability to manage the elements outside of the actual game in a way that can impact the game on the field. Specifically, elements that comprise the meta-game are the fans, referees, the press, environmental conditions, and the facilities. Knowing how to manage all of those elements can either positively impact your team in the game, or vice versa.

For a large portion of the class, we learned about the art of giving press conferences, which is the best way to manage the meta-game. We analyzed press conferences from coaches like Manuel Pelegrini, Louis Van Gaal, and Jose Mourinho (the king of the meta-game). In fact, during our next class, we will each give a press conference in order to apply the information from class!

I hope you enjoyed the read, and I look forward to sharing my experiences next week.

Brett Uttley

Twitter: @brettuttley and @TOGsoccer