Our football coaches need to improve

Tue, Oct 18. 2011

Editor: Soccer competitions have kicked-off in almost every community; it’s the only time when most players see one another often, as most teams are made up of friends from near and far. The nucleus of the team should be made up of players from the community, so they are able to sit after practice and games to evaluate their performances and make plans for the future.{{more}}

Our national players’ performance may be caused by their teammates being selected from different communities and not having coaches and organized coaching sessions. Most of the players selected from community teams are used to evaluating themselves and to fostering better relationships for their future, rather than for developing the sport and themselves as players.

After every match against a foreign team, we hear comments that ‘The team’s not fit’, ‘Players are inexperienced’, ‘They are not putting away their chances’ and ‘Their first touch is bad’. These have been the excuses of this country’s technical directors and their coaching staff for years. They seem not to be able to recognize anything else or this is all that is in their soccer vocabulary. I mean no disrespect to anyone, but hearing these comments repetitively, one would think that they recognize nothing else, yet they cannot correct what they have not been recognizing.

It is not that our players cannot play better or have more possession, make more overlaps, have serves that have more depth and width in attack, use the wall pass to get shots in goal; how they play is what has been taught to them by their coaches. So, our coaches need to improve; but why and how could coaches select inexperienced and unfit players and hope to bring good results? Using words and promises to fool voters to get elected, then make fools of themselves and country by employing friends like themselves can only bring poor results. “Team SVG Loses” again; again they can’t take us to second round.

We do not see our teams or players consistently and technically putting together passes throughout their game: receiving, distributing, dribbling. Creating space, timely movements and supporting are all necessary if the team is to have ‘possession’. We must now place emphasis in these areas to enhance possession, penetration and striking goal.

While coaches need to upgrade themselves by attending courses and receiving a certificate, if you are not coaching a team regularly, nor developing players, and your team is not among the top five teams consistently and you have no experience of winning, then as a coach, you are not ready to be left alone as a national coach. This is especially true if that person never strived to be an excellent player; he or she would not have that knowledge of how long a player and or a team would take to accomplish their skills or how to build a winning team.

Another attempt by a foreign coach to reach the second round has failed. What do all say? “Try and try again boys; we will succeed.” Having knowledge of the process of developing players and the sport is the key to our success.

Rollit Walrond