We all know a good coach. Whatever sports we may or may not do, there’s always someone who made us good at something. What’s less obvious is why someone is good at making other people good. Having announced his plans to leave Real Madrid, every interview has become another chance for Jose Mourinho to flutter his eyelashes in the direction of England’s biggest clubs. As a coach, he has brought unbridled success everywhere he’s been – although it’s worth noting that as of yet, he has failed to bring the Champions League to either Chelsea or Real Madrid.
But how do you define a ‘good coach’? What do the likes of Mourinho, Sir. Alex Ferguson, Sir. Clive Woodward or Sir. David Brailsford have in common (apart from in the case of the latter three, a knighthood)?
Some coaches swear by an analytical system, focused on ‘Prozone’ and statistics, whereas others are more concerned with motivation and management, others still obsess about tactical and strategical minutiae. The thing is, year-to-year, sport-to-sport, different approaches win out. Stuart Lancaster’s back to basics stance, focused on discipline, has brought recent improvements to the English Rugby Union team, but, to look to Cricket and Cycling as two examples, Andy Flower and Brails- ford have pushed the boundaries of “sports science”, to great effect.
In reality cycling proves an interesting case study, with the likes of Sir Bradley Wiggins (yet another knighthood – is this a pattern?) and Victoria Pendleton having been subject to countless tests of things as obscure to the layman as their ‘VO2 levels’. It would be hard to argue with the fact that this approach works, but then if we consider football for example it’s easy to find teams such as Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham who thrived on particularly old-school foundations.
So what exactly makes a good coach? It’s clearly not simple as their approach. Every other week the sporting press heralds another ‘new Mourinho’, or ‘new Guardiola’, whilst this season’s travails of last year’s Premier League Manager of the Year, Alan Pardew, show just how fickle the business of management is. Of course various sporting clubs and codes utilise different models of hierarchy too, with most of continental Europe united behind a system of ‘Sporting Directors’ which attracts derision whenever mentioned in the UK.
It begs the question of how much coaching matters at an elite level. Every time a football manager is sacked, his successor invariably complains about the low fitness of his players, something which in the professional sphere simply can’t be true. Surely these sports stars should be motivated enough, and good enough already?
The thing is though, the best coaches don’t just tell you what to do, when to run about, or how to train. They make the little adjustments. They all seem to have a vision. The difference made by Ivan Lendl to Andy Murray’s game over the last year is supposedly down to, in large part, a more certain mental approach instilled by the uncompromising Czech, and the key aspect of success as a coach appears to be along those lines: you need to be one hell of a talker.
Which brings us back to Mourinho. Despite the ironic inability to shake off his old Barcelona nickname of ‘the translator’, he is all about the show. Who can forget his inimitable Chelsea press conferences which sounded more like shopping lists or recipes than football talk? The man, along with a litany of successful coaches undoubtedly possesses out of this world communication skills. In fact, it’s hard to name a coach in any sport who hasn’t followed that pattern, to a greater or lesser degree. Any great manager is a great salesman, because when you run that extra five kilometres in the rain on a soggy field, you need to really believe that it’s worth it.
