Velasco on Mistakes Coaches Make

The very famous coach Julio Velasco recently did an interview on Brazilian TV. I didn’t watch the interview myself, and wouldn’t have understood it if I did, but I was reliably informed of a couple of comments that he made that I thought were worth sharing. There were two main points:

Many coaches didn’t like their own players, the others were always better, they were never satisfied.

This is something that I have heard over and over again. Whenever coaches get together the first thing they do is complain about their players, as though the thing preventing them from achieving the success they deserve is the hopeless players that they have. I recently heard of one very, very famous coach who complained so much that even other coaches stopped talking to him. He no longer coaches that team. You can even feel it in coaches’ actions during matches. And if I can feel it on TV, you know that the players feel it too.

Instead of applying concepts as soon as they arrive, coaches should first get to know their team better. What is easy for one player, might be difficult for others. Pushing too much to fit players into a fixed system can lead to conflict.

This is a common failing among coaches, especially young coaches. Such coaches enter a coaching situation with a plan, and nothing will divert them from that plan. As Velasco says, this leads inevitably to conflict and a lot of complaining. So much complaining. Coaching is not about plans. And you can’t possibly get the most out of your players if you are always fighting with them or complaing about them.