{"id":1466,"date":"2017-06-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-to-be-a-successful-coach-do-you-need-to-have-played-the-game\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:45","slug":"leaders-virtual-roundtables-successful-coach-need-played-game","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-successful-coach-need-played-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders Virtual Roundtables: To Be a Successful Coach Do you Need to Have Played the Game?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Jun 20, 2017 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Leaders Virtual Roundtables: To Be a Successful Coach Do you Need to Have Played the Game?<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-successful-coach-need-played-game\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n
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The latest online meeting of Leaders Performance Institute members on 3 May 2017.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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The latest Leaders Virtual Roundtable took place on 3 May. This invite-only internet gathering brought together members of the Leaders Performance Institute \u2013 coaches, managers, heads of academy, \u2013 in international soccer, cricket, the English Premier League, the Australian Football League, as well as the academic sphere, to discuss the validity of the notion that a successful coach must first have played the game.<\/h4>\n

With the customary intimacy of a Leaders roundtable, the participants were candid in their responses throughout this topic-focused discussion. Here is the executive summary of the dialogue.<\/h4>\n
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The participants<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew Betsey<\/strong>, Global Program Manager, Cricket Australia [Moderator]<\/p>\n

Jason Blake<\/strong>, Head of Football Operations, UFCB<\/p>\n

Michael Poulton<\/strong>, Competition & Stakeholder Manager, Australian Football League<\/p>\n

Justyn Price<\/strong>, Performance Education Lead, The Football Association<\/p>\n

Jerome Read<\/strong>, Performance Sport Manager, Manchester Metropolitan University<\/p>\n

Ben Smith<\/strong>, Head of Academy Performance Systems, Chelsea FC<\/p>\n

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  1. The Agenda<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Does a glittering playing career make a great coach? The successes of Andy Flower and Jeff Marsh demonstrate that it has often proven to be the case in cricket but, if you take soccer, for every Jos\u00e9 Mourinho there is a Pep Guardiola. On which side of the debate are you? Does playing at the highest level imbue an athlete with the skillset to become a successful coach? Or does a playing career away from the upper echelons instil other, necessary qualities that place up-and-coming coaches in good stead?<\/p>\n

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    1. Problems faced<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      For all the successes of Mourinho or Wenger, the England-based participants noted the cultural hurdles that face coaches from a non-playing background within English soccer; it does not escape attention that the aforementioned duo built their reputations in Portuguese and French football respectively. A lack of patience across the front offices of English soccer means that coaches, particularly those from non-playing backgrounds, are set up to fail; their lack of playing career will be aired as soon as results take a turn for the worst.<\/p>\n

      If access is a potential problem for non-playing coaches in English soccer, it is a similar tale in the Australian Football League (AFL), even if the reasons are different. There are 18 senior teams in the AFL, which means just 18 head coaching roles; should an ex-player take on one of these coveted positions and fail, their chances of returning to that pinnacle are remote and there is a greater chance that those individuals will fall out of the AFL coaching pyramid. Part of the problem has been ex-players with distinguished playing careers behind them, entering senior coaching roles but building too inexperienced, too ill-equipped to adequately perform the role. The AFL is currently working to address this problem.<\/p>\n

      Non-playing coaches must upskill themselves, perhaps gaining further education or membership of a professional body (an example for a conditioner might be membership of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences); there is a trade-off between this self-improvement and the time needed to deeply explore the game itself. An almost-obsessive understanding of a sport was deemed necessary if coaches were to be able to adequately articulate information within the context of the game. This is equally important when it comes to inter-relationships with fellow practitioners at a sports organisation; it is essential that they do not work in as if in a silo.<\/p>\n

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      1. Coaching qualities sought<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        The roundtable agreed that a range of skills and capabilities were required by a successful coach and, ultimately, a successful coaching team. There is a growing understanding that an assessment of the qualities needed to coach at elite level extend beyond mere technical competence; that a successful coach needs an understanding of self and an understanding of others. A playing career alone cannot impart that ability; in the AFL, there are currently 180 coaching positions with 25% being filled by individuals from a teaching or non-playing background; and the league hopes for that percentage to grow. With regards to the processes in place for developing coaches and producing successful teams, there was a consensus that the players needed to be viewed as the only beneficiaries of the work of coaches and support staff. With all this in mind, what does the appropriate apprenticeship look like?<\/p>\n

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        1. Programmes and initiatives<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          The Football Association (FA), the national governing body for English soccer, has spent considerable time and effort studying the make-up of coaches who succeed at the highest level. Their work has, amongst other coaching qualifications, taken in studies of the Uefa Pro Licence, and they have developed a framework of psychometric and response-to-stress testing beyond the technical parts of soccer. The FA has also looked at blue chip companies to identify the leadership attributes that enable a person to thrive in that environment. Their model also provokes the question: what do these individuals in coaching recognise and know about themselves; is there an appreciation of the biases that exist in their lives based on experiences? It also asks: to what extent do they know the people they are working with; both people and staff?<\/p>\n

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          1. The immediate future<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Customised coach education looks to be the way forward, with an increasing emphasis placed on mandatory qualifications and accreditations. Moreover, programmes must be continually assessed and updated to ensure that they reflect the realities of the industry; it would not be surprising if, say, three years from now some programmes had undergone significant development.<\/p>\n

            Beyond coach education itself, coaches would benefit from increased patience from key stakeholders within their teams, while coaches themselves could exercise greater humility; waiting to take the right head coaching role rather than merely the first.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

            \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            Another online meeting of Leaders Performance Institute members on 25 May 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1467,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[22],"pathway":[],"topic":[],"sport":[],"class_list":["post-1466","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching-development-performance"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLeaders Virtual Roundtables: To Be a Successful Coach Do you Need to Have Played the Game? - Performance Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-successful-coach-need-played-game\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Leaders Virtual Roundtables: To Be a Successful Coach Do you Need to Have Played the Game? 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