LOCAL football is at a crossroads! The roles and responsibilities of coaches and administrators seem to have become blurred over the last few years.
I have noted with concern the level at which the two key structures of any football organisation are no longer as co-ordinated as they were and should be. And this has had a negative impact on both performance and results.
Clubs that should be winning or at least competitive are struggling on and off the field. Is it the lack of quality of coaches or have their attitudes towards the game changed?
More often than not these days, we have coaches who seem to have a little too much power. It now seems coaches have elevated themselves to the higher echelons of management at their clubs. At most clubs these days, coaches have taken to running roughshod on their employers and making choices that under ordinary circumstances should be the purview of administrators.
But critically, what we need to ask is why have administrators allowed coaches to come and make important decisions on behalf of administrators? Why are coaches convinced that they know what is best for their clubs even administratively? Many of our coaches now behave like they are the bosses, more powerful than their employers themselves.
Coaches are coming to clubs and getting rid of players summarily which in my opinion is never in the interests of any club. Wholesale changes of playing staff is by no means the best way to get results! I do not understand why a coach comes to a club and chooses to build a team from scratch all the time.
And yet they complain when the same club fire him for failing to produce results. Clubs employ coaches to win games and hopefully trophies but when players are chopped and changed willy- nilly, this is difficult to achieve.
A simple example of how a coach can make use of what is there would be Tomas Tuschel at Chelsea (UK). He arrived and made use of the players that were already there and has had success with them.
He did not arrive and offloaded players only to buy new ones and start building a team. Jurgen Klopp arrived at Liverpool and took over a team that was built by Brendan Rodgers and gave himself time to assess what he had, and what he didn’t need before bringing in new players. I think this is the way to go!
I am also concerned about coaches’ attitudes towards assistant coaches. We now have a trend where coaches come to a club and say they will not work with so and so who is already at the club. I believe it is okay for coaches to have their own backroom staff but it is also important to note that these same assistants need to grow in their craft as well.
If all head coaches keep their backroom staff for too long, when will the assistant become a head coach himself or herself?
Yes, work with whoever you want, but cognisant of the need for your support structure to also grow as individuals and this means that sometimes you are going to have to work with what is there when you arrive at a new club.
Or maybe it’s because coaches want yes men on their benches whose own careers are dependent on the head coach’s own career path, which seems to me is counterproductive to the development of the game and their assistants. As a head coach, you must groom your assistants to eventually become head coaches themselves!
We have had assistant coaches who have gone out on their own become hugely successful winning multiple titles along the way.
For example Lloyd Mutasa was head coach while his former Dynamos teammates, Calisto Pasuwa and Masimba Dinyero were assistants at Kiglon. Pasuwa went on to win multiple club titles in Zimbabwe and Malawi and had a run as national team head coach.
The success of a coach cannot and must not be judged on titles and results alone, but also on their legacy. Case in point would be the legacy that Sir Alex Ferguson created with his Manchester United boys.
Look at the number of his boys now into coaching like Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs and even the difficult Wayne Rooney. He also influenced David Beckham’s growth from player to club owner.
Clubs must now take a leaf from European football and look into employing Directors of Football It would also take away some of the pressure on coaches so they concentrate on their core function of coaching.
Peace and unity! And all things football. Until next time. May our Good Lord continue to Bless us all. Amen