Teams Development

Sometimes you win. Occasionally you win easily. But most of the time you win when it’s difficult, challenging and when things go wrong…winning ugly.

Winning.

Sometimes you win.

Very rarely do you win easily when everything goes the way you planned it to go in training.

Sometimes winning is about winning ugly.

So what is winning ugly?

Question:

How may times do you actually go out on the field with all of your best players 100% fit and healthy and in the best form of their lives?

Answer:

a. Sometimes

b. Often

c. All the time

d. Never.

If you answered d. Never – give yourself a round of applause.

The aim of the game is to win. In a perfect world the “football-fairy” appears and magically transforms your team into a perfect performance powerhouse that seemingly wins with ease.

In the real world, there is no “football-fairy” and you’ve got to win when you’re tired, when you’re fatigued, when you’re not feeling great – you gotta find ways of winning ugly.

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The Coaching Team.

Gone are the days of the “GURU” coaches.

Sure, the great names of coaching have all been “one man bands” – strong, decisive, authoritarian, leadership focused head coaches who controlled every aspect of the team’s performance.

However, elite sport has developed at an incredible rate over the past twenty years and the knowledge and skills required to win an elite sporting competition are greater than any one person can bring to the table.

Think of the advances in sports science, sports medicine, analysis, IT, nutrition, psychology and technology since the 1980s.

How can we expect that any one person can be THE expert in all performance areas plus coach the team, deal with the media, work with Club Board and Executive, recruit new players, talk to sponsors, meet the fans etc etc etc?

So – the Coaching Team and Performance Team concepts are born.

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Everyone talks about values based coaching.

Lots of people believe in values based management.

Even more promote the benefits of players and athletes coming up with a list of values on which to build a successful team preparation and performance environment.

And yet…in spite of all the talk about values and the millions of dollars being spent in professional sports around the world on developing values, mission statements and team trademarks, we still have sporting teams being destroyed by unprofessional preparation, poor alcohol and social drugs management, sexual harassment, violence, crime and misconduct.

So what is Values Based Sport how do you create an effective Values Based Sporting Environment? (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith |

The Jersey. The Strip. The Colors. The Jacket. The Jumper.

Doesn’t matter what you call it – the “jersey” is dead.

Gone are the days when a bunch of blokes could train two or three days a week, have a poor diet, skip training sessions, enjoy a few beers and then, come Saturday, suddenly get Amazing Super Powers because of the magic of putting on the “jersey”.

In those days, poorly prepared players relied on the emotion of the jersey for their performance. Putting on the old “black and green” colors – usually incorporating a “rev-up” by a former player about the “pride of the jersey” etc was enough to fire the spirit and inspire the soul.

That’s not to say that tradition is wrong or respecting and celebrating the past is a bad thing. The point is that the jersey is just that – a jersey – a piece of clothing (usually made in China) – and, as a performance enhancement tool in 2008 – it is dead.

Why do I say the jersey is dead? (more…)