Inspire Change.

Fact: There are no bad players. Only bad man management.

Have you ever seen a player play an spectacular season, transfer to a new team for the next season, play poorly, transfer again and start playing incredibly again? Well, this happens quite often in the world of sports, especially in the world of soccer. Rising players shine, they create enormous hype for themselves and then they can’t live up to expectations. Most people would deem that player as inadequate, however there are deeper issues related to this phenomenon.

Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski discuss some of the common misconceptions and mistakes professional teams continuously do when buying players and managing their teams, and these issues affect all the organization from the coaching staff (manager) to the executive directors of the team. They this discuss these issues in the book “Soccernomics”. However we will focus on one of the aspects they mention, and that is effective man-management. First of all, most teams forget that players are more than assets, they are human beings and they have needs, emotions, insecurities and most of the same issues we ourselves have. Quoting the authors of Soccernomics, “ many transfers fail because of player’s problems off the field. Moving to a job in another city is always stressful; moving to another country is even more so.  All the inefficiencies surrounding relocation could be assuaged.” That is the first issue; players need to be as comfortable off the pitch in order to perform better on it. This issue can be easily resolved and some teams have begun doing it with a relocation assistant, or Human Resources department. The other part of the issue is when the manager and the coaching staff make terrible man-management.

This issue has to do more with leadership rather than technical capabilities. Let’s use an example: imagine you are the manager of a big investment fund and you have different assets at your disposal: a clothing company, a real estate property and a shopping mall. Each of them have unique qualities and it is evident that you can’t expect that the same formula can be used to manage each of them, every asset is unique and “plays” in a diverse industry with its own rules, so different strategies have to be put in place in order to achieve the goal of your investment fund of generating profit with each asset. Well the same happens with players, each of them with unique capabilities, strengths and even weaknesses, you can’t expect them all to be the same. So what do we do?

Most managers tend to force their system and way of playing into the team, and if necessary replace players just because they want to. This shows a lack of empathy. A team and its manager must understand that the team is composed of individuals that have to be guided and motivated to follow their leader. A great example of this is Diego Simeone.  Creating a successful team can be done in any scenario, with star players, without them or with homegrown players; just as failing with any of them is viable as well.

Ok so we got it, there is more to coaching, mostly leadership, how can we correct this situation? First of all there has to be a shift in the strategy; instead of thinking in the short-term teams have to become experts at long-term strategy, working in the present moment but with their eyes set in the future and the benefits that such changes will bring. Of course there is the present need to win matches, but that doesn’t mean a team can start building their long-term strategy while aiming to win matches now, and slowly start shifting towards this new model. Second start analyzing current leadership mistakes, and start training their staff and create an organization where people feel motivated and where they can actually grow both on the field and off it. This will yield more results than spending huge sums on great players. Soccer is just like any other business and it can be effectively managed. Look at great corporations where a unique culture is in place with a responsible leader, companies such as Virgin and Apple are great examples, their leaders managed to inspire, motivate and make their staff rise to the challenges and they have literally changed the world. Inside those companies there are people just like you and me, they have eyes, legs, arms, a brain, everything we also possess, there is no magic formula, we are all able to achieve greatness.

Passionis Sports understand this, and we are worried that the world of sports and players with great capabilities are suffering because of this problem. So we are preparing a unique leadership tool, tailor made for teams. To help them create the right environment for leadership, growth and motivation. Stay tuned as we unveil more details of this revolutionary tool to guide teams and players into a more exciting era in the world of sports.