Cooking vs Coaching

What is the major difference between a chef and a cook? Some people will say, experience, knowledge and talent. I will say feelings! A chef has to look at his ingredients and try to make the best of it. Each ingredients are different. Each seasons, ingredients have different flavors.

You take a lemon in December or June, they will be a different but it is still a lemon! Coaching is like cooking, you have some ingredients and you have to try to make the best Mayonnaise possible! Some days, your ingredients won’t play correctly and you have to try to adjust your recipe. When I am cooking, I can’t following a recipe. I know what I want and I improvise with my ingredients. Of course, there is basic that you can’t avoid.

Yesterday I was watching Inter Milan, where Mourinho is an incredible chef. During the game, I thought Muntari was not playing very well and Inter Milan was down 2-0. At 64mm, Mourinho subbed Muntari with another player. 3mm latter, 2-2! That is cooking! Mourinho said something about Italy versus England or other coaches like Wenger, Peterson where coaches have a vision and the clubs give them the time to create their recipe. Mourinho was complaining that in Italy, he doesn’t have the time to create his recipe and the club wants to have results quickly.

My friend said that he thought we should try to win with a different recipe. First when he told me this, I listen and finally realized that is the real point. It is not about winning but developing.

I think it is pretty sad when you are watching young soccer. This is not soccer. You can have five cooks in a box and none of them was a chef! Most of my experience in coaching or watching other teams playing soccer struggle to win. There is no development of players. Coaches are following one recipe and try to stick with it. It is so frustrating sometimes. They don’t pay attention of their ingredients. This is the age-old approach of trying to fit players into the games played and defined by adults. They are missing some fundamental building recipes - understanding how young players learn and applying those concepts to the free-flowing, problem-solving nature of the game. Of course, we are not talking about professionals soccer players. So we have to develop our players. Win or lose, that is not the point. We should focus on training, fitness and having fun.

My goal is to be able to have players that are skillful, experiment and strong. After it requires “elite” players. Like Tony says “not all horses can jump” which is true but only because we are at the highest level.

I would like parents and my best friend to realize that it has not been ever about wining but developing. If somehow, I will have time to convince everyone that it is a fun game and my kids are improving. I would rather watching a game where the players are playing well than just win because the coach is better than the other one. I would rather to hear “wow, these kids are improving” than “my kid is getting fit” or “great game” because we won. What is going to happen if I lose?

We need to focus on using our resources to train or hire better coaches to work with more coaches and players, even across club lines, rather than continue to have clubs compete for the same coaches or players.

Coaching is a craft, not a science!