Insight Into The Characteristics Of An Elite Coach

In parts one to three, we covered the different phases of the game to help spread knowledge from the coaching industry, into the hands of the most important people, the fans of the game. In part four I am going to share some insight into the characteristics of an elite coach.

For the last 13 years I’ve worked alongside coaches from a wide variety of backgrounds, from coaches who have taken teams to World Cups, to coaches who have coached in the Premier League, to coaches who have won domestic and continental titles. From a player development perspective, I have also worked with coaches who have helped develop some of the best players in World Football. After these experiences, the key question I have asked is, what do the best coaches have in common?

When you evaluate coaches, what should you be looking for? The easy answer is the coaches who have won trophies. However, not every club can have a coach who has won trophies. So, what should you look for? Unfortunately, in football, the answers are the coach who has the most media coverage or the coach who had the best playing career. What we know from analyzing coaching success is that

neither of these answers guarantees success. Pep Guardiola had a fantastic playing career, but Jose Mourinho did not. Jurgen Klopp had far less media coverage than many coaches but has gone on to have huge success building from his time in Germany. This means we have to go deeper to gain an understanding of what a great coach looks like before they have the trophies to make it an obvious concept.

From my experience in working with coaches across the levels previously discussed, here are three criteria that have stood out amongst the best:

1. People Management

2. Football Understanding

3. Coaching Expertise

How well does a coach work with people? Before footballers are players, they are people. Similarly, staff, owners, and many stakeholders are also people before they are employees. Getting the best work from the stakeholders involves managing them as people. This is often why players and staff talk about ‘loving a coach’ and using statements such as ‘they changed my life’. Similar phrases can be heard from many of the best players in the world. What is key to understand is that this is not only discussed from a football perspective, but from a human perspective. The best coaches create a family environment where (almost) everybody wants to give 100% towards the success of the team. Coaches who consistently cause conflict in the team and do not manage the individual players are unlikely to create sustainable success. When judging a coach, the first thing to check is, how do all the stakeholders enjoy working with them?

Number two on the checklist is football understanding. Fundamentally, after understanding people, a coach must understand the game of football. Clear football knowledge not only helps with the tactical side of the game but also helps with players buying into the project and the coach. It is often the football expertise which makes players believe the coach can help them become better, which is what most players expect of a coach. If a coach manages people well, but doesn’t understand the game of football in enough depth, they will be significantly limited in terms of how far they can go. Players are intelligent enough to identify when a coach has poor technical and tactical knowledge, which can lead to a

coach losing the dressing room, as people do not believe in following the instructions. How many coaches can you identify with a high level of football understanding?

The third point on the checklist is coaching expertise. This is the hardest to analyze and takes some time listening to their interviews, qualifications, and way of working. The best modern-day coaches have a way of working on the field which is clear to see across clubs. There is a clear identity. If two teams were playing in the same kit, you could tell which team is the coach’s team just by watching the style of play. In the modern game, the key element to look for is a coach who has a clear idea but can also ensure players can execute the idea. Blaming the players for not executing the idea means our coaching practices have not been successful. Our job as coaches is to develop the execution of actions, and the decisions a player makes, to align closely with our idea of how the specific game should be played. If we manage people well and have a good understanding of the game, but cannot ensure the players execute the idea, then there is a big void to be filled in the coaching process.

In summary, we can take a deeper look when assessing coaching quality, to identify how well the coach manages people, understands the game, and can execute a coaching strategy. No coach is perfect, I am certainly not. Though having criteria for an elite coach gives coaches something to strive for and fans something to assess.