Coaching and coaches

by Seymour “Rollit” Walrond



The World Cup Finals kicked off yesterday, June 10, 2010, and those interested will certainly have their opinion on each game, team selection and results.

To those especially who are working in the Carnival Tents: stay focussed, maintaining your fitness for the Soccer Season which starts in August.{{more}}

Just remember fans and supporters select teams that never play, win, or lose, so I hope you all will stop worring about “who coaches and who is a coach” and not to compare Caribbean coaches with South America and European coaches. They began “organized soccer” many years ahead of us with organized clubs. Not until we have organized clubs will our standard rise.

This week I join the discussion, who is a coach and what is coaching, although all coaches win and lose, in the long run who benefits the most?

A person who attends soccer coaching courses will be certified as receiving knowledge of coaching. This does not mean that person is a coach.

Many Caribbean players and persons who are also certified through attending FIFA, Europe and South America Soccer Coaching Courses refuse to develop themselves during their playing years to become a very good players.

By developing as a player, you acquire good techniques, play with and against players as good and even better than themselves and gain valuable experiences.

However, those who refuse to become a good player love the game, and being privileged, pursue coaching knowledge by attending soccer coaching courses, believe they are ‘the Coach’.

They are good at talking as they retain much of what they read of other coaches experiences and copy their drills. Now they are forcing it on players. So when and where would these certified coaches get the valuable experiences and qualities needed to share, to convince and develop players? It’s even worse when your country’s soccer Executives are less knowledgeable of these requirements. They cannot give the added help and support needed to develop the players in time.

The SVGFF Executives need to distribute educational bulletins, especially to the leagues, to show what is necessary to improve their performances. Having a strong league will be of benefit to the national teams, so we need to hire persons to educate and develop the teams to float the MV SVGFF from the depths of the rankings.

Talking coaches will be useful as lecturers and soccer story tellers. We need coaches who can convince players how to play and of the outcome of play. Also, lets stop interviewing the coaches and managers as they will out talk you, and start interviewing the players to know what, when and where they learned to perform the way they do.