The Team / Episode-2 : The First Inquiry

Weeks had passed. Ron was in deep thinking all the time as he was benched due to his last game as a defense player. He thought , it was my last defense act , as he amused himself.

The Team was performing as usual. They were on the lower ranked positions in the past weeks on the league table and many of the other teams they were competing had half the budget but better scores. It was customary for the Team that after a win, Jeff doing the press conference but when it was a loss other team players attended them in a row. Tom even had a joke about it : "Mathematically we have more chance to be in front of the press."

The league table was the only topic of conversation at the dressing room. Before each game Jeff continued about how bad they were doing and after each loss one single player was held responsible for the situation. Ron was actually happy that he was being benched the whole time. Team meetings went on for at least 2 hours after each loss and every little mistake was addressed . On one occasion, the injured midfielder Tony was criticized for asking for a replacement during the game and Ron was quite surprised because he was diagnosed by the team doctor for at least 3 weeks of recovery. When he pointed out the fact the answer was " You could be more careful about yourself during the play".

"Come on coach", Tony responded. I have been playing non-stop all through the games and it was an injury. How could I have continued?" There was no response but even after recovery Tony was still on the bench and was not on the starting eleven. This was a general way of management in the Team. The message was, if you stand up for yourself, there will be consequences.

Meanwhile Ron kept on thinking about the performance of the Team. He had quite a neck about tactics and while he was researching about the league performance he had a brilliant idea. "Why don't we check the game information in the past games and try to find out what really effected the result ?", he thought. That Friday after the field practice Ron went to the records room and took all the tapes of the games they have been playing. "There should be a pattern" he thought. He started to check , game by game, at which points of the game the rival team scored, the ball possession at each game, their goals at the rival teams and shots on target. He cross tabulated this information against their and rival teams tactical formation.

As he was checking through the records he started to understand that their midfielder formation was weak compared to the rivals they have lost. The Team had very valuable players but has been playing with the 5-3-2 formation for years with a very strict zone allocation rule. Each member of the team was assigned to their related position of play and zone and was responsible of defending that zone first . Jeff's main strategy was based on individual performance on zone defense and fast long ball attacks. He usually told the team that he cannot afford losses by awkward goals and depended on the individual zone defense as the main strategy. For offense, his general term was, if the striker knows what he is doing , the only thing that matters is to send the ball, thus long ball attacks was the norm for the Team offense gameplay. This tactic was the same for as long as anybody knew.

He decided to put all the information he was scrolling on a chart. It took him quite a time but when he finished he saw that the numbers were suggesting the same thing . When the Team was playing against rivals with a focus on midfield with press and short pass concentration, all the tactics the Team had was failing. First, zone mentality was futile as such teams moved with close coordination and it was most of the time 1 player against 3-4 type of game and of course it was overwhelming for the Team players. "It is ok to be a defense team he thought to himself, but not ok to see this and not to act." It had been a long day, so he decided to take this up to Jeff. "If he understands what is going on, maybe we can change for the better altogether." he thought.

The next morning he went to Jeff's room and hesitated for quite a time before knocking on the door. He did not know what to expect but in the end he knocked and entered the room. Jeff was having his morning coffee and his expression was so surprised Ron even thought he was in the wrong room. "What is it Ron ?" Jeff asked, "have you lost your position again ?" Ron was speechless for a minute. He had brought with him all the charts and tables but he did not know how to start. Finally he said "Jeff, I have been thinking about our gameplay for some time and I consolidated my findings , do you have time to go over it ?" Jeff looked at him and quickly turned back to his coffee. "Sorry Ron, if you have anything to say , tell it in the team meeting, I cannot go over anything with you right now." Ron hesitated for a minute , then quietly left the room. "So that is that", he talked to himself.

While he was walking back to the dressing room, he noticed that Tom was watching him. "Hi Tom, how are you , are you ready for the next game ?" he saluted. Tom responded as always "Born ready" and they chuckled for a time. "What the hell are those charts ?" he continued and Ron started to explain how he studied the Team play tactics and his findings. Tom was listening quietly but when he said he wanted to take this to Jeff he could not keep it cool. "Are you nuts ? Do you want to get expelled from the Team?" "He will boil you alive for this kind of thing." Ron knew how Tom thought about how things were going on here. He was not surprised but he asked back, "Just think it through , here you have all the numbers, don't you think that this is why we lost the last game. They ran over us, remember." Tom checked the figures for some time, "Yeah I get what you are pointing at" and he continued for some time. "Can you help me in explaining this to the team ?" "Jeff said I need to talk this in the dressing room meeting but how can I do that ?". Tom was thoughtful for a minute, he went over the charts for some more time. In the end he responded, "He will make us pay for this , do you understand that ?" Ron was in doubt but finally he said " Yes I see that . Are you going to help me or not ?" Tom , troubled a lot, "Just wait from me ok, I will see what I can do".

"If we cannot even discuss what is right or wrong, how on earth will we find what is better or not ?", he thought to himself.