The Team / Episode-8 : The Other Point of View

As Ron and the Team were happily going out , talking excitedly about tomorrow's program Tom and Ame were walking with Jeff , as he had asked them to. They were silent as they entered Jeff's room.

Jeff, poured a coffee for himself. He turned onto the players and asked " I sense some sort of dissent with you. What is this all about ?" Jeff smiled and poured them coffee as well. Ame looked at Tom and started ."I do not want to be part of this. I am a player and a striker myself and do not want to play with another player's tactics coach. Are you the coach or him ?" Ame was a very young and ambitious forward player. With a very aggressive and irritable character Ame had joined the Team recently and was well known for the tendency of becoming a trouble maker. Tom entered the conversation ." Let's remember it was Ron who wanted to make a proposal and it was all the Team that went on with it. This was a joint decision with Jeff included." Tom did not want to get in trouble with anyone, he felt afraid and intimidated but still he thought it was unjust to blame someone with a goodwill for the Team. Jeff grinned and looked at them both ."First of all I am the coach of this team and I have absolute power on any and all kinds of decisions. It is you as a team that made the whole gameplay an issue as you started to focus there instead of your game. I will let this nonsense go on, and in the end all of you will understand what is right and wrong". Tom was shocked as Ame smiled. "So this was the plan all along " he thought. "Jeff had not changed a bit, this was just a scheme to create a higher level of control." Ron was not aware of any of this. Jeff continued," Why do you think Ron will be the captain in the next game? He needs to understand responsibility and accept consequences."

Tom was beyond shocked. He had not understood even a little bit how Jeff thought and now he saw that this was just a power play. He had seen this kind of actions by Jeff in the past and he understood that this was no different but rather more serious. Ame charged on opportunity; " What do you want from us coach, why are we here?" Jeff stopped for a few moments, " You seem to understand how flawed and problematic the situation is. I want you to keep an eye on Ron for the coming days. What is he doing, who else is with him, this sort of thing. I want to understand what undermines the authority and discipline in this team and who are our rotten apples." Tom hesitated for a minute but replied eventually " Coach, I do not think anybody is doing anything wrong. We were personally with Ron when he first proposed his ideas and I know that he first came to you." Jeff replied in a very stern manner " What are you telling me Tom, don't you trust me on this ?" This sentence implied a lot of things. Tom could not afford to lose his place in the Team and he was already very afraid of Jeff. He stopped and murmured , "Of course Jeff, no issues from my side." Meanwhile Ame was listing all the things they had discussed and gave it to Jeff. " You got it boss." was the reaction.

They left the room together but did not speak to one another. Tom was actually running away from the facilities. He did not want to discuss or talk any more about anything. They left the club in silence and were on their separate ways.

Jeff was actually in real trouble for a long time. The trouble he was going through was with himself. He always tried to look busy to team members, always put out a lot of stress on them but he was never really in a hurry or a difficult situation. When he got to this position his first problem was he had never actually played football himself. So, he experienced quite a lot of difficulty getting in touch with players. He could not feel or emphatize with how they feel and this created enormous communication issues. To handle this, in the next couple of months he had built an identity of an unreachable , long distance coach and explaining this with the need for discipline. However, instead of discipline, this situation created a lot of trust issues. As a result players simply minded and cared for themselves, tried to stay out of trouble and as soon as they get the chance got a transfer from another club. His personal goal was to go on to another team with a higher level of rank and actually he did not see the joy or share the passion of football himself. Anything that did not help him in his personal goal was of little or no interest to him.

The next game with Saints that the players putting such an effort did not matter to him at all. It was obvious that they were not be able to get to any where successful in the league table this year. What mattered to him most was a challenge to his authority in the Team. Up till now, no one had the courage to confront him on how he managed and although Ron looked honest and genuine in his effort, this constituted a danger for him. "What if", he thought "this gave the other players to hold him responsible for their losses?" He could not allow that. From his perspective he fulfilled every aspect of his job. The players had to follow the game play as he saw fit and it was their responsibility if there was a loss. If there was a win, this was the result of the game play not individual efforts. Such a black and white way of thinking was so rare, most of the time people did not even understand Jeff that way. Many players thought he was just another coach who was difficult and simply moved out of his path.

However Ron; he was so unlike the others. He was open and honest, wanted to help his team, and to his surprise , himself too. This puzzled Jeff. He had never seen such genuine goodwill and actually it was what made Ron different. When he first came to him Jeff was simply thinking of strengthening the striker position. Ron had all the abilities to cover that but just at the wrong time that defense player had to leave. " I had no other choice", he talked to himself. "Afterall it was just one game." He did not really see what it meant to Ron and how this could trigger his ability to think out of the box. His point of view was not to accept and move on but rather to fight for the better.

"It is my point of view that matters." he thought and poured himself another cup.