Translating the Non-Developer’s 11 Favorite Phrases

Read on my website / Read time: 5 minutes

Leaders within our soccer culture speak in code.

Parents, players, fans, and any consumer of the sport can become extremely confused because it’s challenging to truly understand the message being conveyed.

You take them at their word, but realize six months later you are in the exact same place, getting the same phrase fed back to you. It’s an endless cycle of trusting leadership at their word for it to only mean something else entirely.

All the while, the same leaders are still in power years later without the game ever improving, saying the same exact phrases.

But fear not, I’ve decoded the Non-Developer’s 11 favorite phrases, so you’ll know in the future what a Non-Developer is really saying.

1. “Solve it” or “Figure it out”

Translation: I’m not capable of guiding your learning or development.

This most often happens during a match where the opponent has presented a challenge that’s difficult to overcome. Instead of providing footholds that can help the players develop on the day, the coach will shift that responsibility on to their players.

2. “We are continuing to grow (develop) the game in this country”

Translation: We’ve doubled down on infrastructure and public relations.

The guys who run our soccer culture use infrastructure as the proof of growth despite the product telling a different story. More teams, more tweets, more Non-American signings are not evidence that the game is growing–it’s evidence of their pockets growing.

3. “The player is too raw”

Translation: This player has something, but I’m not able to develop it further, so I would rather protect the perception that I’m a good coach instead of taking a chance on a player.

The Non-Developer wants a sure thing where the optics can never be questioned. Taking a chance on a kid who has a few good qualities and massive upside is not worth it if it means they can look worse off when it doesn’t work out.

4. “He’s just an athlete”

Translation: His potential is capped, and his ability to grow in other areas is impossible.

Similar to #3, but this is more often leveraged against players who are in-house and not those on trial. It’s basically defining a player’s potential, so you don’t have to do the work of actually improving them as a player.

5. “The player is not good enough”

Translation #1: The Talent Accumulator says this to acknowledge the player is not able to overcome the lacking vision they’ve provided and still win games (and make them look good).

Translation #2: The Academic says this to acknowledge the player is unable to execute their “ultra-sophisticated” playing vision (and make them look good).

This is how the Non-Developer shifts the responsibility for development from themselves onto the players. The players are NOT actually “not good enough” - it’s just the pain of blaming them and ruining their development hurts less than the pain of introspection and accountability.

6. “Where did you find these kids?”

Translation: Nice to meet you! I’m a Talent Accumulator.

True story: It’s become commonplace for MLS academy coaches or scouts to ask someone from our club this question as if our players just grow on trees. The idea of development is so foreign in our soccer culture that we just skip to the accumulating. Turns out that players accumulated into those environments rarely meet their potential. I wonder why?

7. “We don’t do that Kumbaya stuff around here”

Translation: I’m not capable of building a culture.

I worked for a guy who said this quite often because his predecessor was very good at the “Kumbaya” thing. Building culture was not only the harder road, it was an affront to his ego, so he did everything to diminish and dismiss it altogether.

8. “It’s about players!”

Translation: The most important part of my job is recruitment because the best players win games (and overcome my lacking vision).

The same guy from #7 also shouted this quite often to demean the coaching staff and the players he was actually responsible for developing. You imagine killing the spirits of impressionable people who trusted you to lead them in exchange for feeling a little less miserable and insecure - regrettably, this behavior is commonplace within our soccer culture.

9. “The other team wants it more than you”

Translation: I don’t have any solutions, so I’ll blame our current situation on you.

The most uninspiring halftime talk a player can receive is built around this phrase. Even if effort is the issue, there is a culture rep to be executed and improve the performance in the second half. That would require having a culture vision to help players face adversity, but we don’t do that “Kumbaya stuff around here”...

10. “I’ve got a bunch of B and C level players”

Translation: I’ve defined the player’s potential as static, so I don’t have to do the work of pushing it forward and have a built-in excuse for future poor performances.

Had a current pro MLS head coach tell me this years ago after watching his team train. Turns out pro players can be “not good enough” as well. I don’t know what hurts more: the implicit acknowledgement that we don’t do our best to develop players on the way to the pro game (but do nothing) or the fact that professionals can’t be developed further once they arrive at the level.

11. “We have the player’s best interest in mind”

Translation: I have MY best interest in mind.

Leadership within our soccer culture is not about serving the greater game, it’s about serving self-interests, while ensuring they are there for the long-haul. That’s why decoding these phrases is so important: to know what these phrases actually mean creates accountability, which is really the opposite of what they want…

12. Bonus: The Sound of Silence

Translation: Someone has called us to account, so the best course of action, for all involved, is to remain silent, and wait until the issue just goes away.

It’s not just the best course of action for those at the top, but it’s the only course of action for those that work FOR THOSE at the top. There’s a reason why these articles get high reading numbers, but low sharing numbers. When you endorse the message of one of these articles, you are criticizing the system you implicitly agreed to protect.

Silence isn’t just an avoidance tactic within the soccer culture–it's a survival tactic.

Conclusion

There seems to be a pattern with all these phrases.

Each seems motivated to protect ego and further engrain the status quo. We all become the games we continuously iterate on, so with each iteration, this Non-Developer-led vision becomes more strongly embedded. Before we can rebuild with Developers, we must all become educated on what these phrases mean and what is really going on.

In the meantime, build an awareness around these phrases, so when you hear them from others, you can better translate what’s actually being said and take appropriate action.

And more importantly, exercise accountability if you ever utter one of these phrases yourself.

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