What's Your Philosophy?

I doubt if there are many things with as many opinions on it as football. ‘Everyone’ it seems has a view. Can we extend this to include a philosophy? In reality I suspect not. The reason being that developing a philosophy is something that involves thought, consideration and analysis at some level and I suspect that not all who have opinions have extended themselves further to accommodate a particular philosophy. When I say philosophy I mean a guiding belief system based on a rationale of a particular subject.

So where are we now? A great question. Here I share a few thoughts around philosophies of the game we all love. I make no apologies that this is not a deep dive into them individually. The message of the essay is in the title. The rest of the article is a simple discussion around the principle of having a philosophy of the game and of life for that matter. 

Within the elite levels of the game there exists a myriad of philosophies around player development. One of the surprising things is the number of coaches who cannot actually articulate succinctly what their philosophy is. Why is this? Maybe it is because with the availability of information there are so many theories and ideas that people, particularly the younger coaches, find it a challenge to settle on a foundation. Accepting the status, bright lights and new tracksuit to be on the academy staff of a professional club often means trading your own desires and intuition for the established curriculum, leaving little wriggle room either side of the academy manager and an anxious parent. 

There is always a new coaching book coming out or a downloadable set of sessions to access. A generation ago you had a mentor if you were lucky and half a dozen accepted volumes of ‘coaching fundamentals’ and that was that. The result being a simpler way albeit one built around, in no particular order, the basics of fitness, discipline, psychological resilience and technique. I am pretty sure it was a minority of coaches responsible for youth development who had any form of systematic assessment, analysis and progression beyond what their eyes and emotions told them. These are not meant to be harsh words of condemnation. Insights into the teenage brain and creating safe cultures to flourish in were not on the horizon.

There are some coaches who through mastery of their profession have established definite philosophies of developing young footballers. Not only have they developed them, they have shared them and credit where it is due for that, in this industry. 

Tim Lees is a professional coach who has written a book called ‘Developing An Elite Coaching Philosophy In Possession’. He is certainly someone who has passionately thought about the game, obsessed about how best to develop players and be successful on the pitch as an individual and a team. He gives exactly six scenarios a young player needs to develop in order to be successful in terms of possession of the ball. 

Pepijn Lijnders, again of Liverpool, suggests two phases of player development. The first involves developing five technical elements and the second three tactical elements. They are built on each other and chart the progression of a player along a path. 

As we are talking of philosophies we need to drop onto Marcelo Bielsa. Bielsa is considered such an influencer that his students, among them the world greats of Guardiola, Simeone and Pochettino, are known as ‘Bielsistas’. Jed Davies spent three and a half years researching Bielsa and explains what he calls ‘the’, rather than ‘a’ philosophy of football as seen by Bielsa, in his book, ‘Revolucion’.

What is certain from all of this, no matter what the actual philosophy, is that by definition, if a philosophy has any weight or substance, it has to be a result of deep thought, insight, contemplation and the trial and error from having a goal to ‘perfect’ the methodology of player evolution.

All the above mentioned are heavyweights, worth checking out if you have a solid interest in player development and understanding the subject as well as the game beyond any superficial level.

Why then is having a philosophy or being on the evolutionary journey to develop your own important? Essentially I think, as someone once said, if we do not stand for something we will fall for anything. We will be pushed and pulled by the strongest influence in the room and we won’t benefit from having that deep desire to know and discover that which leads us on through experience after experience. Having that desire to be able to put down in words what it is we believe, communicate it simply, put it into practice and be open to change and learning really is part of a lifetime’s work. All we need to do however is start. We should not feel we have to do ten years work before we have a philosophy. We have to start somewhere. Take the first genuine step and we are on the way. It is a journey and from the start we will be able to say we are our own person. This will require being able to stand up with humility and say why we believe as we do. It will require study and practice, a mentor and courses in all likelihood. This is the process. it prevents us becoming a minimally effective drifter and puts us in another ball park, of those who ask questions and want the answers.

In response to writing this here are my four foundational elements for success in youth football. I will cover them all in detail in another article. Suffice for now to put them down. 

• Burning Desire and Psychological Resilience.
• Sufficient Technical Ability.
• A Foundation for the development of strength, speed and power.
• A Strong Support Network.

Now it’s over to you……what is your philosophy?

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