What Coaches can learn from Super Bowl LV

The biggest sporting event in the world has of course not left Coach2 unaffected. With a slightly different look at the action, our authors watched the 55th edition of the football final. In this blog article we have summarized our much-seen Instagram stories from that night.

Your past does not determine your future

We coaches have to constantly assess talent and decide, for example, which player will be part of our team or who will make it into the first team. All too often, we look back to see what he or she has achieved so far. We project the same (with a lot of hope) into the next game, the next season and generally into the future.

This can often be an absolute fallacy: Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, was drawn from 199 in the 2000 draft. In other words: 198 players were trusted more than Brady at the time.

A good start to the game doesn’t mean everything

Brady set the game’s first touchdown. Astonishing about it: He played his tenth (!) Superbowl and threw the first touchdown in a first quarter.

We football coaches are also happy about a good start or a good quarter of an hour in the game. Now let’s take a look at the Bundesliga: Many teams manage to keep up with Bayern at the beginning, maybe even score. However, good teams adapt (intuitively) to new situations and improve within the game. Less good teams need the tactical security of the first few minutes in addition to the physical freshness and increasingly break down with new tasks in the game. The Bayerndusel is therefore quality and not a coincidence.

“Experience won't help us in the game. Only quality that day will bring us to victory - quality under pressure to bring our performance ”

- Tom Brady Tweet

This is what trainers are for: Increase the availability of performance

US sports are different from Europe. Everything is a little bigger, a lot more show and other vocabulary. Other approaches can often be discovered in these vocabulary. In a pre-game statement, Brady said, “Experience won’t help us in this game. Only the quality on that day will bring us to victory – the quality under pressure to bring our performance ”. That expresses very well the approach in many US sports. It’s not about playing a pass or hitting a throw – it’s about playing the pass when it matters – and it’s just not the same thing. From our point of view, that is exactly what coaches do: helping their players to perform as well as they can on matchday. Much clearer training methods and approaches result from this objective.

Nothing beats a well-rehearsed team

Not only once did the Brady-Gronk connection lead to a touchdown. Of course, the two of them benefit from their time together in New England and the numerous hours of play and training together. The matter is just as intuitively clear as it is scientifically proven: Both are able to anticipate the movements of the other much earlier than other players or the opponent.

For us football coaches, this results in two goals:

Keep your players as healthy and injury free as possible for them
To be able to play as many hours as possible together on the pitch (game & game forms).

"The measure of who we are is how we react to something that doesn't go our way."

- Gregg Popovich Tweet

One play at a time

Another one of those typical American statements that contains a lot of truth. Imagine you’re coaching Kansas City and giving the speech at halftime. What are you telling your team First of all, EVERY coach should be humble enough and think about how he and his team will deal with difficult situations at an early stage in the season. If this is transparent and clear, it can create important safety in these situations (by the way, this has nothing to do with a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you get into the car, you buckle up without wanting to cause an accident;)). No expectations – just be prepared.

One concrete possibility is to focus on the next ‘play’ and thus away from the big picture, the result. The more players get absorbed in what they actually do, the better their performance or, as the saying goes: “One Play at a Time”.

Share this article with a friend: