What Drives Winning (At the NCAA Division III Level)

In my last few blogs, I explored the concept of consistent effort and how our practice design can and should be influenced by it. Continuing to expand on these ideas, I’d like to address what I believe actually drives winning at the NCAA Division III (DIII) level and how we can use this information to consistently invest effort into areas that actually impact the results on the field.

Before I start, I want to clarify that these are just my beliefs and are subject to change as I grow and learn, however, they are grounded in sound logic and experience and I believe are the core components that drive winning at the NCAA DIII level. I also want to clarify why I’m choosing to differentiate DIII soccer from other settings such as club, professional, and even other divisions. There are certainly aspects that translate to these other realms, however, collegiate coaching is extremely niche with each division having very strict rules and regulations that greatly impact what drives winning. For example, at the DIII level coaches only get access to their players 18 weeks/year, can’t mandate off-season activities, and have unlimited substitutions on gameday. Obviously, rules like this greatly influence the processes that drive winning in this setting, and just don’t apply in other settings. Lastly, throughout my writing, I’m sure the reader has come to realize that I’m pretty results-oriented. I’m obsessed with transferability, and making sure to focus effort into the areas that actually lead to results on gameday. I say this to paint a picture for the audience about the amount of time and energy I’ve invested into these areas, even analyzing how I coach to ensure it’s done in a way that translates to better results on the field. Let’s dive in.

Across every sport at every level of NCAA athletics, recruiting is far and away the most important aspect that drives winning. Recruiting is the lifeblood of any strong program. Pretty much every aspect of a program begins with recruiting. The ability/talent level of the team, the team’s culture, player’s character, style of play, even down to academic achievement, it all starts with recruiting. I plan to dedicate an entire blog in the near future to my recruiting approach and philosophy, so keep an eye out for that coming shortly.

Next is player development/team culture. I put these together due to the rules I mentioned earlier at the DIII level. With the inability to mandate off-season activity, a team’s culture must hold the players accountable to working hard in the off-season, which is where development actually occurs. I relay this message to my players constantly, that true development happens BETWEEN seasons, and that the fall is simply the opportunity to showcase the amount of work that was put in since the previous year. In order to drive player development, as well as winning, I develop a competitive and professional culture that fosters growth. I want my players to compete relentlessly in everything they do, while simultaneously exemplifying professionalism, so that I can provide them with the best possible playing experience. Not the belabor my previous point, but to help me set this culture, it’s something I consider/introduce during the recruitment process. I make a point to show up early and watch the warmups so I can see how professionally they take the sport, I watch to see how they react when they (or one of their teammates) makes a mistake or loses the ball, and I really dive into these concepts during the recruitment process while communicating with athletes and their families. I’m brutally honest with who we are, what we stand for, and what we are looking for. Players who resonate with this professional/competitive culture really gravitate towards it and fit in immediately when they arrive.

Next is character development of the players. It’s imperative at this level that players grow and mature. Most players arrive at college in transitional phases of their lives, and it is the coaching staff’s role to help guide them through that transition. I want to develop skills that will help them succeed in every aspect of their lives, not just on the soccer field, however, developing these character skills certainly helps drive winning. The big ones for me are: self-confidence, competitive drive/spirit, internal motivation, selflessness, perseverance, consistency, resiliency, effort, passion, and discipline. I believe that by developing these character skills, I will develop well-rounded student athletes who will succeed in all aspects of their college career, and be set up to excel immediately as they transition into young-adulthood and move on to either the work force or graduate/professional school.

Next is practice design. I really dove into this concept in my previous post, so check that out for more details, however, in short, coaches should consistently invest effort into areas that lead to better results on the field, and do so in a way that actually transfers to game. It is during practice that coaches truly put their players in the best position to succeed and set them up to have success on gameday.

So far, we’ve touched on recruiting, player development/team culture, character development, and practice design. I would say that together, this makes up about 97% of what drives winning at the DIII level. If a coach recruits strong players, creates a culture that fosters growth/development, and puts them in the best position to succeed, they are going to win a lot of games and have a ton of success. To me, the last 3% are the details. Attention to detail is what separates the good coaches from the truly great ones. These are the coaches who have every detail accounted for and every aspect of their program dialed in. These include but are not limited to:

• Coaching Style/Philosophy

• Gameday Management/Tactics

• Player Management

• Off-season Training Programs

• Schedule Building

• Opponent Scouting

• Game Planning

• Film Breakdown

• Relationship Building

• Budget Management

• Networking

As the reader can see, there are so many aspects/facets that go into building a successful program at the DIII level. As a starting point, recruit strong players, create an environment that fosters growth/development, and put them in the best position to succeed. After that, start to chip away at the details and the results will skyrocket.

Thanks for reading,

-JL

Consistent Effort

You are what you do consistently. Those who know me know me well know me as a lively, energetic, and passionate guy. While I certainly consider myself as all those things, I feel like my personality has matured and settled down to the point where it’s brought a new found sense of peace and clarity. This clarity has given me the mental bandwidth and energy needed to deeply reflect, and doing so has provided me with a lot of life lessons. The biggest one that keeps presenting itself is the power of consistent effort.

Consistent effort is key to achieving success in most endeavors. Whether it’s athletic, academic, career, wellness, business, or anything else we take on, consistent effort will breed success. While this may seem bluntly obvious, how many people actually do it? Most people go “all-in” for a short stretch of time, investing constant and unsustainable effort up front in an attempt to see results as quickly as possible, only to burn out and quit before they make any substantial progress. This type of binging effort does not lead to success and isn’t realistic, practical, or maintainable. I’ve come to realize that putting in focused effort in short bursts more frequently has allowed me to achieve so much more than my previous binge, crash, repeat effort cycle, to the point where I now believe I can use it to achieve success in anything I take on.

Relating this to soccer/training, stop worrying about the perfect plan and simply invest in the things that matter to you. Figure out what you want to develop in your players (physically, technically, and tactically), and consistently invest effort into those areas. For example, if playing in transition is important to you, dedicate time each session to working on the transition phase of the game. This applies to skill and athletic development as well. Consistently invest effort into the skills and physical attributes you want to develop. The immediate results won’t be as profound as pouring copious amounts of effort into it up front, however, it will far out-produce that short burst in the long run as your team/players continue to revisit the concepts you want to instill and the skills you want to develop.

The lesson in all of this is to change how you are putting in effort. Put in shorter, more focused, more frequent bouts over a long period of time. Doing this will lead to far greater results in the long run and will eventually instill habits of success.

Thanks for reading,

-JL

My Thoughts on Style of Play

One of the many things that makes team sports so exciting is that teams can adopt a plethora of different identities and styles of play and still have success. Sticking to soccer, if we look at (in my opinion) the three best club teams in the world currently (Real Madrid, Man City, and Liverpool), we can very quickly see that they all have different styles of play and philosophies, as well as different personalities and ways of doing things from a coaching perspective, but are all equally successful in their own right.

Real Madrid is the perfect balance between system and players. Defensively, they are as stout as it comes, allowing players like Casemiro and Alaba to dominate and only giving up opportunities that trickle into their goalkeeper. When they win the ball, they play bravely in possession and allow their game-changing players like Karim Benzema, Luka Modric, and Vinicius Junior, among others, the creative freedom to attack with no consequences. They also tend to heavily adopt their system and style of play to the opponent they are facing, and are much more game-plan oriented than the other two (thank you Carlo Ancelotti). Man City on the other hand is a methodical system. Their possession will literally take your breath away, always making the safe play and relying on teamwork and moments of brilliance from Kevin De Bruyne to provide their goal scoring opportunities. As a side note, I personally believe that they have lost the balance between system and creative freedom, and have actually stifled players like Gabriel Jesus and Phil Foden, which is why I believe they haven’t won as much as they should; they don’t allow their best players the creative freedom to make plays that win them games and are actually a little too system-oriented. Hopefully this will change with the Haaland signing. Lastly, Liverpool is a complete and utter machine. Every decision is made with efficiency in mind. They look to move the ball into the final third and create a goal scoring opportunity as quickly as possible while gegenpressing relentlessly the second they lose it. Ironically, it is this high-pressure high-efficiency system that ended up being their downfall because their style of play is extremely physically and mentally demanding, and the players just ran out of gas by the end of the season.

While the many different styles of play lead to some extremely entertaining soccer for the viewer, what’s important to take away from a coaching perspective is simply that the best teams have a defined system and style of play. I do think there are styles that tend to have more success than others, however, it’s extremely important to have that style defined (and hopefully pick one that leads to results on the field). If coaches fail to define their style of play, then they will have no way in which to judge progress for their team, and no guidelines from which to run their practices. They will end up scattered, throwing practices together in the hopes of chasing results that don’t actually build towards anything, and ultimately letting their team down on gameday.

So how do coaches define their style of play? The first thing any coach should do is figure out what they personally believe in. Envision the “perfect” soccer team. What would they look like, how would they press, how would they attack, would they be big and physical, would they be master technicians, etc., and then decide on what’s realistic for your current group. Of course, the end goal should always be to achieve that perfect style, but what does a realistic end goal look like for this team. From there, you can then design your season objectives around reaching that style and use it to guide your practice planning.

For me, the perfect team is the hardest team to play against in the country. Of course, that isn’t realistic, so I’m constantly chasing the goal of making my team excruciatingly difficult to play against; a team that other teams hate to play because we take the fun out of the game. Tactically, this means we gegenpress relentlessly and look to go forward right away as soon as we win the ball, but if it’s not on, then we maintain possession and look to move the ball into the final third as quickly as possible. It means allowing our best players the creative freedom to make plays (and as a consequence, mistakes), that effect the outcome of the game. It means a team that only worries about what they can control, don’t argue with the refs, and takes advantage when the other team reacts negatively. Lastly, for me, being a team that’s hard to play against means having physically dominant players. My teams should be athletically dominant and not afraid of contact. They should win every ball and go in hard to everything.

While some of this may sound like an oversimplification, I believe that if we consistently practice the aspects we want to replicate in a way that transfers to the game, then over time we will begin to embody those characteristics. Maybe your style is different, but define it, figure out what’s realistic, and practice it consistently in a way that translates to the game, and in time, your team will begin to resemble your vision of the perfect team.

Please feel free to weigh in,

Until next time,

-Jer

Catering Your Training and Tactics to Your Best Athletes

I wanted to write a brief blog entry after listening to a podcast that brought a good concept back to the top of my mind. A couple of years ago, I listened to a podcast by Mike Boyle where he talked about how we tend to ruin our “superelite” athletes by trying to fit them into our training boxes and systems. Boyle explained how these athletes often get mislabeled as “soft,” or “injury-prone” when in reality, our programs and training models are what cause the injuries. Today, I was listening to the Pacey Performance Podcast with Cam Josse (strength and conditioning coach at Indiana University, works with football), where he talked about this same concept and it made me think back to the Boyle podcast from a few years ago.

As a general rule of thumb, I try to steal information and practices from people who are smarter than me, and figure out how the underlying concepts fit within my system. When multiple experts share a particular view on the topic, it means I should probably listen.

I thought a little bit deeper about it and want to share my thoughts. First, when Mike Boyle talks about “superelite” athletes, he’s referring to the 1% of the 1%. The athletes who are physically breath taking to watch perform, and transcend even the most elite athletes (think Adama Traore, pictured left). Most coaches will never be in the position where they will get to work with these athletes on a regular basis. In my entire career, I’ve only been fortunate enough to work with one of these athletes, and he was genuinely a walking type II muscle fiber. Due to their physiological makeup, these athletes are more prone to injury than your “average” high-level athlete. Boyle argues that we should be individualizing our training programs around these players, and Josse takes it one step further when he claims we should be building our team tactics around these players. I think they are right.

The player I had the short opportunity to coach was a game-breaking player in 15 minute bursts. When utilized correctly (such as during the last 15 minutes of each half), he was devastating for the opposition, averaging a goal a game playing 1/3 the amount of minutes of his peers. If I had tried to make him into a 90 minute player, then I would have taken away the rare ability that made him so special, and frankly, I probably would have gotten him hurt.

Now obviously, when you have an athlete of this caliber, the answer should be simple, unfortunately, it’s just not. Our most elite, game-changing athletes are still getting mislabeled and injured in our care. David Epstein wrote a brilliant little book called, “The Sports Gene,” where he references and explains this phenomenon. And even if it was simple, the question gets a little more challenging when the athlete becomes less athletically-gifted. Josse argues that in this case, your tactics should reflect the athletic strength of your players, and I would agree, to an extent.

I think that our jobs as coaches are to put our players in the best position to succeed, which would include athletically, while simultaneously building a system of play where everyone is bought in and pulling in the same direction. I think your team has to have general principles of play, but are principles that allow for your best and most athletically gifted players to have the freedom to impact he game when the time calls for it. If you want an example of a professional team that balances this brilliantly, watch Real Madrid play. I think they are the perfect balance of system and freedom, with all of their players being put in positions that accentuate their strengths, but their impactful players still having the freedom to make plays to win them games.

This post turned into a little bit of a brain dump, but I think that’s OK. Part of my vision for this blog is to throw ideas out that stimulate thought and spur action. What I really wanted to throw out was the idea of building your training programs and style of play around your most athletically-gifted players, rather than trying to fit those players into a predefined system, and I think I’ve done so. I also wanted to get across that our most athletically-gifted athletes should not be getting injured in our care. I hope this idea spurs thought and leads to action for some people.

Thanks for reading,

-Jer