Fooled By The Result

Win the game, the match or the race and everything is great. Lose the game, match or race and it is a disaster, everything is bad. In my 41 years of coaching and a few years before that as an athlete I have seen this time and again. Panic after a lose, smug satisfaction after a win, regardless of how well the players performed. For some reason coaches and teams just don’t seem to understand that you have to look beyond the score. Sometimes victories can disguise huge deficiencies and fool you into thinking things are better than they are. The 1998 US Men’s World Cup soccer team was a great example of this. Victories over Brazil and then Belgium in Europe were blown out of proportion and distorted the perspective the coaches and the media. I saw this first hand working with this team. We were not preparing for the World Cup as much as we were focusing on winning less meaningful matches that ultimately hurt the development of the team and distorted the selection process of the players. Conversely loses can be blown out of proportion unless they are thoroughly analyzed in the context of the whole season and the plan. The essential element here is to always learn from performance. The competition performance is the most essential feedback tool there is, after all that is what the goal of training is. So have a context for performance evaluation from a physical preparation, tactical and strategic perspective that is part of a systematic plan. This is what the great coach’s and athletes do, they have a perspective that allows them to objectively evaluate competitive performance and learn from it and adjust accordingly. A good sound plan lends context and perspective. Each competition result provides incremental progress toward the ultimate goal.