FCA XVenture College

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An emotionally agile team is a key strength

I started working with Arnie in preseason 2016/17 at Sydney FC.  I remember the day.  Terry McFlynn, someone who I’ve known for many years approached me asking if I would come to the club to meet Arnie and discuss how I might help them through the season. Our conversation  became directed towards building deep connectivity, communication and relationships between players and staff plus fine tuning the mind to build a future positive expectancy in whatever we faced. .  An important set of skills for our World.   I recognised early what many haven’t: that Arnie embraces innovation. Anything that gives an edge.  

This led to the “emotional” pillar becoming a fundamental addition to Arnie’s technical, tactical, and physical pillars of coaching.   This is not typical of modern football coaching.  Klopp, Guardiola, and the likes of Brendan Rogers have embraced this too and they see this as critical.   Initially at Sydney FC and over the last four years at the Socceroos has seen  the development of emotional intelligence and agility across everyone involved in the first team.  The principle being that if we can build a more emotionally agile group with similar technical skills as other teams, then the emotionally agile will often win. 

We started to use tools and measures to introduce conversations with players on this. This was a fundamental addition to the program.   Something that’s now emerged as a model in other sports and in business too. Here’s an example.  

 

 Credit: XVenture

Finding solutions to create an optimistic outlook and a positive team environment; measuring emotional intelligence and intrinsic motivation; providing strategies to manage resilience has become an important focus.  

I consistently emphasised that great teams are also typically great communicators(1).  So, we  built regular performance improvement conversations around this too. More times than I care to mention, you see the word  “Communication” written on our white boards.  

Bravery

The bravery necessary to get to this World Cup is there for all to see.  Reference to trusting his team has already been mentioned.  The goalkeeper swap of Maty Ryan for Andrew Redmayne in the penalty shootout which has now become folklore in football circles and not just in Australia is the prime example.  But there are others too.  Arnie realised that to make it to the World Cup would mean making it easier for our overseas players to participate.  This would mean playing most of the games away from home and in lock down covid conditions.  On a personal note, that would require Arnie living away from home for 6 and a half months out of seven and having over one hundred PCR tests.  Leading by example was a key to this strategy.  

Arnie’s is a fighter without question.  This is deep in his psyche. Losing both parents at a very early age, with no real home, taken in by his grandparents he and his brother had to be brave from the outset.  He earned a reputation and respect as a strong forward in the Dutch premier league and internationally.  You don’t score 161 goals in a senior career or representing your country over 50 times   without having a skill set.  This experience as a player  domestically, overseas and as an international helps him in understand the football landscape, how players tick and often what’s necessary to achieve the goal.    

Growing the Pot

A couple of years ago it dawned on Arnie that the Socceroos  would be light on squad depth leading into the World Cup. The loss of experienced players such as Mile Jedinak, Tim Cahill and Mark Milligan left a big hole. Hence the parallel focus on working towards World Cup qualification and Olympic qualification to build experience and quality playing time for younger players was a brave move. With an enormous effort in qualifying for the Olympics ,  players such as Cameron Devlin, Keanu Baccus, Marco Tilio, Kye Rolles, Nick D’Agostino, Denis Genreau, Conor Metcalfe and Riley McGree were just some who benefited from the experience including playing against some of the best players in the World v Argentina and Spain. 

This experience has also enabled many of these younger players to gain greater confidence, leading to new experiences in overseas leagues. Imagine the connection these players have with Arnie? At the start of the campaign, the numbers were low. Now they’re gaining traction again. 

The A- League is an exciting competition and a fantastic foundation for our players and coaches to move up to higher levels in the World game.  However, there’s no substitute for experience. It’s telling that when the Socceroos face other teams, many of the players in opposition teams are playing many more games. The movement of our players into divisions in Europe and cementing regular game time is a critical piece of the jigsaw.  Arnie has worked hard to provide this platform for our players.   Plus, once the players get into Europe and Asia, a strong network of support is provided.  In Europe having Rene Meulensteen and now Andrew Clark at FC Copenhagen is significant, with constant contact from key support including myself and members of the PFA team too. 

Building  the bigger pot of players has also  led to a greater inclusivity of players.  Arnie’s given debuts to Awer Mabil and Thomas Deng  in Kuwait and Gerang Kuol too.  Combine this with the clever search for foreign players who had a parental connection to Australia led to the significant introduction of Martin Boyle, Harry Souttar and most recently Jason Cummings.  The former two being instrumental in the progress towards qualification.    His care and attention in making sure all these new players feel cared for and feel like they belong is significant.

For Part 4 "Dealing with Criticism, Technical and Tactical Capabilities and Final Thoughts" click HERE

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CONTACT DANIELA KRAUS [email protected]