It is with pleasure, and with the agreement of Lionel Bellenger and his publisher, that I share with you today the preface to a book that, I guarantee, will make for an enjoyable read: "They Parked the Bus in Front of the Goal, Yet We Managed to Score" by Lionel Bellenger.
Preface
If the coaching profession is mad, it's because of a strange paradox: it is practised in a game played by others — the players — who are at once team-mates and... competitors. And those who make you win often have strong personalities, big egos and very particular ambitions.
It's a decision-making job that constantly puts you on a "slippery slope": you can go from hero to zero in no time. It only works if you're 150% committed, if you're prepared to take hits. You'd better be able to count on your family's support. In the season we won five trophies with Liverpool, I prepared sixty-three matches and spent one hundred and sixty-six nights away from home. The coach must accept a form of sacrifice to stay invested and to keep enjoying solving problems, managing tensions and maintaining clarity of vision for the project.
The evolution of the coach's role
What coaching must take into account today is the arrival of young players in the professional ranks. Contrary to received wisdom, they know a lot, enjoy working on projects, seek responsibility and are generally confident. Authoritarianism — 'do it because I told you to' — no longer works with them. For everything, you must be able to say "Why?". Before a session, the coach must explain what he wants to do and show why. Imposing gets you nowhere. You must convince, and to convince you must be willing to listen, ask questions and discuss.
When you have players with star status, you get the best out of them by protecting them. They are under pressure and can swing the outcome of matches. The coach's tact makes the difference: Zinedine Zidane knows how to do that very well at Madrid. A coach manages both talent and attitude.
Keys to success
Raymond Goethals used to say that to succeed at the highest level, coaches must have "done their steps" — gone through the stages. That was true, in August 2020, for the Champions League semi-finalists. Hansi Flick, the title-winner with Bayern, Thomas Tuchel, Rudi Garcia and Julian Nagelsmann all share the experience of having been assistants and having worked through several coaching jobs in lower-division clubs. They have all drawn on sources of inspiration: the Cologne school, the gegenpressing school for the three German coaches, and Italian defensive rigour for Rudi Garcia. Above all, they have understood that this job is about people: they are managers of men with individual sensitivities and varied egos. Having a united and committed dressing room is their first challenge.
To succeed at the very highest level today, a team must play with maximum intensity. Everything is faster and stronger, but also smarter. It is the coach's job to create the conditions for the team to improve by raising the bar of expectation.
Advice for young coaches
To a young coach I would repeat that he must work to build confidence, both individual and collective, and adapt come what may. A leader's true talent is the ability to bounce back. Failure is part of a coach's life. This job isn't 50% difficulty and 50% satisfaction; it's 80% hassle and 20% extraordinary joy — the joy of making a group win. Beware: if it's 90% and 10%... it's time to stop!
This coaching profession is a blend of ambition and humility. It is the quality of the work offered to players that gives it its nobility. The result depends on it: "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail" is the motto of our job. The honesty, seriousness and truth of this profession lie in the effort to progress: preparing well so you can remain clear-headed in the storms.
I'm pleased to hear Steven Gerrard, my former captain at Liverpool and now a coach in Scotland, tell me that at Anfield he was already noting everything we did in training and that it serves him now that he's on the other side. Coaching is also a vocation as well as a craft of passing on knowledge.
About the book
Lionel Bellenger's book gives absorbing attention to all these facets of our profession: training and leading a team to success. It also rightly gives pride of place to communication. Finding the right words and tone in an inevitably emotional context is an additional skill in our job that must not be underestimated.