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| COACHING ESSENTIALS |


coaches construct their team talks. Rafael Benitez’s folkloric half-time address to his Liverpool side, 3–0 down against AC Milan in football’s 2005 Champions League final, has emerged as a rare public peek behind the scenes. ‘Give yourselves a chance to be heroes,’ he urged, and they duly did. Peter Reid, filmed for the infamous documentary Premier Passions, showed how not to do it, with repetitive, profane rants at his Sunderland players. They were relegated.


So how can a coach make best use of a pre- or in- game talk with their team or individual athlete?


‘It’s an art form,’ said Malcolm Willstrop, whose untouchable reputation as a squash coach sees many of the world’s top players flock to Pontefract Squash Club in Yorkshire to receive his wisdom.


‘It’s highly significant,’ he said.‘You may be able to turn a game and you may equally get it wrong. There are times when I know what I’ve said has helped, definitely, but there are times when what I’ve done has been counter- productive as well.


‘In squash you’ve only got a minute-and-a-half between games (equivalent to tennis’ sets). What I say is never technical, rarely tactical. Often it’s supportive, being there for them, an odd word. A player can’t take loads of rubbish off you in 90 seconds.’


of an enigma. C


A few carefully chosen words can inspire victory against overwhelming odds but, as former coach of the France football team, Raymond Domenech, will attest, if done badly, team talks can be explosive, ruinous affairs.


Because they’re almost always conducted in private, it’s difficult to extract first-hand secrets as to how top-class


onducted in locked, sweat-soaked dressing rooms or whispered, furtive and furrow-browed, at trackside – the coach’s pep talk is something


Willstrop, a self-confessed Rugby League nut, was inducted into the sports coach UK Hall of Fame in 2004. He counts former world number one and Commonwealth Games gold medal winner Lee Beachill among his former charges and is currently coach to his son James, the current world number three, and another man who has held the top ranking in the sport.


James reveals the vital part that court-side tête-à-têtes with his father have played in his success: ‘He barely needs to say anything, it is more the tone of his voice and his calm, it keeps me focused. He knows I don’t need loads of advice.


WORDSTOTHE WISE


We’ve all given them, or heard them. But are team talks effective? Mike Dale took advice from two world-class coaches...


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