Where Have Sydney Gone Wrong?

Two wins on the trot for Sydney FC, is it a revival or a false dawn?   Against Gold Coast United they played with more energy and aggression and it was all hands to the pump. Sydney pressed as a team and made life difficult for Gold Coast.  Yes, they did survive some early Gold Coast chances and coughed up possession too much but it must be remembered that Gold Coast have been their bogey team, so in the context of their season so far, it was a great result.  Now we need to see if this provides the confidence to go on a run, have they got the enthusiasm and mental toughness to continue winning tight games or will they crumble under pressure. 

Is Vitja's message still getting through? 

Yes, the season has been poor and Sydney have hardly been convincing. However, I don't think they have played that badly at times. Sydney have dominated large chunks of games and still managed to lose, missing simple chances and conceding some schoolboy goals. 

So, what are the positives?  There is a real opportunity for redemption if Sydney are up for it.  They now find themselves in a unique position, they have nothing to lose and the ACL to look forward to. The challenge for Sydney is to get some momentum going, every game now should be a dress rehearsal for the ACL.  So, it's time to get the process right.  They have a new striker in Mekela who has a pedigree, they have some promising youngsters doing well, they have won the last two games and they have Melbourne Victory coming up.  Now there's some incentive. 

Why have Sydney struggled this season? 

Obviously, there are lots of different opinions including talk about Sydney's poor recruiting. But has it really been that bad. Reddy was outstanding for Wellington, Jameson was praised by commentators at Adelaide, a lefty who could play fullback and midfield, Carle, most pundits saw him as an excellent and tailor made replacement for Corica.  Moriyasu, is probably one of the standouts this season. There are some excellent youngsters coming through as well.  All the others are from the championship winning team.  Vitja was hailed as a breath of fresh air, what European coaches can bring to the A League. 

Maybe it's the season Sydney had to have before the squad gels. 

It is not uncommon in football for clubs to have setbacks, look at Liverpool and Chelsea.  What about Adelaide, from the final of the ACL to last in the A League? 

It is interesting to note all these coaches have been successful and the players are good players often the same players from the previous successful season.  So what happens? 

I was talking to Mark Schwarzer about Roy Hodgson at Fulham after the Paraguay game, and he was saying how thorough Hodgson is with his preparation and how he works the players endlessly and makes sure everyone knows their job and how he was largely responsible for Fulham's success. 

I remember when I started coaching at the AIS, Ron Smith used to always say "coaching is easy when you're winning". Inferring of course that it's not so easy when the team is losing and the coach has to figure out why and put things right. Most career coaches would have experienced this situation, in fact it's an important part of the learning curve. 

The point is any coach can have a bad run of results and sometimes it's very difficult to turn around. Does that mean they are a bad coach? The important thing is to have a plan and keep working on the right things. 

Certainly Vitja works hard on the training field. I've seen him work on the park many times, I've seen him do Video Analysis sessions, I've seen him talk to players individually and he has stayed positive right throughout a difficult season. He is organised and systematic. Last season he could do no wrong. I'm sure the players are working hard as well. 

What all coaches are after is consistency of performance so that when players take the field you know they will perform at an acceptable standard.  This is set on the training pitch during pre-season where the coach shares his vision of how he wants the team to play and work and demands that standard of excellence at every training session.  It then becomes second nature to players and becomes even more potent when they buy into it and start driving it themselves. It's about players taking responsibility and being accountable for their performance. Part of that is developing strategies for mental toughness to be able to succeed when things aren't going right. 

The mental side of the game is interesting and too frequently underrated. 

Usually the coach can identify the technical and tactical problem areas and fix them at training either by lots of repetition or a change of personnel, sometimes both. But what happens when it doesn't work and you keep losing and you can't quite put your finger on the problem or worse it becomes a crisis of confidence. Should confidence even be a factor for professional footballers? Can you trust players who can only play when they are confident? What happens when they lose their confidence, do they suddenly become a liability to the team? 

The fact is confidence is a state of mind and can be managed. Professional players should be able to perform even when things aren't going well. It shouldn't affect their motivation which for elite players is intrinsic and about being the best they can be. They should see set-backs as a challenge and develop a plan, a mental checklist of what to do when things aren't going right.  Usually based on keeping it simple and doing their job well. 

Sometimes coaches need to get back to basics and reinforce the mental side of the game, reminding players how to prepare mentally and how to continue to develop their mental toughness.  

Positive self-talk, visualisation, pre-game routines, that will get them focused and ready to perform at optimum level. How to refocus on the pitch when play is interrupted or something unforseen happens. To mentally keep 'in the present' while on the field, if you make a mistake don't worry about it, the question is, what's my job now? The idea is to control things within your control as much as possible and don't worry about the things out of your control. 

You talk about the ebbs and flows of a game. How the other team will have periods where they will dominate and that you must not drop your bundle, concentrate, be organised and defend well during these periods so as not to concede, because the tide will turn and you need to take advantage when it happens. 

At times I have found it useful to break the game down into 10 or 15minute segments during each half to get the players to be more focused and concentrate on specific outcomes.  This helps to get them in the zone where they are ultra focused. 

Saachi was a great believer in the psychological importance of winning the little battles that make your opponents doubt. He loved disrupting AC Milan's opponents playing style, forcing them to play in a different way. Particularly how they played out from the back by denying them space and time by pressing with his attackers. Of course he was the king of pressing and staying compact but he also believed in the virtues of teams being mentally tough. 

Sometimes you've just got to get out there and battle away, win ugly, show some character and mental toughness and things might just start to turn.