From a drone view and with a joystick. Directing the game as if we were playing on a video game console, from the stands and connected by telephone with the bench to make tactical adjustments. Below, at the foot of the grass and close to the ball actions, other voices that maintain the intensity and concentration of the team. Is this going to be the way in which coaches experience games in the football of the future? Are we moving more towards the technician-analyst or will the coach-passion survive? I have always liked to play to imagine what will come. I don’t think football gets into radical dystopias Black Mirrorbut technological advances have been installed in sport to improve training methods and perfect analysis. There are countless audiovisual possibilities that give a new look to the routines of soccer players and, consequently, they are giving it to us coaches. The blackboard has been changed to screens in training and we convince the match plan through tablets. When we analyze the match from the tactical camera we detect so many things that in the live, blinded by the lost duels or the missed chances, we have not known how to correct, that we torture ourselves looking for a way to see them already, during, while the game is happening. That’s why we connect the analyst with the bench through headphones, to find perspective and calm. But why doesn’t the same coach come up?
From the technical area we do not have the best vision of what is happening. In many stadiums, the belly of the midfield eats up the opposing wing and it becomes difficult to communicate with the distant players, especially in large settings. You are so low to the ground that it is difficult to read how the structures of the two teams intersect, where the spaces are, what opportunities there are that we are not taking advantage of. Ironically, the fans will see it before the decision-maker. Yes, you see faces, you smell fatigue or anguish, you suffer efforts that are given or saved, you feel the emotions of the protagonists. What is important? Tactics or energy? Probably both. The art is in reading what the party is asking for at all times.
And it’s not easy, because your emotions also make you dizzy. Euphoria and fear. Anger and blockage. Gareth Taylor, coach of the Manchester City women’s team, follows the games from the stands and delegates the more traditional match direction to his assistant. He did it again on Wednesday against Barça in the Champions League, although he went down earlier than usual. His team was flying. He says that this way he has the right perspective to be more precise in his half-time talk, which is the great time for a coach to intervene. Almost the only one, until the hydration breaks have arrived – exceptional for hot days – and the trick of throwing the goalkeeper to the ground – which will soon be regulated. For the tacticiansdirecting from the stands sounds interesting. For the emotional, it sounds cold. And for the players? If during the week they understand that we are a staffWhat do you need from your coach on game day? What is there? Or give them the best solutions?
In his recently released documentary, Luis Enrique curls the futuristic curl and fantasizes about being able to emit small electric shocks to the players who do not respect the collective plan and about putting earpieces on them to give them instructions. American football has normalized the coach-quarterback and in Australian football we see players putting their ears to a retro telephone on the bench to listen to what their coach sees, surrounded by computers in a box high up in the stadium. Will this be our future?
