Creative Performance
The need for creativity in top sport is essential if consistently good results are to be experienced against quality opposition.
Germany’s performance at the current FIFA World Cup in South Africa has been a joy to watch. Their zestfulness of youth, and the encouragement of dynamic, inter-changing play at high pace, allied to a strong commitment to individuality within the discipline of a team framework and strategy has created a buzz around their team. There are even sugggestions that it could be their greatest-ever, potentially surpassing the legendary captain Franz Beckenbauer’s 1972 European Championship winnning team.
For many years, people have criticized Germany for their efficient and sometimes dull style, despite their successful results. However, under current Coach Joachim Low, Germany’s football has evolved, and they have displayed a level of creative performance (both individually and collectively) which destroyed the fancied England (4-1) and Argentina (4-0), as well as demolishing Australia 4-0 in their first group match. All this has happened without their captain Michael Ballack who was injured before the tournament, and was unable to take his place in the squad.
The semi-final beckons against the current European Champions Spain, who have yet to produce their best in the tournament so far, but pose a big threat to Germany’s current supremacy. In fact, Jochim Low has even admitted modelling his German team’s style on the Spannish, after Spain’s success in the last European Championships. A semi-final between Spain and Germany will not be a challenge of diverse culture and determining the effectiveness of style over substance. Both teams have plenty in abundance.
The key to tournament play is improving as a team as the competition unfolds, and then peaking at the right time, to ensure victory in the latter stages. This is something the Germans have been past masters at in World Cups (eleven World Cup semi-finals since 1954) and European Championships down the years. The big question now is, can Germany maintain their fitness, cohesion, and also their creativity, against a team like Spain who also excel in the creativity stakes? Can Germany reach a new peak in their performance, or have they already peaked?
A transformation in philosophy, style and performance has taken place under Joachim Low’s coaching. Whether Germany can be crowned as World Champions next Sunday remains to be seen, but without doubt, their quality and style of football has caught the imagination of everyone tuned into the world’s biggest sporting event. It is no co-incidence that four of their leading players (Captain Philipp Lahm, midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger and forwards Thomas Muller and Miroslav Klose) helped Bayern Munich to enjoy a successful last season, which included a German League (Bundesliga) and Cup Double, and culminated in reaching the European Champions League Final against Inter Milan.
Encouraging creativity in players requires a coach to have an unwavering commitment to a philosophy which allows for players to have the freedom and license to play with joy in their hearts. It is a philosophy which is accepting of mistakes, and one which prefers individuals to explore their talent ‘fully’, rather than impose restrictions upon it. Nurturing the human being is key, and encouraging a mindset where self-discovery is the top priority. This will help the possibility of a quantum leap occuring in the performance process at some point in time. Long-term gain is where the real reward lies, and the acceptance of mistakes by both player and coach along the way, is essential both at elite level in sport, and during the developmental phase of a player’s career.
The opposite is an environment whereby fear dominates a player’s thinking, and where creativity gets stifled in the process. People talk about ‘the fear of failure’ but effectively, such experiences are about fear of the consequences. With quality coaching and excellent teamwork, this fear becomes minimised because of the culture of ‘acceptance’. The best Coaches, and the best players know that mistakes will occur, but they believe that with a creative, attacking mindset, other opportunities will emerge if one remains committed to such a philosophy during the more difficult moments of a match, tournament, season, or career.
I know from my own 20-year professional cricketing career how easy it is to bat ’within oneself’ for fear of making a mistake and getting out, rather than expressing oneself and dominating the bowler. Such a manner can undermine the bowler’s prospects of producing his optimum performance, and make one’s life as a batsman so much easier. Sir Vivian Richards was the master of such a craft. People would argue that King Viv, ‘the master blaster’, had exceptional ability which allowed him to carry such attitude off. However, I later discovered, through conversation with the man himself, that ultimately, (like everyone else in the game) he had to work on his attitude to enhance his prospects of getting the most out of his ability. For me, Sir Vivian Richards was the master of producing top performance in the most important matches and moments during his exceptional career because he took the battle to his opponents.
I played with greater abandon at the start, and also at the end of my career, but wished I had done the same in the middle phase. In trying to be ‘more professional’, it resulted in me stifling my ability for several years mid-career. I also enjoyed the game less in the process. I am sure I would have been more effective as a player, and influenced the outcome of matches more, if I had found the mental courage to explore my natural talent more ‘fully’, irrespective of the consequences. It is easy to blame the environment but ultimately it is the responsibility of every performer to find the best way (and mindset) to maximise their opportunities in sport, and in life. Thankfully, I learnt from the error of my ways and I determined to play my own way and live or die by the sword, which left me reflecting on my career with greater pleasure than had I not transformed my thinking and approach.
As a consequence, much of my coaching today, is centred on encouraging people to push their boundaries and discover more about what they are truly capable of once they free up their mind, and ‘allow’ themselves to have fun and dominate the ‘performance space’.
Over-bearing coaches and over-zealous parents can also be ‘the fly in the ointment’, despite being well-intentioned. It never ceases to amaze me how little emphais is placed on the empowerment of ‘the athlete’ to find their own way of developing creative performance. Stepping back (as a Coach or parent), and empowering the individual, and the group, to develop their own style by learning to trust their own intuition at critial moments, is a major factor in producing top-class performance.
If sportspeople do not trust their attacking instincts at key moments in a match or tournament, then ultimately, they will feel very deflated when they lose because of the knowledge of what might have beeen. The great Australian Cricket Captain Stephen Waugh once said at a London County Workshop that the four words which should never be part of a player’s vocabulary are ”would’ve, could’ve, might’ve, and should’ve.” A ‘No Regrets’ philosophy is key to maximising one’s talent and oppotunities.
Watching Briton Andy Muray play Rafa Nadal in the semi-final of the Wimbledon Championships last week, I was dismayed at his tactics on the verge of winning the second set. At set-point, Murray chose to play cautiously, while his opponent attacked with all his might. The net result is that Nadal regained the initiative, as well as winning the key points, and went on to win the match 3-0. Nadal’s supremacy in the final against Berdych exemplified this attacking instinct which overpowered his opponent in straight sets. Not only did Nadal win the Grand Slam event, but he struck a deep psychological blow by proving that his creativity and aggression would not be restricted by the enormity of the occasion. This is what Champion Sportspeople do – they trust their attacking instincts, and dominate their opponents to the point of submission. Any player who is brought up to please their coach or parent is unlikely to be able to execute such a strategy,as it takes attitude and courage. it requires the individual to reveal their true self in the heat of the battle, and if that ‘self’ has not been allowed to develop ‘fully’, then a meek and mild cat, rather than ‘a human tiger’ gets unleashed during the critical moments.
In the developmental years of a sportsperson’s career, opportunity is everything. Any player who learns to make the most of whatever opportunity available to them develops an edge that is able to differentiate them from some of their over-indulged competitors, many of whom experience too much opportunity without earning it. In such instances, people do not recognise (and are unable to appreciate the gift and privilege in front of them) and instead, develop a culture of entitlement.
Access to consistently challenging competition, and quality coaching to enhance the learning experience, helps to create new awareness in the player to stimulate new thinking, and provide the necessary fuel for continuous improvement.
Sadly, in many sport development programmes, the results become too important to players, coaches and players in the developmental years. Where short-term success is regarded as the top priority, long-term benefits get overlooked. A consequence of such short-term thinking, is the decision to select players who have matured physically at a young age, in teams ahead of smaller individuals who have greater potential. The opportunity cost, is that many talented young performers miss out on the best learning experiences available to players at a young age.
One of the highlights for me so far in this current FIFA World Cup is the superb performances of small players like Holland’s Wesley Sneijder and Spain’s Andres Iniesta. As midfield players they have excelled despite being only 5’ 6 inches in height, and slight in build. Someone, somewhere, spotted their potential at a young age and nurtured them as players, as I doubt they would have been the most dominant players in age-group football due to their size. In cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara and Shiv Chanderpaul were diminuitive in size when young, but have grown up (in stature) to be giants within their sport. The key is giving the players with the most potential, the necessary space to grow, by providing them with the right opportunities to seriously test themselves along the way.
In contrast to this, the English football system (where young players play on full-sized pitches at an early age) means that the more ‘athletic’ and physically mature players tend to dominate, and winning local leagues is often the top priority for junior coaches across the country. The idea of boys playing in different positions, or different systems to understand more about the game, is anathema to the majority. Physicality, rather than technique, is too often the top priority when selecting players in order to increase a team’s chances of winning junior competitions.
Talent I.D. is a specialism in itself. People don’t know what they don’t know, which is why experienced people, with a track record for identifying top talent, need to be involved in the selection process for county, regional and national age group squads, to ensure those with the most potential, rather than the most dominant players, are given access to greater opportunity to mature into a ‘top-class’ performer.
When the FA ran The National School of Excellence at Lilleshall in the early 1990’s, most of the boys selected turned out to be born in September and October. This was a co-incidence at the time, but when one considers the physical maturity of boys born six, or even eleven months earlier than others, it is obvious they have an unfair advantage at schoolboy level. Physically mature players often stand out in their own age-group because of their ability to dominate on a physical level, but are they the players who are most gifted technically or indeed those with the most long-term potential of becoming creative players who can excel on the biggest stage in future?
In Cricket, the powerful hitter of the ball at a young age tends to make a lot of runs against ordinary bowling, but soon gets found out as the quality of bowling improves. At a young age, the big fast bowler can extract pace and bounce from a surface which most small boys find intimidating dueto their size. However, unless the big fast bowler develops control of line and length, and develops movement in the air and off the pitch as he matures, he will become less effective over time, because the technically gifted batsman will develop strength to add to his skill and strategic ability to make runs.
The capacity to learn and the desire to improve are critical elements in the Talent I.D. process. In the formative stages of a player’s development, most people can pick out a Viv Richards or an Ian Botham or a Maradona or Pele, but the best eyes for talent can spot a characterisitc or a quality which is not apparent to the amjority of observers.
The late Ron Greenwood, who led West Ham United to unprecedented success in the 1960′s and fashioned ‘The Academy’ at the east London Club and later managed England, converted Sir Geoff Hurst from a struggling wing-half, and developed him into a very successful centre-forward who remains the only man to have scored a hat-trick in a World Cup Final. Greenwood, a coaching genius, had the two most important skills in that he could pick a player, and he could develop a player to a level beyond the vision the player had for himself. His coaching philosophy was centred on the mantra: ’simplicity is genius’, and his excellence in man-management enabled him to engage players in honest and intelligent conversation about the game and the player’s ability to affect the game positively for the benefit of his team. He wanted players with lively minds and encouraged people to always have pictures in their heads of where they wanted to play the ball next, or how they were going to move into space to create more possibilities in attack for the team. He would often stop the play in training and ask players to freeze and shut their eyes, followed by asking them to describe where everyone else on the field was at that moment in time. Apparently, the legendary Bobby Moore was phenomenal at knowing where everyone was, whilst Sir Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Sir Trevor Brooking were not far behind in their ability to define the landscape. Greenwood’s creative coaching and desire to develop players who played intelligently and creatively, helped to shape a dynasty of West Ham coaches and footballers who maintained his legacy of producing England internationals from East London.
Far-sighted coaches, who have the best interests of the players with the most potential, are needed, if creative players are to flourish and enhance the future landscape of top sport. No one wants to witness boring, functional sporting teams who grind out results in the name of professionalism. Some coaches select players who can ‘do a job’, in order to ‘get a result’ today, but ultimatley, they are cheating themselves, the player, and the sport, by ignoring the value of creative performance and the impact it can have, over time. An obsession with results at developmental level pales into insignificance over time, when results are consigned to history, and the quality of player which reaches the top in the sport proves to be inadequate, when compared to other nations at international events and tournaments. The best Coaches are always aware of ‘the bigger picture’.
Germany has led the way in terms of creative performance so far in this FIFA World Cup – will others follow their lead, and undergo a transformation in philosophy and performance over time ?
