Secure Coaching

So I am the official coach of the Nhlangano Black Terrors. (All of these players are in their 20’s & 30’s)

Paperwork filled out, payment made and photos turned in.

The Black Terrors are in the Super League of the Sisweline Region. Swaziland has four & ½ soccer divisions. Premiere, First Division, Super League and Promotion. Then there are small regional leagues. So basically I coach a team that is in the third division of Swaziland’s professional league. Now only the Premiere league players get paid, remember this is a very small country, but because soccer is so big here almost every area has its own team. And they use the English Premier League style for advancement and relegation.

So that evening’s at practice I am running a series of win the ball drills. Practice usually starts at 5pm, but actually at around 530. At 600pm the other coach shows up (who hasn’t been to one game nor shown at any practices since his first appearance a couple of weeks ago). He rearranges my cones and asks to borrow my whistle, I dig it out of my bag, give it to him and watch to see what he is going to do. He blows the whistle and sets up a scrimmage. I ask what he is doing. He says he needs to evaluate the players. I just about blew my cool.

I tell him he should have come to one of the games or more practices, where he could have evaluated them. And I told him that I have already done that. I take the whistle back and changed up his drill. He walks off.

I then use the scrimmage to make the players fight hard for the ball. Encouraging them to foul each by grabbing each other’s arms, it forces them to literally fight for the ball. So his scrimmage turned into free for all "fight" for the ball. And I jumped in the mix literally pushing around the players that got in my way. It was fun and they got the idea but at first they couldn't grasp the concept of the coach mixing it up with them like I was.