Last Tuesday was rough. My football team got absolutely demolished 4-0 by our rivals. Ouch. Felt like the boys weren’t even on the same page. So yeah, I started desperately Googling for help late that night – something, anything, about making a team actually work together. Stumbled across this old article about Arsene Wenger’s coaching. Got curious. Went down the rabbit hole.
The Starting Point: Curiosity & Confusion
Found a bunch of stuff about Wenger. People talked about him being this smart dude who wasn’t about shouting. Sounded good! But then they used words like ‘holistic’ and ‘synchronicity’. Nah. Too fancy for me. Needed the simple bits. Kept digging. Wanted to know: what did he actually do?
Trying the First Ideas: Keep the Ball Moving
Alright. Practice Thursday night. Decided to try what felt like the core thing: passing, fast. Kept yelling “One touch! Move it!” during small drills. Felt stupid at first, like a broken record. Some kids looked confused, others just kept hogging the ball. Stopped everything after 5 mins.
- What I changed: Instead of shouting “one touch”, I made a dumb rule: hold the ball for more than three seconds = 5 push-ups. Didn’t care if they passed perfectly, just had to pass fast.
- Happened: Absolute chaos! Balls flying everywhere. Total scrap. But… they started looking up. Started yelling at each other for quick passes. It was messy, but alive. Different energy.
Building On It: Making Practice Weird
Read somewhere Wenger changed training all the time to keep it fresh. Okay. Screw the usual cone drill setups. Next session, I showed up early and scattered all the gear randomly. Cones, little goals, bibs – just dumped them.
- Told the team: “Alright, you figure out a 15-minute warm-up game using all this crap. Go.”
- Happened: They argued for like 2 minutes. Then, magic. Captain took charge, sorted teams, made rules. They invented this crazy tag game involving passing through cone gates. Laughed more than usual. Actually looked excited to play before the actual practice started.
The Biggest Surprise: Not Talking Too Much
This was tough. My instinct is to stop play every time something goes wrong and lecture. Wenger apparently watched more than yelled.
- Experiment: During a big 11v11 practice game, I forced myself to shut up. Just stood near the halfway line. Clenched my jaw. Didn’t stop the game for anything, even though my brain was screaming.
- Happened: Players started sorting their own crap out! Midfielders yelled at defenders to push up. Strikers demanded through balls. Saw them actually communicating, solving problems themselves. Felt useless… but weirdly proud? They weren’t waiting for my fix.
One Month Later? Not Perfect, But Different
We lost 2-1 last weekend. Progress? Seriously. We actually looked like a team. Possession was better. Players fought harder for each other. The difference?
- The Mess Matters: Throwing them into chaotic situations forced them to think fast, adapt quick. No robots.
- Talk Less, Nod More: Them fixing their own issues built way more understanding than me yelling instructions. Takes patience.
- Speed Is Key: Just making them shift the ball super fast, even messy fast, changed everything. Less thinking, more instinct.
Wenger’s thing felt fancy online. Practicing it? Ended up being surprisingly down-to-earth: stop overcomplicating, force interaction, and maybe… just let the team figure some stuff out themselves. Worth the try.
