Story time
nb: it's not about me, as much as an experience, and about some coaching strategies pertaining to the main article
as an example on the above subject, I had a newly formed team with a bunch of kids(18-22) a surbub(NDG) wanted to move into the men's Snr league,they only had intercity up to Jnrs.. since management wasn't my forte, the 1st 2 practices were run without balls...my fault, not telling the prospective manager which field we would be using, but the boys were fresh and open to ideas..after the usual physicals, we played small goal for 20 minutes, no ball, I asked them to visualize the passes, emphasis was on coverage and man marking..they visualize all passes as being perect, so man-marking had to be exceptional to defend and block..it accomplished 2 things..primarily good defensive coverage and team work, and by the third practices, when we did get balls, the passing was way better than normal...I kept that drill throughout the season..that team took me(I played sparingly during the early games on a few occasions, mostly for coaching/demonstration purposes) to the provincial finals, where we lost on penalty kicks...guess I should have worked on those...
None of the guys became big players, but when a few I do run into now and then, thank me for success as coaches, using similar strategies..I tried similar 'weird' drills at the snr womens level, as an asst coach, however, i had 7 provincial players and 3 National players to start with..they won the league, however, I feel out with the then head coach(who was one of my old coaches) for changing the team organization (I moved the 1st stopper to striker), as he found I changed his strategy in a game he was absent, even if that player scored 4 goals and we won 7-0..their manager asked me to stay and replace him, and I felt I had to refuse as my respect and friendship with him,was more important to me..I did again at semipro (ramblers), but eventually left that team, because I would only get a 50% turnout at practice and family commitments seemed more important at the time, however, we placed 9 players on the league allstar team, playing against a visiting 2nd division Italian team and a newly formed Montreal
ManicSupra , precursor to the Impact..I don't remember the scores..
my point is, I studied all this stuff and was able to put into practice to some extent, including physiological, and phycological related drills but then realize there were other factors beyond my control - politics, attitudes, and predujices but rarely funding..wasn't totally a determining factor, at the time I worked for transportation only, the players at the semipro level had some meagre funding...which I had asked the owner not to do, without attendance and performance, he did anyway for a few, and then those that didn't get what they thought they deserved, started missing, so in fact, money did cause some measure of problems