Hey guys, welcome to my first blog post!

I had a long thought about what should I write for my first post. In the end, I decided to go with an explanation of how I work and how I manage my teams. I hope that this insight can give you a background to my future posts and help you better understand what I am saying.

So my style of coaching sits somewhere between Autocratic and Democratic. To explain (in a very simplified way) this for you that don’t know, Autocracy is when a one person is a ruler and others servants, Democracy is the opposite = people rule (everybody is equal). So, I am between there somewhere. I encourage players to speak freely and come up with their own ideas, but when it comes to the final moment I reserve the right to have the last say. It is a democracy, but I am always ready to step into the picture once a firm hand is needed.

So why did I choose to give the players a free hand when it comes to decisions and why do I give them so much room to speak when it might lead into big arguments and possible end up destroying the team’s atmosphere? Because I choose smart players, players that are not afraid to speak their mind and correct me if my theory is wrong. But doesn’t that undermine my authority as a coach when I am admitting making bad decisions?

With the right group of players, it doesn’t. They have to understand my role, though. I am not coaching them to force them into my vision of a perfect game. I am there to help them to stay on the track. I am there to help them grow. I am not an absolutist ruler, I am a facilitator. The big idea behind this is the fact, that you can never prepare your team for every possible scenario. So teaching them what to do exactly in every moment and play by the book feels kind of pointless to me once they encounter something they haven’t seen before (which happens in these national competitions like those in Czech Republic very often). I am not telling them what the “by the book play” is, rather I am telling them to be creative. They will be the ones solving strategy in-game, not me. You can never perfectly predict how the game is going to play out. The players don’t need to see that far when it comes to crafting strategy, their task is much easier. I give them the guidelines and have them process it in their own way. I make them think about the game and do special trainings with shotcallers on these teams.

And there are many other aspects of my style of coaching, but we will leave these for some other post. I hope that you had a good time reading this one and I also hope that this post made some of you think about this. Thank you for reading!