Benefits and risks of Hansi Flick's great obsession

BarcelonaAt the beginning of the season, Pedri expressed on the program Martinez and Brothers the fear he felt for arriving five minutes late to a recovery session with Xavi Hernández. The Terrassa native issued fines of one thousand euros, which doubled for every minute of delay in training. Ousmane Dembélé, currently at PSG, was the player who stretched his wallet the most during this period, followed by his compatriot Jules Kounde. With the arrival of Hansi Flick to the Barça dugout, the relationship between players and coach has undergone some changes. Among them, the entry into force of a rule that penalizes lateness even more. If his pupils don't stick to the schedule, they already know they'll be substitutes in the next match.

Establish clear and equal regulations

Kounde, a repeat offender, and Iñaki Peña have been victims of this new trend. The center-back arrived late to the technical briefing against Rayo Vallecano, while the Alicante goalkeeper arrived late to the Super Cup semifinal against Athletic Bilbao, and both suffered from it, watching the game from the bench. "That was respect for his teammates," declared the coach after the match against Madrid. Peña has not started since the 1-1 draw at Getafe.

Experts speak of this way of managing a football dressing room. According to Christian Rueda, Sant Andreu's youth coordinator and third coach of the first team, it's important to establish the rules at the beginning of the season and comply with them in order not to lose the respect of the players: "You have to specify what happens if a player arrives late. If for that reason he will be dropped or if he will be a substitute in a match."

"If all the players follow the same rules, no one feels favoritism, but if the punishments are exaggerated or not applied equally to everyone, it creates a bad atmosphere." Along these lines, through Beatriz González, a psychologist at the Somos psychology center in Madrid, ARA spoke with a pair of Spanish professional soccer players. These elite players confess that when their coach is unfair, some get frustrated and drop their performance, while others challenge him. "If the group is united and understands that discipline is part of the game, the teammates themselves try to calm the situation; but if several players feel it is an injustice, the locker room becomes divided."

The coach's personality and its effects

"There are other coaches who give you more freedom, but if they don't set limits, the team gets too relaxed and we lose our competitive edge." The professional footballers consulted by González They state that the manager must find a balance between both the sporting and psychological aspects, without overdoing the demands to avoid burning the players' confidence. They believe that if the demands are fair, the coach makes them improve and give extra energy. "I've had coaches who don't let you breathe and make you doubt yourself," declares one of the players, who, due to professional secrecy, withheld his full name.

"As a general rule, players don't like being controlled so much," says Mario Paños, director of the High Performance Sports Psychology program at the Rafa Nadal University School. This expert believes that well-established rules give the locker room a sense of control. However, he says that if a coach is inflexible, it can generate anxiety, while concluding that players with a more "obsessive" personality benefit from deals like Flick's. However, players who like to break the rules of the game can be harmed. "An autocratic leadership style leads to a short-term performance spike. If you go beyond strict discipline, players take orders as personal attacks," he asserts.

For his part, Mauricio Pinto, a doctor in sports psychology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​believes punishing players isn't a very good idea. "Sometimes, they inflict significant penalties and the team suffers afterward." Speaking with ARA, the researcher states that it's often easier for the group to self-regulate and that the manager must be flexible at key moments of the season to avoid lowering the team's quality. "Finding control of each situation and knowing when to change the rules of the game forges great coaches like Pep Guardiola or Alex Ferguson," he emphasizes.

The discipline was born in grassroots football

"In grassroots football, if you train and have good discipline, you play," says Christian Rueda, who also affirms that many players idealize the coach to the point of being afraid of not playing on the weekend. In this sense, some parents joke with him: "They tell me they'll take me to their house so their children will listen to them." Rueda believes grassroots football is a way to develop people. "You have to educate in values before coaching," he explains.

As the Sant Andreu coach affirms, we must be careful not to be overly permissive. "That players have to treat each other equally is a lie." Christian moves away from traditional methods and tries to empathize with the young players because all they experience are "bad teenage streaks." "The coach must be chameleon-like and adapt to the needs of the team, despite having a predetermined style and way of playing, each player has a different family and personal situation," he concludes. In the Barça key, beyond the technical prowess of Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsí, there are two young players, seemingly veterans, who must hand in their homework the day after receiving knocks and comments from experienced opponents.

Pedri, who also debuted at Barça as a youth player, confessed on Dani Martínez's show that the money collected from fines was used to unite the team through a dinner or donated to charity. In Sant Andreu's first team, arriving late is also punishable by a fine. "If you arrive late, you pay, but then you play," Rueda admits. Along these lines, Paños says that substitutions are a means of punishment that must be commensurate with the seriousness of the players' reprehensible behavior. "The player must understand why they are being punished," he argues.