His answer sits off the pitch. Characters differ as much as playing styles, so a squad needs to spend as much time understanding each other as it does on fitness and technique, with players prepared to be open about themselves. Once teammates know why one player keeps going forward, they cover for him: whoever is a metre closer tracks back, trusting the other to pick up his man. Watch the full masterclass: Teun de Nooijer on nurturing talent in field hockey.
Constant instruction from the sideline is the thing he names as his no go. As a young international in Brussels the shouting left nothing but chaos in his head, and he sees the same at youth games where kids already fighting to control the ball get told where to pass. His fix: two or three points before the game, then interchanges and video for the rest. Watch the full masterclass: Teun de Nooijer on nurturing talent in field hockey.
She leans on Lewin’s post-war experiment on eating habits, where a lecture changed 3 per cent of people and small group discussion changed 30. So when a squad is skipping the physical programme, the answer is not another talk from the front. Split them into small groups, let them find the solution themselves, and the norm moves, because they have to interact, argue and decide in public. Watch the full masterclass: Building a powerful team.
Power comes in three forms in Joy Jouret’s view: position power that arrives with the title of coach, personal power built on expertise as a former international, and information power, held by whoever controls the video and the data. Her point is that a coach should hand those out rather than hold all three, and should switch tactics, from socialising and persuading through to imposing, depending on the decision. Watch the full masterclass: Building a powerful team.
Teams avoid conflict, and he argues that is what sinks them. He points at Real Madrid in 2006, where players were too wary of upsetting each other to name what was going wrong, and finished 27 points off the top. His own approach was to put the hard questions directly: what is your biggest weakness, how does this affect the team, what is stopping you fixing it. Watch the full masterclass: Building winning teams.
The process he uses is GROW, borrowed rather than invented: what are we trying to achieve, what is actually happening, what options do we have, and do we have the will and the wit to do the work. He treats it as constant dialogue and questioning rather than instruction, and says coaches do not change people, they build the environment in which players change themselves. Watch the full masterclass: Building winning teams.
Charlesworth starts from a line he took from a 1970s sports psychology book: we usually end up where we aim, so aim high. He wanted teams built to win leagues and major titles, and expected the same appetite from himself. In fourteen years with the national sides he never met a player who knew how good they could be, so his job was to keep lifting the bar. Watch the full masterclass: Building winning teams.
Hybrids excite him most about modern hockey: styles from several cultures are merging for the first time in a long while, Argentinian lifting skills alongside Australian counterattacking speed and German ball retention. Shane also names what he wanted more of in Belgium, the defensive discipline of the 2012 to 2016 German side that was happy to win 1-0, and Australia’s positioning and scoring mentality in the circle. Watch the full masterclass: Ask Me Anything with Shane McLeod.
Experiment with sports science, is Shane’s advice, but come out the other side simpler than you went in. With so much data on offer, he keeps only what he can operate with simply and get across to his players. Looking ahead, he picks out predictive video analysis, where AI could let you play the game before you play it, and physical preparation for a sport now built on repeated sprints rather than endurance. Watch the full masterclass: Ask Me Anything with Shane McLeod.
The first ten months set the tone, Shane explains, with almost as much time spent in the classroom as on the pitch because the players could already play. Sessions focused on building trust, making honest feedback normal, and treating Belgium’s mix of French and Dutch speaking cultures as a strength rather than a divide. The result was a squad of genuinely close friends rather than teammates who merely knew each other. Watch the full masterclass: Ask Me Anything with Shane McLeod.
Vague outcomes are the enemy here. When coaches in the session offer aims such as being a threat or asking a question of the defence, Cheesman pushes back and asks what exactly they want from the corner. Those outcomes are what you share with your players, and if the detail is woolly, players cannot identify it or go out and achieve it. Watch the full masterclass: Unlocking Long Corner Tactics in Field Hockey with Darren Cheesman.