Jamilon Mülders Archives - The Hockey Site

Jamilon Mülders about the U21 timeline

Five steps make up the U21 cycle as Mülders lays it out: assembling the group at the start of the season, training and games before selection, the selection itself, the build-up to a tournament, and the tournament. Coaches should first ask what the overall target is, winning or producing senior players, and what the year means for each athlete. The tournament then gives information on how individuals, the group and the system perform under pressure. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about the talent pathway

Early specialisation is still the problem Mülders sees across sports, along with over-ambitious competition calendars, and he questions how a scout can identify talent by watching a single performance day. Process, for him, means optimal training rather than chasing outcomes, with milestones treated as information about where you are and what tomorrow needs. He points coaches to a Google Scholar paper on the training process behind elite performance. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about keeping talents in their age group

From the bottom of his heart, Mülders says, keep talents in their own age group as long as possible, so they grow into responsibility alongside role models of the same age and language. An injury or a genuine gap at senior level can justify pulling one up, but every promotion sets off a domino effect down through the U21, U18 and U16 groups, so the agreed development pathway should decide. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about integrating juniors in the team

Integration works as mentorship in Mülders’s answer: older and middle-aged players become responsible for welcoming the young ones, setting the stage and building common ground. A senior should not defend his spot against a rival but welcome someone who takes on the group’s culture and adds qualities of his own. The difference he stresses is treating a junior as an equal member, not permanently as the young one. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about individual vs team

The coach’s role keeps changing, Mülders argues, and it now means giving more attention to the individual within the group: personal goals, with feedback and feed forward on them. But players have chosen a team sport with boundaries to acknowledge, so when one athlete needs a different path the coach must explain to the rest why it matters for that player. It makes running a programme harder, and he accepts that. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about the high performance process

Roles split cleanly in Mülders’s picture of a high performance system: the performance director holds the complete overview, the senior team coach is responsible for today, youth programme coaches for tomorrow, and clubs, districts and provinces for the day after tomorrow. Each layer has to share its biggest hurdles with the others, and the whole thing runs on evaluation every two to three weeks. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about evaluate – adapt – buy in

Evaluate every two to three weeks, Mülders insists, because an issue caught early can be tweaked while it is still small. The adapt part takes time and honest interest, and it only works when athletes get a real opportunity to buy in; telling people this is how you do it, now execute, no longer works. Evaluation, he adds, is for athletes and coaches, not for board members and budgets. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about developing decision making athletes

Pressed on how he installs decision making in players, Mülders gives an unusually honest answer: he finds it challenging and is still on the search. He runs through the old methods, 2v1 and 3v2 exercises, colours and signals as prompts, video reflection afterwards, then admits he is not convinced they actually develop athletes, partly because individual capability varies so much and modern science suggests guidance can start far earlier. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about change and result vs process

Answering a question about following a successful era, Mülders points out that Klopp lost his first finals at Liverpool and nobody complained, because people were convinced of his ability. His own German women won European gold in 2013 then finished eighth at the World Cup eight months later, which taught him that you need those dips, plus honest people around you who still give trust, to build a programme that lasts. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about 7×7 or 5×5

Rather than dismissing the new short formats, Mülders treats 7v7 and 5v5 as a fresh learning environment that demands different skills, ideas and strategies. Used deliberately, he says, they give young players more skill-orientated, decision-based hockey, and decision making is still a vague field in talent programmes. Kids need to play, get repetition, and learn that mistakes are part of the sport. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders about 3 pillars for a long term competitive athlete

Science gives an athlete a competitive window of roughly 10 to 15 years, Mülders explains, and coaches guide it through three pillars: basic training of fundamentals, in-depth specialisation, and progress towards maximum personal performance. Get those right and a further six to eight years of world-class competition becomes reachable. Ignore the fundamentals and the long-term pathway falls apart. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Jamilon Mülders quoting Cruijff

Cruijff supplies the frame here: quality without result is pointless, while result without quality is boring. When a milestone is reached through quality the team generated itself, Mülders argues, that is the best answer you get about your process, proof that athletes can transfer training into competition. He also borrows Cruijff’s view that only two or three games a year are truly about the result. Watch the full masterclass: Result vs process.

Tag: Jamilon Mülders