He keeps the base simple: win the ball, keep it, penetrate, score, and if you lose it, win it back. The balance between possession and penetration is what coaches get wrong, since a possession pass can go forward as well as square. Set plays decide a lot under current rules, and he points to Atlanta 1996, where constant interchange and ice vests let Australia play at a tempo nobody thought possible in that heat. Watch the full masterclass: Building winning teams.
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.
High expectations can backfire, Andreu argues here. Telling players anything is possible breeds frustration when it is not, so he treats expectations as agreements built through constant conversation across the season, not targets fixed on day one. Ric adds that in fourteen years with Australia’s national teams he never met a player who knew how good they could be, so the coach’s job is to keep lifting the bar. Watch the full masterclass: The Pygmalion effect.
A coach never changes anybody, Ric says; you build an environment where players change themselves, an act of their own free will, backed by motivation, technical support and feedback. Praise on its own is not enough, criticism has its place too. Citing Norman Vincent Peale, that most people would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism, he lands on his rule: comfort the troubled and trouble the comfortable. Watch the full masterclass: The Pygmalion effect.
Five or six years into coaching the Australian women, Charlesworth surveyed his players on what they wanted from a coach: command of the detail, hard work and a habit of hunting for something new, a willingness to listen because the innovators are usually the players, consistency in praise and criticism, and honesty about what he really thought. Beyond that, he says, be yourself, never let standards drop, and keep players challenged and enjoying it. Watch the full masterclass: Building winning teams.