Quick answer. Before you say anything, decide whether the plan was wrong or the team lost the energy of the first half, because the talk is different for each. Mati Vila’s view is that a bad half doesn’t prove the plan is wrong. If you still believe in it, back it. If you don’t, switch to something the team has already trained, never a new plan out of nowhere. Then be honest about what’s going wrong, give a solution rather than a culprit, and finish on something positive. Keep it short and slow: Henk Verschuur’s point is that a team two-nil down is already overloaded, and a fast, loud talk leaves players with one or two words.
That’s the short version. Here’s where each part comes from, mostly from three sessions on The Hockey Site: Mati Vila on team talks, Henk Verschuur on how players take in information under stress, and Jennifer Wright on what the research says about half-time.
Start from the state your players are in
Jennifer Wright opened the session with the scene every coach knows: “You’re losing by one. It’s a moment to reflect, regulate recovery. You notice your players. One of them is furious. One of them avoids eye contact.”
Henk Verschuur, who works with national teams in hockey and other sports on how players process information, describes what usually happens next. The team comes in “two-nil behind, still trying to digest these impulses and then already the magnetic board is there and the, the cognitive overload of information is there”. From Verschuur’s own testing across sports, the finding is that if a coach talks very fast and with a lot of energy, “people can only remember one or two words.” Talk more slowly and heart rates come down a little, so players take in more.
Verschuur’s order for the talk is short: get their attention, bring the breathing down, give the message, and switch them back on before the circle breaks. In Verschuur’s words: “Come on, do you see me? Do you hear me? And then you have their attention probably and say, okay, lower your breathing, this is what we’re going to do. And then before you get out of the circle, activate again.”
Work out what actually went wrong before you speak
Mati Vila, who coaches senior women’s hockey in the Netherlands, starts the in-game part of his masterclass with a question to the coach, not the players: “was the game plan the correct one?”
His warning is not to read the scoreline as the answer. “Because I believe matches are energies… a team starts better than the other team and… that’s not meaning that your game plan is wrong. So you have to play first the energy game.” If you’re confident the plan is right, his advice is to back it: “you have to reinforce with positive feedback and giving. Giving even more power to this plan.” Wright made the same point in the Q&A: “It doesn’t always need to be changed, does it? It can be reinforcement of.”
And if the plan really isn’t working, Vila changes it to something the players already know. “I’m not like coming into the team with a whole new game plan out of nowhere because you will just create, I don’t know, confusion or you just create even losing confidence.” He wants the players to agree to any switch too, so it’s something they own rather than something announced at them. Wright reported research with university ice hockey players that points the same way: one of the things they disliked at half-time was the coach bringing in a new, unexpected approach.
Be honest, then give them something to do
Vila doesn’t think a losing team is helped by pretending. “Be empathic, speak from your heart, be honest on how the team is performing… if you want them to believe you, you have to be honest to them. And if it goes wrong and if we are not performing, you also have to say it.” But naming the problem is only half of it: “point to relevant problems, but give solution. Many times sometimes we just point problems but we don’t give any solutions.”
He even gives the shape of the sentence: “Acknowledging their emotions and validating them with a phrase like that’s difficult. So what we are going to do is difficult. But I have this for you. I have this plan for you and we have this solution.” And he keeps blame out of the room: “We are all in this together. So it’s not about guilty people or guilty person.”
A pep talk on its own isn’t enough
Half-time is the break where players have cooled down enough to listen, so Vila uses it for content: “you have to give content, you have to show what is happening and to give solutions on what to do. And it’s important to always end with a positive conclusion.” The motivation matters, but it’s not the whole talk: “It is motivational. It can be, but it’s not just motivational. You have to give also tactical or specific content. Like it’s not just, yeah, let’s go, keep going. I think that’s too less.”
He’s strict on volume. Too many thoughts in your head at the break? “So filter. You have to filter and see what’s really important. Keep it short, keep it brief, go on important things.” Wright frames the choice as a set of questions about the next quarter of an hour: “Do you need to put four at the back? Do you need to put one up front? Do you need to change something within the tactics?… Do they need some motivation?”
Calm or fired up? The coaches don’t fully agree
This is the part with no single answer. In one study Wright reported, with Gaelic footballers, emotional outbursts motivated some players and switched others off, “But most players preferred constructive solution, focused communication.” But Wright also reported a study of elite youth footballers in which players “did actually enjoy a bit more of an authoritative stance from the coach” when the stakes were high. Vila reads the team’s mood first and matches what it needs. Verschuur wants calm first, so information can get in, and then activation.
What they do agree on is that your own state goes into the room with you. Vila: “we see a lot of times coaches out of control, but asking the players to be on control.” Verschuur puts the question to coaches directly: “Would you stay calm or would you get bonkers too?”
Two questions this usually raises
Should I change the system at half-time when we’re losing?
Only if you’ve decided the plan itself was wrong, and only to something the team has trained. Mati Vila never brings in a whole new game plan at half-time, because it creates confusion and costs confidence, and he wants the team’s agreement to any switch. Jennifer Wright’s point is that a talk doesn’t have to change anything: reinforcing what’s working is a valid half-time talk too.
Should I let the players talk first?
It can help. Jennifer Wright suggests asking players as they come off what they’re noticing, to see whether they give you the answer you were about to give them. Wright adds that sometimes players are better at motivating each other than the coach is. Henk Verschuur uses the circle itself first, to pull a frustrated group back together before any information goes in.
The sessions below are where these coaches go into the working detail. Every masterclass opens free so you can see what it covers; the full session sits in the Coach subscription.
Go more in depth here
Read next: Free to read in full, on break talks in general and on the talk before the game: Short. Simple. Repetitive., The Art of the Pre-Game Talk.
More coaching questions: How do I give feedback that improves my players without crushing their confidence?, My players wait to be told what to do. How do I get them deciding for themselves?, How do I help a field hockey player let go of a mistake and reset?, How do I motivate field hockey players who have checked out?, How do I build confidence in field hockey players that survives mistakes?, Talent, character or fit? Adam Commens and Katrina Powell on picking a team. All of them are in Field Hockey Coaching Questions.
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