Coaching without playing experience

Hi everyone, just wondering what your thoughts are on coaches who have never played football at a higher level (ie the level they are coaching I guess)? I know there's some high profile examples in pro football - Mourinho, Benitez, Villas-Boas all never played professionally as far as I'm aware, and they've won a fair bit between them. And then there's coaches who were great players but suck at coaching - Maradona, for instance. But how does that translate at lower levels? If you were playing say, Central League and you had a coach who'd only played Cap 5 or something, would that affect the respect for that coach?

Why I ask is that I recently suffered a serious knee injury and might not be able to play again - the surgeon and physio are being pretty cagey which I don't take as a good sign, although I'll try to make it happen. I've only ever played social grades, partly because I had mates in teams at that level but mostly because I've studied and worked part-time jobs with weird hours for years and didn't have the time to commit to trainings etc. Now I'm more settled and nine-to-fiveing it I could have the time to train but I've f*cked my knee. I've played video games like football manager and stuff for years and I love the tactical aspects of football, and was thinking about maybe looking into coaching in the longterm, but I'm just wondering if I'd get bullsh*t from players as a result of not having played at a decent level ever myself.

Me and a couple of mates coached a 3rd form team when we were seniors at high school and they did alright, but I don't know if I can be bothered with teenagers now so I was thinking senior level.

This is all just me thinking about it at the moment but there's a lot of football knowledge and experience on this forum so I'd be interested in some opinions on this, or your own personal experiences or anything. 

Cheers

I don't have any real knowledge so that this with a grain of salt as it is just guesswork and common sense. 

I think the high profile examples are a bit different because they can hire help for a lot of the coaching aspects, so their job is a lot of man management, tactics and perhaps talent/form spotting

At lower grades (like local Wellington) more of your job would be coaching. Obviously playing at a higher level is a big advantage, you know how things work, you have a point of reference for a lot of things like talent etc. It probably helps a lot on the getting respect from players side of it too. However, I think if you always had a great football brain, but always just lacked the technical skills, you could always pull it off - it'd just be harder and is therefore more rare. 

Hope that made some sense...?

As had been mentioned many times before, good players don't always make good coaches.

My advice is go for it, talk to as many players and ex players, coaches etc. , watch as much football as you can-- all grades and get a feeling for the game.

The more games you watch the better ( I hope)  the better understanding you will have. Unfortunately there is no short cut for experience.

Good luck.

Reckon you need to get your trophymanager side in order first ;)

Cheers guys. At this stage I'll just wait and see what happens with my knee, but I'll definitely look into it longterm. 

Talk to your club and see if they can help you through the coaching courses.  Maybe you'll get a feel for what is involved after the first one or two levels.

It's all about time - do the yard hards, watch, learn, do the shit jobs, build your networks... and supplement that (if possible) with some formal/structured learning around sports management, coaching, training, teaching etc and in 3-5 years time you'll be well ahead of your contemporaries.

Cheers again guys, some good ideas there. I was playing for VUW but I'm not sure about coaching for them (not sure about their admin tbh) will have a look around for other clubs

I'll repeat what Arrigo Sacchi once said: you don't have to have been a horse to be a good jockey. 

Go for it.

Brilliant quote.

And being Sarah Jessica Parker doesn't necessarily make you a good jockey. 

As Smithy said ease yourself in as an assistant to start.  Most clubs happy to fund coaching courses through pokey money.

Biggest thing be patient.  Don't expect to be coaching nix in two years. Most cp7bs will jump at the offer of help.

Good luck

You certainly do not have had to have played at high level to be a great coach. Respect from players has little to nothing to do with your playing days. Most players respect consistency, honesty and a good/well organised and delivered training session. I personally would suggest starting at a youth club level if you are looking to eventually get into senior coaching. It's a good way to start out with a little less pressure but still in a serious enough environment to practice your organisation and delivery of a training session. It will be different from the teenage school team environment, connected to a club who will hopefully aid in your development and to be honest it's something you have to be able to do within senior teams anyway who often have many players from the youth bracket in them. 

Good luck mate.

P.s all forms of education/training are good and really helpful both formal qualifications and informal workshops etc.. There is no better coach than one who is committed to his/her own development. Watch football, read football, listen to football as much as you can. 

Hey Mr. Troutman, if you're looking for a team to have a bit of fun with, get a feel for working with people your age / older / younger, then you could maybe come to a few trainings with my team and see how you feel about it, and do some coaching for us. We're in Div 10, this is the teams second year of existence, cut some players that needed cutting, brought in some quality. Things are looking good.  

I'm still looking at coaching long term but I've now had surgery on my knee and both the surgeon and physio have changed their tunes considerably so I'm rehabbing and aiming to be back to playing by the end of this season (fingers crossed).Probably don't have the time to get involved in coaching right now though sorry, cos I'm gonna have to be hitting the gym pretty hard in the coming months!

Oh yeah and all the best for your season ahead. I've got a team lined up to try and ease myself into once I'm ready but I only know one person in it and I think it might be around Div 10 somewhere too. What club are you with?

Actually, just thinking about it and coming along to some trainings etc might be a good way for me to start getting back into it, especially because my team doesn't have trainings. Where and when are your training sessions?

All the best with your recovery mate.

Thanks man :)

CT - have you thought about doing some coaching course. I just did the Senior LEvel 1 (i think there is another one coming up). It's pretty basic, and probably quite good for people relatively new to football/coaching.

Here is the link...

http://www.foxsportspulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=1-8522-0-0-0&sID=220771

Sweet, cheers. I'll definitely have a look into that!

Turns out we're going to be in capital 9 this year. Going from capital 15, so bit of a jump I guess. Hit me up if you're keen on a run around this week CT - will either be driving myself out there, or be going with another guy from Newtown. 

If anyone else knows of someone wanting to get in to coaching who would fancy helping us out - give me yell! 

Tips for coaching without experience: No. 241 - seeking help when you know you're out of your depth.