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This the grand ole tale of the 2017 season of Maccabi football club and my small part in it.
Part One: The Journey to Play-Offs
2 August 2017
This story starts with a strange interview over coffee almost one year ago. I was meeting Alan Norman, the owner of Maccabi FC, a football club in the third tier of South African Football entitled the ABC Motsepe League. I was there to offer my services as a mental skills coach to assist with the psychological and emotional aspect of the game.
To say the meeting was brief would be an understatement. I explained what I would do for the club and as this was a new position in the club I said that if what I was doing wasn’t working he could fire me. Alan said he liked the sound of it and was open to the idea and I would start work the next week and that was the end of the meeting. I hadn’t even finished my coffee.
9 August 2017
As I arrived at Balfour Park for my first day I was told to go and find James Ndlovu, the general manager. However, upon meeting James I realise that he’s been told nothing about me and quite frankly doesn’t seem vaguely interested in what I do. But I mosey on! Eventually, after some back and forth he tells the clubs captain Oki to “meet with the lady”. It was then that I realised that one of my biggest challenges was going to be winning James over.
The session with Oki did however turn out to be essential and highly informative. He was interested in what I did and saw the value of having someone to deal with the mental side of the game. He believed that the reason that Maccabi had failed to win the playoffs the previous year was largely psychological.
I guess that this is a good time to talk a bit about Maccabi’s previous season. They started the season very successfully and won the Gauteng division of the league (rivals JDR Stars came second). This enabled them to go to the play-offs (as the winner of each province’s league is the only team that goes through) and in the play-offs the teams that come first and second are the teams that move up a division. However, just before play-offs Maccabi was accused of match fixing endangering their chances of being allowed to compete in the play-offs. The subsequent hearing was postponed until the week before the playoffs and the players ended up only hearing that they would be allowed to compete a couple of days before the play-offs began.
At the play-offs Maccabi lost 2 and drew 2 of their four matches, meaning they did not progress past the group stage. Oki believed this was due to the mental strain that had taken its toll on the players in the weeks leading up to the play-offs. He was determined that this wouldn’t happen this season. He echoed what Alan had said to me in the first meeting. They needed to win.
In the subsequent days I would have individual meetings and sessions with the players. Organising these meetings would usually proceed as follows: I would walk up the long hill to training to approach James to ask which players I would be allowed to see. He would ask me to suggest a player and when I did, he would usually say no. He later confessed to me that he couldn’t understand why “this white lady would want to come and talk shit to his players”. However, slowly I began making progress and learning the ways of the club. For example, I realised that players hated coming to me on a Thursday as it meant that they wouldn’t be playing the match on Saturday. So to soften the blow I started to host my sessions over breakfast. These sessions eventually came to be affectionately known as the breakfast club.
21 August 2017
The day of my first team session! From very early on I knew that these sessions were essential to what I wanted to do at the club as it was the only time in the week I could talk to all the players at once for an hour about issues key for team development such as communication and handling pressure. I wish I could say that from the get go these team sessions started out without a hitch but unfortunately that was not the case.
In the session I wanted the team to craft a value statement about which would guide their play and behaviour for the rest of the season. For the session I needed everyone to give suggestions and share what values they thought were important to them and the team. However, nobody spoke. I didn’t think they would all be champing at the bit to get their word in, but I mistakenly thought that at least a couple would want to participate. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Trying to get answers from anyone was like drawing teeth. I stood up there for what seemed like an eternity before I decided, in desperation, the best option would be for everyone to just write own their values. An awkward experience to say the least!
I got a couple of things wrong in that session. Firstly, I spoke for far too long and as a result most players lost interest very early on. I also underestimated most player’s confidence in their English ability. Although, throughout the season I found that most players’ English was consistently excellent I discovered that they were fearful of being thought as stupid if they made small mistakes. Finally, I didn’t take into consideration how early in the season it was and as a result that the players were only just starting to get to know one another. However, despite the session not going particularly well the team values sheet became a very important tool later in the season.
28 August 2017
The day of the second team session! I wish I could tell you that it went down much better than the first but alas, I still had some learning to do. (these do get better I promise!)
I knew I needed to change things up and encourage more participation as well as make the sessions more lively. So I decided to draw a gun on the players! I’m kidding but this was my idea until thankfully cooler heads prevailed and my family talked me down from this idea. To clear things up and to reassure everyone that I’m not in fact crazy, I wanted to base the team talk around the concept of fear. The fear of failure, the fear of getting injured and how our body responds to fear (the flight, fight or freeze response), and, crucially, how this impacts performance. I wanted to demonstrate how one’s body would react under fearful conditions such as being faced with a gun.
So thinking better of the gun idea I moved onto plan B. The only thing that would definitely scare me more than a gun… a snake! Just to clarify I wasn’t hiring pet snakes to show up to the club with and let loose on the players; instead I found a realistic looking plastic snake to use. The plan was to call over a couple of players to help me fetch something from my bag and just as they got close to fling the snake out of the bag to land in front of all the players. I imagined terrified screams or people jerking back and running away. Unfortunately this was not the result I achieved.
Once the snake had been flung out a couple of players looked a bit startled but most just looked a bit confused as to what was going on. Clearly, it was a fail and I think at this point the players were all sitting there wondering what my purpose here was.
However, despite my reservations about how the session had gone Oki convinced me that the team sessions were of value and a couple of players had spoken about how they had found them useful. It was motivation enough for me to continue.
October- November
In between the team sessions, one on one consultations were continuously taking place. These were becoming increasingly rewarding experiences. I watched as players became reluctant to leave a training session for a consultation to players being excited to see me and asking when they could have a follow up session. Seeing that the feedback and advice given was helping their game was a sign that I was on the right track especially when players commented that they’d never thought about the mental aspect of their game before and they have subsequently realised how important it is. Furthermore, the progress made in the one on one consultations helped players become more receptive to the team sessions and as a result participation greatly improved.
At this point in the season Maccabi was on top of the log. However, despite having won the majority of our last few games; the captain was concerned that the team was not playing as well as they should. This came to a head in late October when Maccabi drew 0-0 to Vaal Professionals and then followed that by a 2-0 win at Garankuwa. Now the win on paper seems like a positive result but it ended up actually being quite lucky. There were multiple holes in the opposition’s defence that could have been exploited but we just couldn’t finish. Furthermore, the opposition had a couple of good chances that only just missed; it was only through sheer luck that they didn’t equalise.
There was communication between players, coaches and management about these issues and they were soon ironed out. On my side I saw the need for increased team sessions to deal with issues such as communication, as well as more regular one on one consultations. Shortly after this, the performances began to improve.
13 December 2017
The day of the final match before the Christmas break. Up until a couple of weeks ago Maccabi were top of the log with a six point lead. This was the buffer the team wanted as it is widely known that after the Christmas break things get quite a bit tougher and is much easier to start dropping points. However, with two hard-fought losses and a draw (with the perception that the refs were against us), that lead had dropped to two points. Going into the match Maccabi were on 33 points while Alexandra United (through a run of excellent form) were in second with 31 points. Therefore this game was a must-win in order to retain or even extend the lead we had going into the Christmas break.
The game was against 8th placed Baberwa FC, a reasonably newly formed team based in Alexandra, and let me tell you this game was a cracker. It seemed as though every other minute there was a shot on goal. Many a Maccabi shot was stopped by the heroics of Baberwa goalkeeper. In a heartbreaking moment, Baberwa scored in the 80th minute and despite our best efforts we could not equalise. The game ended 0-1.
This left the top of the log looking as follows:
[if !supportLists]1. [endif]Maccabi FC- 33 points
[if !supportLists]2. [endif]Alexandra United- 32 points
[if !supportLists]3. [endif]JDR Stars- 30 points
[if !supportLists]4. [endif]Dondol Stars- 26 points
Thankfully, Alexandra United had drawn on the final day of the year allowing us to retain our lead. But that lead was only 1 point and JDR Stars were also hot on our tails being only 3 points behind.
The team finished the match feeling devastated. They had all but blown the lead they needed coming out of the Christmas break and they now knew the full extent of the enormity of the challenge ahead of them. Was the pressure of being the league leaders getting to them? Being number one makes you an automatic target and with everyone gunning for them, the team was feeling the heat. All I could tell them was to remain positive and to truly have rest over Christmas, to recuperate and come back stronger. However, I, like them, knew what a massive blow this was.
The match also showed me one very important thing that the team and management had said all season but for me only truly sunk in now. Every team in this league is equal in ability. Every team has players with immense talent and every team is capable of pulling out an incredible performance. 8th placed Baberwa had performed the best of any team I had seen thus far and I knew there were going to be more of these performances from opposing teams coming our way. From then on I knew that every game we played had to be played like a final; otherwise, we were done for.
8 January 2018
I find that a lot of people view sports psychology as a series of motivational quotes and the reiteration of sporting clichés. This could not be further from the truth. Although motivation is important, I find that most of my work is based around facts, problems and their resolutions; and the resolution to problems is exactly what the next team session needed to be.
The facts were that:
[if !supportLists]• [endif]Maccabi were top of the league with 16 games to play, however we only had a narrow 1 point lead.
[if !supportLists]• [endif]Teams in this league are physically, tactically and technically matched.
[if !supportLists]• [endif]Therefore the conclusion to be drawn is that: the teams that are mentally strongest will prevail.
Similar conclusions were drawn by Arsène Wenger (the former Arsenal manager) and he famously quotes this about his first few months with Arsenal in the English Premier League: “The only thing we have learnt from these first six months is that the team who has the greatest emotional stamina and resolve will win. It could be a league of the mentally strong.”
All these facts equal pressure. My job in the team session was to make the players recognise that this was what they were feeling and how to manage it in order to be stronger mentally. I emphasised that the best way to eliminate pressure is through hard work and preparation, which is a team responsibility as well as an individual responsibility and task.
Thus the preparations for the run in to the end of the season began.
Early February 2018
Throughout the month of January I commissioned video to be filmed of the team during their training sessions and friendlies. The video was entitled “The Road to NFD” and was intended to show them that to win the league they had to start thinking like NFD players. The video showed that dedication, passion and hard work will ultimately be the things that take them through. The video was made with limited time and a simple camera and therefore it was not possible for every player to be included in the video. This however, proved an important lesson. The video was supposed to epitomise the team and its spirit, not glorify the individual players - so although some players were disappointed that they were left out it emphasised that the team should be about ‘we’ thinking, not ‘me’ thinking. If you want to watch the video click here.
But now on to the good stuff, the performances! Fortunately at this time the team were performing really well and winning the majority of their games. This was until the 17th of February when we drew against mid table side Vaal Professionals. This was followed by another draw to M Tigers. These two slip-ups put a huge amount of pressure and in my team talk I tried to give practical solutions including speaking about the power of visualisation. (team talk is available here). But all this time JDR Stars are in a run of incredible form and are gaining on us fast.
17th February 2018
A massive game between two of our biggest competitors; JDR Stars and Dondol Stars. It was a tense game and with Dondol in the lead with around 10 minutes left on the clock the lights in the stadium went out. As the game was being played in the evening the match needed to be rescheduled. This was a cause of huge anxiety for Maccabi as it meant that JDR now always had a game in hand up until they rescheduled the match against Dondol. It made everyone at the club feel that they were not in control as there was a constant uncertainty hanging over our heads. On my part I trie to encourage the team to focus on their own performances and not JDR but the extra game JDR had in hand loomed over everything like dark cloud.
Early March 2018
The team gained some confidence after a 8-2 victory over Alexandra Black Aces, however, the result did not reflect the teams performance. Black Aces were unable to put out their strongest side and as we were aware of this we became extremely complacent. Furthermore, two injuries occurred in the warm-up just before the game and we were unable to effectively adapt to the changes made. The team only really began to perform well in the second half after they were hauled over the coals for their complacency by the coaches. This match made it clear that the team had lost sight of their core values and had let each other down. A grim takeaway for an apparently positive result. The resulting team session on Monday was not of congratulations but rather an investigation of how we had failed as a team and how to improve going forward.
After this, I wish I could tell you that the next game was a resounding victory but that’s not how football works. We lost 1-0 to African All-Stars. As many of the players felt that things were slipping away from them I tried to focus the team sessions around communication. This was to encourage the players to motivate one another even when times were tough. I think it was really fun as we played blindfolded team building exercises such as the human knot and an obstacle course. It provided some much needed relief from the ever growing pressure surrounding the upcoming games.
17th March 2018
This was an essential point in the season We were playing Leruma FC, a team trying to escape the relegation zone and it was a must win game for both teams. Neither team got what they were hoping for. It was a draw, 1-1. Meanwhile, JDR kept steaming forward and won their match with relative ease.
This left the top of the log looking as follows:
[if !supportLists]1. [endif]Maccabi FC- 54 points
[if !supportLists]2. [endif]JDR Stars FC- 51 points
[if !supportLists]3. [endif]Dondol Stars- 47 points
However, both Dondol and JDR had a game in hand.
I’m not going to sugar coat things, at this point I began to lose a bit of hope. I was hugely disappointed and the pressure of what we had to do began to weigh on me. I kept my chin up and ploughed on reminding myself of the team talk I had given about grit (if interested read here) and grit was the thing we needed now more than ever.
You would think that what followed would be a hard week of soul searching and non-stop training but nope! We went to see the movie Black Panther! Now I know what you’re thinking, is this really the time? But it ended up being the best thing we could have done. Everyone loved the movie and found it empowering and inspiring and many players actually found messages and lessons in it that they could apply to their own performance. It proved a welcome relief from all the pressure and tension and was a factor in our improved performance in the following weeks. For two weeks went by with two wins for Maccabi. However, in parallel, two weeks went by with two wins for JDR.
11 April 2018
The team and I anxiously await the results of the replayed match between Dondol and JDR. If JDR win they become the league leaders by two points. If Dondol win, we remain top with a one point margin. We get a phone call with the result. 3-0 to JDR.
19 April 2018
For the teams final session with me, I wanted to do something especially meaningful. I asked each player to make a dedication to someone in their life that had impacted them in a personal or professional capacity. The dedications showed that playing soccer is just as much about playing for your community as it is playing for yourself and your team. The dedications were sincere and moving and one of my favourite memories of the season. My purpose in doing the dedications was to remove the pressure from the players. I wanted them to stop focusing on the outcome (the win) but now focus on fighting for the people they started playing football for.
21 April 2018
The second to last game of the season may have been the most important yet. We were playing Dondol away in Pretoria and at the same time, JDR were playing Baberwa at home, also in Pretoria (JDR are Pretoria based). We desperately needed Baberwa to win as it was our best chance of progressing to the playoffs. Only the league winners went through to the playoffs. For us to progress we needed to win both of our last two games and we needed JDR to lose at least one of theirs. JDR’s fixtures were Baberwa FC and then Pretoria Callies. Pretoria Callies ,at this time, were a mid table team; not competing for a top spot but not in danger of relegation either. A similar situation was true for Baberwa. However, based on Baberwa’s incredible performance against us earlier in the season we knew they had the potential to pull off a win against league leaders JDR, something which in our experience was unlikely by Pretoria Callies. I apologise for the long explanation but the essential takeaway is that we needed Baberwa to beat JDR.
Baberwa lost to JDR. JDR remained top, 2 points ahead of us even if we won.
We beat Dondol 1-0 but it didn’t seem very exciting compared to the 5-4 victory of JDR’s over Baberwa. I remember us all waiting after our game for the JDR result with James giving me the updates, telling me, 1 to Baberwa, oh no 1 to JDR and it just getting crazier and crazier. When the final result came in, we were devastated. But there was only one thing we could do and that was to win our final match of the season and just hope that it would be enough.
25 April 2018
It felt almost surreal to be playing our final game of the season. With not much hope of progressing to the play-offs I told all the guys for their final game to just have a blast! All I could say was, remember who you started your soccer journey for, remember who helped you along the way and think of those who make playing for Maccabi a rewarding experience for you. Today play for them and play for your love of football. We played like champions earning a well-deserved victory over Dube Continental 3-0.
After the game came the wait. JDR was playing their final game an hour or two after ours. After what seemed like an eternity the phone call came through and James relayed the news. Pretoria Callies had won 2-1! We were going to the play-offs!