- Sep 20, 2005
- 9,999
- 5,495
Thanks to Robzillor for posting this on Reddit. Pasted below for those who have Reddit blocked at work like me. Fascinating read!
Source: Notes from a Pomona College talk in Southern California- Rose Hill Theatre
John says to a member of the audience that he is sitting exactly where Harry Kane sits, always at the front, looking him in the eye and ready for questions.
John accepted an invitation from Pomona College because he sees the commonality between an elite school and Tottenham as an elite football team. He also came here to be challenged and never wants to be complacent as a coach.
Seminar outline:
In order to be a footballer to get those 200 games you need the persistence and character to live through those other 600 games- and he has to try and make the players hardened to cope with that but finds this difficult when you work in a Disneyland training ground- a dichotomy
A picture that he shows all the players in pre-season- a picture of a horse with a man pulling and a man pushing into the water- the environment can be right, the coaches can be right e.g. John and Poch but ultimately it is down to the player- the external factors like coaches and environment can contribute but you can’t make a silk purse out of pigs ear- but they still have a job to develop the players within the best of their ability
Showed a roll of honour of the Spurs academy- the guys who did not quite make and said players like Mason, Kane, Rose, Carroll, Bentaleb, Townsend would not be where they are without those guys and they are often overlooked but you need the boys that do not make it to make the ones that do and John is just as proud as every single one of those as he is of the players that do make it- these guys are not just cannon fodder- if Kane can score 30 goals for England then great he is capable of that but for others, it is still John’s job to make sure they are successful even if they are not good enough for the premier league.
John states he is a purist and a dreamer, he loves football but he is becoming more aware of the business interests, and says at what point do you fall on your sword- and with more and more money coming into the game- clubs treat children like they are Modric or Bale and he thinks English football has got gout- rich man’s disease.
Premier League vs FA- they should keep in each other check but unfortunately the Premier League polices the Premier League and states that we are living in very dangerous waters and questions whether the foreign companies from the U.S and Russia etc. are really passionate about English football or are they here for the money?
He said one club in the PL is paying £24,000 a year for a 9 year old and one of the 16 y.o lads at Spurs (Edwards?) was offered £250,000 to go up North (City?) John said to the player that we are not going to do that, you stay here and get your £30,000 but if you want to go, go and all the time he has to fight against the corruption and business interest of the game. It is our job (him and fans) to make sure that we stop the game falling into this hole.
Migration vs Opportunity- boys being taken from all over the planet and are being screwed by deceptive agents
Short vs Long Term- Education is long term but football is short term- he then went through the Tottenham managers since 2005 to show how quick the turnover is- 6 in 10 years- States Pochetinno is so good, he could do John’s job and by far the best manager he has ever worked with- This is the industry we live in and the players have to deal with- showed a photo of one the Spurs senior players ‘WhatsApp’ display picture- a child in the centre looking aimlessly with all hands around him that have luxury goods like shoes, money, cars, holidays etc. – says football for young kids should be about playing the game
Young coaches now think it is all about the stats, their W/L ratio and their own ego.
Parents vs Coaches- parents who think they know better than the coaches, and the parents who go for the highest bidder
National Games- more and more national games at all ages- the national bromances at under 15 and 16 who think they have made it can be ultra-negative for their development and John knows that most of them won’t be playing at 24
Football clubs are flooded with coaches but John thinks there are not that many great coaches- how do you make sure your best players are with the best coaches and the best staff- believes a lot of learning is contagious- as staff has gone from 15 to 70, how does he make sure everyone is doing the right thing for the right players Howard Wilkinson is John’s boss- who employed an amazing politician and the direction was football but now the admin/politics is focused on business John says he is glad he is not 25 and just starting in the football industry- far too many courses and information- sometimes the more you study and examine, the blinder you get- Mauricio believes this- you may be looking but you don’t always see – an example is when Tottenham physios went on a course- came back and within 2 months apparently our players had a fatpad injury but we had never had one before, what is this all of a sudden?
Everything about the education system is structured to pass the exam not to necessarily learn and football is not like that- it is the art of teaching – when is the best time to teach the right things and coaches now don’t hit the bullseye- example one of our coaches, coaches a player about working on the wide areas but John does not think it is the right time to do that- putting the penthouse suite without the foundations- a tendency not to do the dirty work- repeating the basics- sometimes the coach gets bored and wants to do something different but that is not what the player needs.
When John got his A- coaching license he thought he was God’s gift to coaching but after working with Kenny Jacket he realised he was not very good- one of the best things that ever happened to him- one of things he is trying to do for the staff and the players- do you have the humility to realise you are not as good as you think you are- he was extremely lucky that he managed to work with giants within the coaching spectrum who were a lot older and brutally honest with him- example when Kenny Jacket used to test him and put him under pressure and outside his comfort zone- worst telling off he ever had was when Kenny asked him to give a half time talk after 5 weeks on the job- John was nice and polite to the team and Kenny came in and just went off that the team was not good enough- Kenny did not say a word to John but John knew how wrong he got it- his number 1 advice to anyone looking to be successful in their respective field- try and stand on the shoulders of giants- but you need to have something of value- John gets 1000’s of email everyday asking if a said individual can work with him at Tottenham for nothing- you need to provide a gift to the heavy weights
Lots of trendy words in England- Philosophy- it took John until he was around 35 to figure his out and he think there are different ways- football run by spreadsheets vs respecting the game as a religion- he is very much like the latter
When John thinks about teaching- he thinks about frame of reference- when he was younger at Watford he could see he was a good player (Paul Robinson), he was a good player (David James) and he was a good player (David Connolly) – they were obvious, John thought one guy (Fisken) was going to be the next big thing and you fall in love with the player and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy- and (Ashley Young) Watford’s most successful academy product, John did not see or believe. Similar to Mariappa, John did not see his potential. A lot of evidence right now that the most talented players are not obvious and players can very easily slip through the cracks. He says Pritchard and Carroll are little dots that John has taken a chance/risk on because of his experience with other players.
I LOVE THIS: John says that we have a player right now called Shayon Harrison who is pretty good and trains with the first team, Pochetinno came over to John and said ‘John, Shayon is lazy’ just loud enough so Shayon would hear him. Shayon came knocking on John’s door later asking him what that was about. John says to Shayon, Poch has worked with Veron/Maradona, he played a year with Aguero, he trains everyday with Kane- Poch’s frame of reference is so high that he is not saying you are actually lazy but when he is comparing you it can be deemed mediocre.
John is worried that coaches in the modern game are so focused on moneyball stats that players will start to slip through the cracks. Harry Kane at 14 years of age, was relatively fat, August birthday, immature, and was ‘forgettable Harry’- his peers could jump higher, they could run quicker and his agility was 30% lower than the average- ‘runt of the litter’ – so what was it that John saw? He thanked God that he had experienced Ashely Young and Mariappa- there was something beyond stats and sport scientists- an intuition.
Continues below...
Source: Notes from a Pomona College talk in Southern California- Rose Hill Theatre
John says to a member of the audience that he is sitting exactly where Harry Kane sits, always at the front, looking him in the eye and ready for questions.
John accepted an invitation from Pomona College because he sees the commonality between an elite school and Tottenham as an elite football team. He also came here to be challenged and never wants to be complacent as a coach.
Seminar outline:
- How he teaches the players to live in an extremely tough environment- injuries, fluctuation in form, being released and outright failure
- How he develops the staff and himself- How did he get from an economics degree to coaching Tottenham
- How do you identify and develop talent- ‘the gold medallist at 16 is not the gold medallist at 24’
In order to be a footballer to get those 200 games you need the persistence and character to live through those other 600 games- and he has to try and make the players hardened to cope with that but finds this difficult when you work in a Disneyland training ground- a dichotomy
A picture that he shows all the players in pre-season- a picture of a horse with a man pulling and a man pushing into the water- the environment can be right, the coaches can be right e.g. John and Poch but ultimately it is down to the player- the external factors like coaches and environment can contribute but you can’t make a silk purse out of pigs ear- but they still have a job to develop the players within the best of their ability
Showed a roll of honour of the Spurs academy- the guys who did not quite make and said players like Mason, Kane, Rose, Carroll, Bentaleb, Townsend would not be where they are without those guys and they are often overlooked but you need the boys that do not make it to make the ones that do and John is just as proud as every single one of those as he is of the players that do make it- these guys are not just cannon fodder- if Kane can score 30 goals for England then great he is capable of that but for others, it is still John’s job to make sure they are successful even if they are not good enough for the premier league.
John states he is a purist and a dreamer, he loves football but he is becoming more aware of the business interests, and says at what point do you fall on your sword- and with more and more money coming into the game- clubs treat children like they are Modric or Bale and he thinks English football has got gout- rich man’s disease.
Premier League vs FA- they should keep in each other check but unfortunately the Premier League polices the Premier League and states that we are living in very dangerous waters and questions whether the foreign companies from the U.S and Russia etc. are really passionate about English football or are they here for the money?
He said one club in the PL is paying £24,000 a year for a 9 year old and one of the 16 y.o lads at Spurs (Edwards?) was offered £250,000 to go up North (City?) John said to the player that we are not going to do that, you stay here and get your £30,000 but if you want to go, go and all the time he has to fight against the corruption and business interest of the game. It is our job (him and fans) to make sure that we stop the game falling into this hole.
Migration vs Opportunity- boys being taken from all over the planet and are being screwed by deceptive agents
Short vs Long Term- Education is long term but football is short term- he then went through the Tottenham managers since 2005 to show how quick the turnover is- 6 in 10 years- States Pochetinno is so good, he could do John’s job and by far the best manager he has ever worked with- This is the industry we live in and the players have to deal with- showed a photo of one the Spurs senior players ‘WhatsApp’ display picture- a child in the centre looking aimlessly with all hands around him that have luxury goods like shoes, money, cars, holidays etc. – says football for young kids should be about playing the game
Young coaches now think it is all about the stats, their W/L ratio and their own ego.
Parents vs Coaches- parents who think they know better than the coaches, and the parents who go for the highest bidder
National Games- more and more national games at all ages- the national bromances at under 15 and 16 who think they have made it can be ultra-negative for their development and John knows that most of them won’t be playing at 24
Football clubs are flooded with coaches but John thinks there are not that many great coaches- how do you make sure your best players are with the best coaches and the best staff- believes a lot of learning is contagious- as staff has gone from 15 to 70, how does he make sure everyone is doing the right thing for the right players Howard Wilkinson is John’s boss- who employed an amazing politician and the direction was football but now the admin/politics is focused on business John says he is glad he is not 25 and just starting in the football industry- far too many courses and information- sometimes the more you study and examine, the blinder you get- Mauricio believes this- you may be looking but you don’t always see – an example is when Tottenham physios went on a course- came back and within 2 months apparently our players had a fatpad injury but we had never had one before, what is this all of a sudden?
Everything about the education system is structured to pass the exam not to necessarily learn and football is not like that- it is the art of teaching – when is the best time to teach the right things and coaches now don’t hit the bullseye- example one of our coaches, coaches a player about working on the wide areas but John does not think it is the right time to do that- putting the penthouse suite without the foundations- a tendency not to do the dirty work- repeating the basics- sometimes the coach gets bored and wants to do something different but that is not what the player needs.
When John got his A- coaching license he thought he was God’s gift to coaching but after working with Kenny Jacket he realised he was not very good- one of the best things that ever happened to him- one of things he is trying to do for the staff and the players- do you have the humility to realise you are not as good as you think you are- he was extremely lucky that he managed to work with giants within the coaching spectrum who were a lot older and brutally honest with him- example when Kenny Jacket used to test him and put him under pressure and outside his comfort zone- worst telling off he ever had was when Kenny asked him to give a half time talk after 5 weeks on the job- John was nice and polite to the team and Kenny came in and just went off that the team was not good enough- Kenny did not say a word to John but John knew how wrong he got it- his number 1 advice to anyone looking to be successful in their respective field- try and stand on the shoulders of giants- but you need to have something of value- John gets 1000’s of email everyday asking if a said individual can work with him at Tottenham for nothing- you need to provide a gift to the heavy weights
Lots of trendy words in England- Philosophy- it took John until he was around 35 to figure his out and he think there are different ways- football run by spreadsheets vs respecting the game as a religion- he is very much like the latter
When John thinks about teaching- he thinks about frame of reference- when he was younger at Watford he could see he was a good player (Paul Robinson), he was a good player (David James) and he was a good player (David Connolly) – they were obvious, John thought one guy (Fisken) was going to be the next big thing and you fall in love with the player and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy- and (Ashley Young) Watford’s most successful academy product, John did not see or believe. Similar to Mariappa, John did not see his potential. A lot of evidence right now that the most talented players are not obvious and players can very easily slip through the cracks. He says Pritchard and Carroll are little dots that John has taken a chance/risk on because of his experience with other players.
I LOVE THIS: John says that we have a player right now called Shayon Harrison who is pretty good and trains with the first team, Pochetinno came over to John and said ‘John, Shayon is lazy’ just loud enough so Shayon would hear him. Shayon came knocking on John’s door later asking him what that was about. John says to Shayon, Poch has worked with Veron/Maradona, he played a year with Aguero, he trains everyday with Kane- Poch’s frame of reference is so high that he is not saying you are actually lazy but when he is comparing you it can be deemed mediocre.
John is worried that coaches in the modern game are so focused on moneyball stats that players will start to slip through the cracks. Harry Kane at 14 years of age, was relatively fat, August birthday, immature, and was ‘forgettable Harry’- his peers could jump higher, they could run quicker and his agility was 30% lower than the average- ‘runt of the litter’ – so what was it that John saw? He thanked God that he had experienced Ashely Young and Mariappa- there was something beyond stats and sport scientists- an intuition.
Continues below...