My name is Don Carlson, and today is Simo Idrissi’s Coaching Philosophy interview which is an extension article to part one and two which I administered. Today the conversation takes another direction, but before digging in, I want to summarize the articles we previously made.
Simo Idrissi is an experienced and educated soccer former player, head coach, and technical director of over 20 years. He has a long journey of experience in playing and coaching soccer. Simo has a master’s degree in sports and health science and has obtained all soccer coaching education licenses. He has also written scientific articles [1, 2 and 3] and research on soccer.
In an interview with SCPPNews, Simo discusses his education, experiences, and personality. He talks about how he integrated into American society by learning everything he could, developing his potential, and being functional and convenient to his community. He believes that competence is the foundation of any entity that can achieve long-term goals. Simo is optimistic about the bonding between Americans, new and old.
In case you want a quick overview, I prepared an abstract of this article to read.
Summarization of Simo Idrissi’s Coaching Philosophy
The coach’s philosophy concentrate on the strength of focus and speed of performance. The coach focuses on finding solutions to reach their goals quickly and avoid dwelling on the possibility of defeat. The coach believes in sharpening experiences to develop intelligence and focuses on strengths. The coach once coached a team that combined players aged 18 up to 28 and trained them to focus on their defensive style and counterattack. The coach’s philosophy stems from the scientific logic and the implementation of sports psychology to enhance performance dimensions.
The coach approaches player development by providing materials and tools that players need for every game to adapt, organize and know what to do as a team. The coach uses sports psychology to codify development steps and enhance players’ mental performance.
Simo Idrissi’s coaching philosophy lead him to beleive that efficiency depends on the number of years of study, experience in the same field, and providing an opportunity for the coach to demonstrate their abilities. The coach must develop their abilities to work with their team.
The coach prepares their team for a game by collecting data from their opponents to study it seriously and find solutions to all the events. The coach focuses on what the adversary relies on and their advantages. Then, he shared how he innovated the events that draw the opponent into making mistakes. Coach Simo changes tactical situations and the role to interact better with the opponent. The mental and psychological preparation integration helps the team cope with each game and goal achievement focus during the pre-season, in-season, and off-season.
The interview with Coach Simo Idrissi about Simo Idrissi’s coaching philosophy on leading a team.
Based on Simo Idrissi’s Coaching Philosophy, can you tell us about your coaching philosophy and how it has evolved?
I believe that all coaches rely on their intuition to ensure their team performs well in every game. As a result, the philosophy of all coaches is influenced by what we have learned in the past. For me, the philosophy of football is centered around strength of focus and speed of performance. I don’t dwell on the possibility of defeat; instead, I focus on finding solutions to reach our goals quickly.
Sharpening our experiences as coaches develop the level of our intelligence. An opinion does not establish or normalize philosophy because it is the belief in the quality of capabilities and qualifications. For example, if I have a mid-level team playing against a higher-level team, they may lose the game. In this situation, I don’t focus on the team’s weaknesses. Instead, I focus on their strengths.
Once, I coached a mixed team of players aged 18 up to 28. The promotion to the first division, and most selected players were from neighborhood or amateur tournaments. I trained them for a month and noticed many mistakes. However, before the club hired me, they had already signed contracts with these players. So I had to face all challenges with these young men. Before the pre-season started, I met with the staff and distributed papers to help identify each player’s strengths while completely overlooking their weaknesses. I collected each player’s strengths and weaknesses. When I realized that most players performed well defensively, I created different attacking styles and taught them to the players. We have identified that direct play and counterattacks were their strong points because they were not good at short passing.
At that moment, my job was to organize their defensive style and counterattack. It was not difficult to integrate programs for switching from defense to attack. At the same time, the players had to understand that a soccer game dictates systems, and they should not reveal their trends to their opponents. When we started the league, most or all of the teams did not know our players, which gave them a false sense of confidence that they would win. We imposed our defense and counterattacks, which tired out our opponents. Whoever made a mistake during the challenge lost against us, and whoever understood our strengths did not take many risks, making it easy for us to draw with them. It was a process of focus, and when we lost some games, it was due to some players losing focus. We improved the players’ focus level, but they needed rest to rebuild their intellectual and mental strength.
So Simo Idrissi’s coaching philosophy did not stem from intuition only but also the integration of scientific logic and what I studied at university sports psychology to performance dimensions. All players receive accurate information that helps them perform their roles perfectly.
1. How do you approach player development and what methods do you use to help players reach their full potential?
Your question is very relevant to our conversation because we are discussing Simo Idrissi’s coaching philosophy and the management of senior players who need to develop their abilities. Youth development contains different approaches. I can form players because this involves young beginner players up to 19. The above 19 development procedures aim to integrate them into the adult team level. Before becoming a professional player, I faced several obstacles that made it difficult to develop my abilities. However, I sought the help of the coaches at the club and asked them what I should work on to accelerate my selection for the first team. All the coaches guided me toward certain things, and I worked hard to refine and develop my abilities. I engaged in a tryout game, I played, and the head coach chose me for the senior team. Always very difficult to secure a position with the soccer adults team, especially since more than sixty players were trying out. After retiring from playing for more than fourteen years, I became involved in coaching and delved deeper into this field through certifications. I earned as a reward for my efforts licenses, diplomas, and degrees. Now I can answer your question: soccer player development varies from player to player. There are those on the first list called roster, subs, those on the reserves, and those on the second team. Each of these individuals has unique needs.
For example, in Simo Idrissi’s coaching philosophy, for the eleven players officials on the list, I provide them with materials and tools that they need for every game to adapt, organize and know what to do as a team. Through exercises and theoretical lessons, players readjust their efforts and skills to modify or develop to reach a higher level. Concerning players on the subs list, several development tools intervene with training. For example, how to read a game, when to pass the ball into space or how far away your teammate is, and how to make decisions in less than a second. All mental factors enhance players’ performance, and players should use them regardless of their cases. However, the progression of time determines the mental performance rate. Some players have high concentration levels to cope with the entire match time, while others drop the focus rate and are more prone to mistakes. Player development happens because of the components that we have previously collected. I am now explaining the usage of sports psychology to codify development steps. Tactical situation success drops with less capable mentality players. To get accurate results means to dig more into mental performance. Mentality enhancement of players helps solve the issue of if players lack decision-making. Speaking about players, I mean only those who signed a contract with a club. Anybody else can be developed however should pass through player identification first. Players filtration is the first step to making player development successful. What can you say of his answer, and what did you understand?
Can you articulate your belief that efficiency is the foundation of any entity that can achieve long-term goals?
In the world of coaching, general culture, certifications and experience determine one’s mastery of their craft as a coach. Efficiency is determined by the number of years of study, the number of years of experience in the same field and especially by providing an opportunity for the coach to demonstrate their abilities. Without field experience, no one will be able to know the value of a coach. Let’s start with the interview: a real coach may not succeed in such a conversation because they understand how to communicate with players rather than sharing their knowledge with others. For example, training a group of players depends first on their maturity, emotional intelligence, level of personal strength and talent. If the coach is unable to effectively lead them, then all their previous experience will not work for this. The coach must develop their abilities in order to be able to work with them. Therefore, competence is the leadership and organization of the team in all dimensions and this is the competence that I am talking about. Coaches differ in age and experience as well as in orientation and philosophy but whoever lacks some elements of leadership and organization is not yet competent and must work hard. Question: Are you competent in this case? I certainly have a high level of competence in all aspects of training and leadership. I played football, trained football, studied for many years, tested a lot in all dimensions and understood the mentality of each player even beyond the limits of personal strength, intelligence and emotional intelligence. The abilities of players are reduced to dealing with them in a way that suits their high potential in managing dialogues, relationships and even training. That is why I am proficient in all dimensions and if I come across any topic that I have not tried before, I research it because every day I study and reformulate concepts and organize them in my mind so that I can be ready every day. That is why analyzing long-term goals is the only reason for the team’s focus rate. If the team loses its focus, it reflects poorly on the level of the coach who does not strive to reach a level of competence. The team’s efforts are driven by the coach’s vision and orientation in how to deal with and lead the team towards long-term goals. We are not talking about comfort here as competence does not eliminate difficulties but rather facilitates success despite difficulties. There are things that happen during or in the middle of a season such as injuries to four key players on the team which can be one of the most difficult things a team may go through for more than five matches. How should the coach solve this problem with their competence to successfully guide their team towards long-term goals despite these difficulties?
How do you prepare your team for a game, and what strategies do you use during the match?
As Simo Idrissi’s coaching philosophy entitled, I consider a difference between game preparation and game day preparation. Game preparation determines how we deal with the entire season. Preparing a team to function intelligently in a season starts from the end of the last game in the previous season. The data collection procedures used during pre-season and in-season to modify, change or reinstall immaterial elements to cover deficiencies. However, game day preparation depends on how many days before the team plays an official game. According to the procedures, game management takes place. For example, if there is only one match in the first week, we have six days to prepare for it and games that would play later. A daily modification of training patterns depends on a periodization plan. This system contains several elements, not just organizing training. There is also a difference between the physical conditioning periodization plan and the tactical periodization plan. There are two other systems that I call nutrition and vacation. I wrote a scientific and academic article about the procedures of the off-season, which articulate the process of keeping players in shape while on vacation.
So, you meant to ask about game preparation, not game day preparation. Am I correct?
Don: I believe you are correct, but I am also interested in game day preparation.
It’s okay. During an in-season, there is a strategy that contains several organizational patterns related to game day as well as organizing the activities and efforts of players. The plans that we draw up for games fall within the framework of this strategy because the term strategy is a general concept of what we want to plan for each time or organize the team physically and mentally etc. A game day is a preparation system that may contain six days or less or more. During the in-season, we deal with each game separately. Not only this but to be more specific, we dig into every event of how an opponent play. No team in the world uses the same method in attack and defense. Although their ball possession may be similar, the attacking and defending dialogues may not be easy to comprehend. Game data collection is always impossible without pre-game and live-game analysis. That is why we collect information from our opponents to study it seriously and find solutions to all the events. I do not focus on our opponent’s weaknesses but on their strengths. To search carefully for who are the pivotal figures that create events and make a difference. Then we create events that draw our opponent into making mistakes, and through them, we exploit the timing of their errors for a specific purpose.
For me, every match needs to go through challenges and difficulties. So, players be comfortable in terms of concepts and patterns. Every player understands their role seriously, and we leave them to their potential and responsibilities while monitoring events. But, in every match, we need to change tactical events and player changes to interact better with the opponent. The mental and psychological preparation integration helps us cope with each game and goal achievement focus during the pre-season, in-season, and off-season. We try as much as possible to help players control their family matters and support those who need comfort. It is a sociological perspective.
At the beginning of the in-season, the team understands one thing, problems that happen will not distract us from achieving short-term goals, and the focus is on long-term goals, whatever could happen.
No player in the team was obliged to befriend everyone, but the whole team led to the intellectual efforts needed to achieve long-term goals. Any conflict could pop up from time to time within groups and could happen at any time, but they are controlled by focusing on goals instead of wasting time on social and private matters. Every player and coach takes responsibility for adapting to long-term goals through intellectual maturity and emotional intelligence in dealing with pressure while working towards long-term goal achievement.
A running game is a time to read the opponent and let players do their part. When we study the first half and make necessary adjustments, we change our communication formula and the attacking method from the first half. We change everything so our opponent doesn’t understand what we want to do. Players must remain focused on the game at all times. That’s why I, as a coach and team leader, speak in an understandable and organized manner so players comprehend what steps to take in each event.
Starting any game, I use defense compactness and possession without any counterattack to determine our opponent’s style of play and key players. Sharing with you such a thing is a secret, but not today because I have other new things that I use, and the defensive style was my old way of dealing with the starts of both halves.
On several occasions, we were able to resist challenges and problems that occurred. On one occasion, I changed several players when we had ten minutes left because one player was injured and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital. I had to quickly invent a plan and change some roles to keep the game result; fortunately, we succeeded.
What helps overcome difficulties during matches is how coaches understand the game and their players. For example, when I changed the role of players, I did it only with some players. Those players are not affected by pressure during matches. As for players I know have high-quality focus but don’t like sudden changes without previous understanding, I don’t involve them. I highlighted with you dealing with matches before, during, and after the season and a game.