Football: The Journey of a Coach

4. Short Meeting

"If we don't work hard and don't change, maybe we'll play in the second division next season, what a pity!. Gentlemen, do you want to continue having nightmares last season, do you really want to be ashamed?!. Don't forget our name is Croydon!". Daniel Ward found some inspiration to motivate everyone.

For the novice trainers, the most frightening thing was that others did not give him the opportunity to speak.

Fortunately, captain Hawking gave it a chance, and Daniel had already conceived his idea, and the reason was very clear.

How could the players not be touched?!.

 What happened to the amateur league?. Amateur leagues also have high and low points. No matter how bad they are, they cannot be degraded. Too bad. The team has switched between the Super League and the First Division. I have not joined Division Two . The relegation for Croydon FC was a shame, a shame for the hundreds of fans who came to support them at home. Everyone agrees on this point.

"Danny, what you said makes sense! You are the head coach, and we all listen to you!" Hawking was very sympathetic to Daniel, and immediately expressed his opinion.

“Yes, Danny, what are you saying and how do we do it!”.

“What the fuck, you can't be taken down, says everyone!”.

“Looks like Daniel could really do it!, not in vain he has been in London all this time!".

    …

Everyone has various opinions, but after all, it can be considered a certain consensus.

"Alright then, I'll make an announcement!". Daniel Ward gestured and looked around at everyone seriously.

“From now on, please forget your friend Daniel, and please remember your coach is now Daniel Ward!”. He slowed down his speech and said word by word, “Gentlemen, please tell me, can you do it?!”.

Saying the meaning of this sentence, everyone was not stupid, understood the meaning, very simply, asking everyone to obey the authority of the coach.

"No problem, boss!" The voice came from Daniel's cousin Joey.

Everyone was still silent, and Joey's voice was very sudden, all beings were different, some were angry, some were approving, and some were calm.

 "No problem, boss!" Captain Hawking's voice was also heard.

 “No problem, Boss!” Everyone started to agree with each other, the voices of some people were barely audible, but at least it was an expression of attitude.

“Thank you very much for your trust!”. Daniel Ward bowed to everyone, raised his head and smiled, “Actually, it doesn't matter what you call me, the most important thing is I hope everyone can respect my position in their position.heart! You can call me Daniel, but please remember that I'm your head coach, even if it's only temporary!".

" create the closing class first, summarize the advantages and disadvantages of last season, so that we can make the next target!". Daniel clapped his hands and greeted everyone.

In fact, this kind of summary lesson is familiar to everyone, head coach Norwood concluded many times last season, but unfortunately the team may not have made much progress.

 Everyone seemed a little disappointed. They actually hate this kind of summary the most. At first there was not much time. If you don't practice and always do a boring summary, what happens.

There was a conference room on the second floor of the office building, which could accommodate the team players, everyone muttered and sat down like elementary school students, waiting for Daniel to speak.

    "I don't really understand the situation last season. In today's summary class, I hope you will become the protagonist. You can talk freely and discuss together. If you have an opinion, everyone can express it!". Daniel said to everyone with a smile.

That means everyone can be a spokesperson. This group of people was really disrespectful, the first to speak was captain Hawking, he was still the main force of the team and participated in most of the games last season.

"Daniel, the bad performance last season was because we left Albert. Without him, our offense is greatly reduced. Too few goals. He is our highest point. The previous tactics were hard to work on. Nothing can replace him! ".

Hawking said in the audience, Daniel used the record on stage, in Croydon FC it is difficult to find even the head coach, let alone the assistant coach, the goalkeeper coach, the physical coach, so Daniel is alone, so you have to do everything yourself.

In the audience, there was a person with a dark countenance, and no one could see that he was blushing. This man was the main striker Amy Traore who was on the right after the departure of Albert, one of the few black players in the team. There are many immigrants in Croydon, and many people of color. Traore's parents are from Africa. Traore spent his youth years at Croydon youth training camp, and he was a direct player like Joey.

   

Not far from Croydon is Crystal Palace. In terms of competition for young players, it is clear that Crystal Palace have a big advantage. The level of Croydon youth training camp was not high. Traore, Joey, and even Daniel Ward themselves use the Crystal Palace youth academy, as their first choice over Croydon.

Traore is now 20 years old. He has many brothers and sisters in his family. He is the oldest and must work early. He had no education and was a black man. The work he does is relatively difficult. It was not easy, to come to the training game at the weekend, it was already commendable.

Listening to the captain's analysis of last season's current problems, he felt very incompetent as a striker, he has participated in 40 games and scored only 6 goals, falling behind Albert.

Traore felt as if the captain was blaming him, he was a little guilty, and his face was hot.

Daniel Ward listens, writes, then listens, and thinks on stage. Speaking of the Croydon issue, it is actually very simple. As Captain Hawking put it, Albert moved on, and the team lacked an attacker who could score.

For a professional team, losing a striker who can score is not necessarily a disaster, but for an amateur team like Croydon, it's just a small knot from the team.

The professional team still had the money to make up for it, how could the amateur team make up for it?. If you can only mine internally, if you can't mine, it depends on the coach's ability, Norwood obviously doesn't have this ability.

Daniel Ward hasn't been busy in vain lately. He had been thinking about Croydon's future tactics. If there are no good players, he really needs to look at the ability of the coach. Now the continuous discussion of everyone had given him a lot of inspiration.

After everyone finished speaking, Daniel stood up and said: "Thank you so much for your speech!. Because it gives me a lot of inspiration!. Actually, I also understand the general situation. Based on what you said, I'd also like to say a few words, you can listen to my opinion!".

"Albert in past form, he has left Croydon and the team, this is beyond repair for us! I don't want to do it here too much discussion!".

" Looking at the statistics, last season we were the team with the second most goals conceded and the second least goals scored, and we have not been relegated. I must say this is a miracle!". Everyone rarely cared about his data, but now hearing what Daniel Ward said, they could not help but whisper, secretly lucky.

"Bad defense and unfavorable offense, this is the main problem we have now! I think the main factors causing this fact are the following points. One is tactical discipline that is not strong enough. In an internal training match, all of you lost your position too easily!".

“ I'd like to say that your level is really not very good, but many of you still feel right yourself, and you really think that you are the highest level in the amateur world!”. The first and second are nothing, and the second third are too much!. Some people could not wait to hurry up and beat up this neighbor!.

 "Don't try to beat me up! I'm really scared!" Daniel Ward immediately made a frightened look, and then spread out his hands. "Everything please Remember, this is a tactical class, not an arena! Please keep in mind that I am a person who sincerely wants to help the team, not an unemployed person all day long and only exposes your shortcomings!". This way, everyone laughed embarrassedly again.