Assistant Coach
Introduction
The creation of the training plan can be delegated to the assistant coach,
but however, the intelligence of the Assistant is quite limited.
In order to for him to create a training plan he needs very specific
introductions from the team manager. These instructions are defined in
terms of rules. Here are some simple yet effective strategy instructions
in the form of rules for the assistant coach.
Step One or ‘What is really important to me?’
Fitness, Stamina and Technique are trainable characteristics of each player.
To begin with, I should decide which of these characteristics appear
to be most important TO ME. As a personal example I would place them in the
order of Stamina, Fitness, and Technique, meaning I value stamina
as the most important and technique as the least important.
Step Two or ‘Thus far and no further’
Next, I should answer the question of which value ranges of
corresponding properties do I consider to be bad and which are good.
I personally opt for the following: Stamina — Bad = 1-90, Good = 90-100,
for Fitness I set the values of 1-80 and 81-100 and for Technique all values
are good which also means the higher the technique the better.
Step Three or ‘Finally I understand my Assistant coach!’
Now I have everything I need to create a set of instructions for
the assistant coach that even he will understand! I determine that
if the endurance of a player is less than 90 points, he should train
in the next six sessions as follows:
Stamina, Stamina, Fitness, Stamina, Stamina, Technique.
By doing this I aim to increase the Stamina value and also hope the player
remains relatively fit. The technique though, will be improved at another time.
Now all I need to do is quickly create understandable and
implementable instructions for the Assistant coach. So I would say:
IF STAM is < 90 then STAM, STAM, FIT, STAM, STAM, TECH
Following the same pattern I can also create a set of instructions
for fitness training. However, this is only considered by the
assistant coach when the first instructions (STAMINA) are not valid
for the player. This means that when the Stamina of the player is
not less than 90 the Assistant coach will not use these instructions
but continue to the next set of instructions i.e. fitness training.
Step Four or ‘What I say now is always true!‘
The assistant coach gives all of my players the instructions that I
have defined in form of rules and checks these are in compliance with
the values of each player. If he finds an instruction that fits to a player,
the training for that player is carried out accordingly.
The rest of the instructions are not carried out by the assistant
and continues with the next player.
So that the training for every player is sensibly designed in the end,
I set up another instruction that fits for all other players - regardless
of their values. This instruction is: as long as the technique value has
not reached 100, he should continue to improve his technique,
and so that the assistant coach understands I would say:
IF TECH < 100 THEN TECH, TECH, STAM, TECH, TECH, FIT
This instruction is important because if the coach cannot find a
single rule that matches the value of the player, he will decide
himself what should be trained. However, with his limited intelligence
I would not like to leave him alone.
Step Five or ‘The finer the better‘
In my instructions I can combine multiple statements, e.g.
I can consider the Stamina as well as the Fitness values of the player.
The two statements can be combined to refine my rules using ‘AND‘ or ‘OR‘, e.g.
I could specify that a player should only have Stamina training when he is also Fit.
IF STA is < 90 and FI > 80 THEN ... ... ... ... ... ...
It is possible to these instruction refinements, but it does not necessarily
mean that my instructions are totally bad if they are not used.
Step Six or ‘I‘ll do it myself‘
I know what I like best. That‘s why I experiment with the instructions
for my assistant coach and improve it until I reach perfection.
This is what I really do, but the results (my perfect five rules)
I keep to myself because they are the foundation of my success!