Daniel Farke's aura
Maybe this is the formula. Coaching is less than we think: it's just saying things quietly to footballers. It's also more: it's knowing what to say
ore gets written these days about football coaches than ever before, partly due to their contractual availability to the media, partly through the players' invisibility, partly due to probably many other things at least a few of which can be parcelled up as necessary to the selling of the myths that sell TV subscriptions. There's an obfuscation inherent to all that which means, despite all the text in print and on podcasts, the actual coaching that the coaches do is as mysterious as it has ever been.
I've spent too much of this week mulling over Paul Heckingbottom's post 0-8 interview on Sky last weekend. The first three goals that Sheffield United conceded, he said, were down to poor defending at set-pieces. Well, asked the interviewer, isn't that his responsibility? Sure is, agreed The Heck, almost cheerfully, as if he was relieved that the cause of the 0-8 was something that, as he described it, was relatively easy to fix.
The Blades are away to West Ham tomorrow afternoon. I'll be gripped to the goal alert apps waiting to find out if they make it through the match without conceding from a restart, but if they do get through unscathed, I don't know what I'll make of it. What will I learn? That preventing a 0-8 defeat really is as easy as Paul Heckingbottom makes it sound. What will I still wonder about? Why he didn't do that before they got beaten 0-8.
I'll still also be none the wiser about what such work as Heckingbottom's actually involves. I can make a few educated guesses: I suppose Stuart McCall will watch a few of West Ham's set-pieces from this season, then tell some of their players to replicate them while others practice opposing them. That's probably it? And for this, we give coaches mythical status, align them with genius, stand in awe of their achievements? Well, not Paul Heckingbottom obviously, but you get my point.
There is probably both a lot more and a lot less to coaching than us mere fans will ever understand, not because we can't grasp it — see above — but because we'll never be told. Those fly on the wall documentaries are still careful about which walls are visible and which feel a swatter. The Inside Training clips that Leeds United put out reveal very little of the actual work, unless Daniel Farke's secret really is whispering in the ears of his players while they stretch. Maybe that is it. Maybe this is the formula. Coaching is less than we think: it's just saying things quietly to footballers. It's also more: it's knowing what to say. Marcelo Bielsa once said the most important thing is to 'activate emotions' in players, reckoning he could do it without speaking the same language.
This is all being prompted by feeling pleasantly ensconced this week by Daniel Farke's aura. Ever wondered what quiet confidence looks like? There it is, worn by Farke like a shroud. An underrated aspect of the way he controlled that dropping ball in the closing minutes of the win over Watford last week was that it took more movement from him than he usually makes during matches, but there was not one muscle twitch more than was necessary. Farke speaks to the fourth official during games, but I've never seen him do it dramatically; it's a slow approach, a quiet complaint, letting the official know he's not like those other serial moaners who shout and spew. He speaks to his players, too, but again his gestures are firm, not over demonstrated. He shares Pep Guardiola's habit of giving pointers on the pitch at full-time — most often to Pascal Struijk, while pictures of problems are still fresh in the mind — but with less animation than Pep, and only to his own players.
I've already raised Heckingbottom from our past, so I might as well summon another spectre: after watching Jesse Marsch shivering like a cold turkey as he begged for someone to alleviate his stress, it's pleasant to tune into Farke's press conferences and feel vaguely hypnotised by his circular calmness as he spirals around his topics, anyhow, working unbelievable hard, admiring players who are unbelievable Welsh, anyhow.
Maybe it's just a case of right place, right time. One of the reasons for hiring Farke was that he has mastered the Championship, twice, and if that can sound like damning him with faint Warnockish praise — especially paired with their shared records in the Premier League — Farke has the advantage of not being nearly so jaded as, well, anybody. With all due respect to SV Lippstadt and Borussia Dortmund reserves, Norwich City was Farke's true training and proving ground, and while neither Krasnodar nor Borussia Mönchengladbach gained much from that, his chance with Leeds is to do what he did with Norwich but do it better, and do it before the machinery of football has had time to grind him down. Better, the way Farke wants to measure it, means better in the Premier League, but first he has to get there. He knows how to get promoted, and he knows what not to do after getting promoted, so really, there should be nothing to surprise or shock him until Leeds are back in Europe.
Obviously this being Leeds United and the game being football, nothing will be that easy. But until we see Farke in a flap, we have fewer reasons to worry. When it comes to the visible aspects of a football manager's job, he is delivering everything we could ask for. This was something that Angus Kinnear seemed to miss when, speaking on the TSB podcast the other week, he bemoaned the way Leeds fans make life difficult for Leeds managers. He might like to look at which managers had a difficult time — Heckingbottom, Marsch — and which did not, like Bielsa before and Farke now. The club's mania for hiring managers who would need to learn on the job created its own difficulties because fans need to have the right things whispered in our ears just as much as the players do. Whether they are of few words, like Bielsa, or unbelievable many, like Farke, if the words are well chosen and well effective then fans will gladly listen, and enjoy. It's early yet with Farke, but I feel myself returning to the days when I was happy with what the boss was doing, even if I couldn't understand it or agree, because I felt sure he knew what he was doing. ★彡
(Originally published at The Square Ball)