Archive for the 'Olimpiadi' Category

For the past few months I have been collaborating on SportdelSud a new online sports newspaper, with a column entitled “The Head in the Ball.”

It is an innovative editorial reality created by a group of young people who have been able to take up the challenge of putting themselves at the head of an entrepreneurial project in the communication sector.

Accompanying and supporting them along the way since its inception are great names in Italian journalism such as Darwin Pastorin, Roberto Beccantini, Fabio Monti, and Luciano Scateni, masters of sports literature such as Luigi Guelpa, and historical figures from the world of sports, while the corporate and managerial mentoring is entrusted to the experience of Vincenzo Imperatore’s Imperatore Consulting.

The goal of SportdelSud is to give readers back a space in which to confront each other, through original information that fights single-minded and homogenized thinking and acts as a glue between the sports people and the media world, setting itself as an antithesis to today’s media trend of clickbaiting and fake news. SportdelSud is, also, the voice of readers and fans, those who very often express through social networks the most interesting, “different,” politically uncorrect, frequently funny, sarcastic analyses.

A participatory newspaper, to which readers can send offline their reflections that will be turned into articles and published after approval by “moderators.”

The newspaper is growing so fast that in July it reached 54,753 visits and nearly 400,000 total visits, a record for the newspaper. It has been online for less than a year and is about to break the 60,000 visits per month mark!

Pep Guardiola tells his team, “You have permission to make a mistake. You have permission to lose…when you have permission, you accept. “I want the ball!”

He expresses a simple concept – you have permission to make a mistake – and when you have that permission, you have to be in the game -I want the ball – .

Wanting the ball, means “I’m here pass it to me, I’ll take responsibility for continuing the action.” Not accepting it has the opposite meaning and that is denial of the responsibility to be part of the game.

Not accepting the ball is the most serious mistake a soccer player can make. Anxiety, laziness, individualism, poor team spirit, a complaining attitude, lack of concentration or perceived excessive fatigue are at the root of this difficulty. Data tell us that most of the decisive goals are scored in the final part of games that are lost or won by the spread of one goal. This awareness on the part of the team should have as a consequence that every minute or single pass can become decisive for or against. Accepting the ball and wanting to offer it effectively to another teammate thus represents a move, which, as in a game of chess, can elicit significant positive outcomes.

This approach to the game applies to everyone, from the stars of the team to those who play less often. In the team concept everyone is important if they consistently display this behavior on the court, otherwise they are not only useless to the game but also harmful, since not accepting the ball means representing the weak side of the team on which the opposing team will insist.

Question to coaches: how do you coach this behavior?

Same concept has been expressed by Sarina Wiegman, coach of the English football team: “As I grew in my personality, I really wanted to be relaxed more. Why do players start playing football when they’re seven years old? It’s because they love the game. Yes, it’s all about winning, but you perform better when you can be yourself and when you’re in an environment – and it sounds like school – an environment where you’re safe, where you will not be judged. Because when you’re on the pitch you’re being judged all the time and that’s uncomfortable and unsafe.”