I am european and I live in Europe following both soccer and football.
One thing that is interesting to me is that in Europe there are so many former star players that became coaches. Some of them have been very successful coaches. Others less so. But the point is a lot become coaches. And Head Coaches nonetheless. I can list like 15-20 people without even thinking too hard.
In football, that seems to not be the case. People like Prime and DeMeco Ryans are the exceptions.
It is a two part issue 1) why are former top players not interested in being coaches 2) why are teams not offering top gigs to former players straight up
Let’s look at two current examples. Bills OC job and the Texas A&M job. Both of these jobs are highly desirable and pay well. A&M likely $10 mil +.
Why are people like Larry Fitzgerald, Rivers, Demarcus Ware, Matt Ryan, Drew Brees, Mannings, Brady, Revis not interested and not being offered these jobs straight up?
I can easily see Messi or Ronaldo coaching down the road. Many players of their status have done it.
And I am not talking about recent developments. Many of the former star players never became coaches over the past 30+ years
But it seems impossible to imagine Mahomes or Mannings becoming coaches down the road. Wondering why such a difference.
Thanks!
Twofold. First, coaching isn’t something you can just casually walk into. It takes years and years of study and practice and getting the little things right before being able to take that to the next stages. Every year spent staying on top of the game as a player and athlete is a year not spent learning personel management and how to draw up plays.
Second, top end athletes tend to not understand the limitations other players might have. Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky are prime examples of GOATs who can’t coach or teach or lead, because “just draw a double+ team and slide the puck between the defenders right onto the tape for a one timer” is a strategy that only works for the elite of the elite.
Third, there’s a necessary component of hunger that is needed to truely grind your way up. Someone who has made millions of dollars and racked up accolade after accolade may think starting from the bottom is “beneath me”. Not to harp too hard on Deion Sanders, but he’s a good example of this. He did good-not-great at Jackson State, won by recruiting more talent than others but would lose big games against better coached teams, and then the first P5 coaching offer he received he jumped ship because coaching in the lower leagues wasn’t prestigious enough. He didn’t learn the fundamentals of coaching and assumed he would be successful anywhere, because he’s been successful anywhere as a player.
Most coaches are players in the sport that they coach in, but very few are successful. Tom Izzo and Coach K played basketball, but once their limitations were reached they managed to use what they learned overcoming limitations to teach better players how to overcome limitations.