How much does the recent performance of your team factor into how eager you are for the next match to come?
Let me put that another way.
If your team has been winning, are you eager for the next match? What if your team lost the last match? Would you like the next one to come a bit more slowly so you can get more training in?
This is something that came to mind very acutely when I coached in Sweden. My Svedala team won its first 8 matches – 5 in pre-season and then the first 3 official matches. I found myself quite eager for the next match to come. We lost our first match the next time out, and I found myself after that not so eager.
To be fair, I think part of my eagerness was the specific opponent. Maybe too much, as I talked about here. Our three official matches offered only a few challenges. That fourth match was against the defending Swedish champs with a particularly strong attacker who gave us some trouble when we played them in preseason. They were up and down up to that point, so it was hard to judge what kind of performance we’d see from them.
Have you had a similar experience?
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