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Make the Philosophy About Your Team, Not About You

Spielverlagerung Academy on where tactics are heading — toward the hybrid, and the personal.

Cam Jolley

Cam Jolley

Co-Founder & Academy Coach, Coach Central

The best line in this whole debate about the future of the game is the quiet one at the end — make your philosophy about your team and not about you — because that's the actual answer to relationism versus positionism.

Where it lands

Instead of crowning a winner, the piece argues the future is hybrid and contextual — understand the strengths and weaknesses of both positional and relational play, mix them, and know when to lean which way. The frontier isn't picking a doctrine; it's building a philosophy tailored to your specific pool of players. And the framing that stuck with me: make it about your team, not about you.

Why this is basically my whole coaching creed

It says, in tactical language, everything I believe. There's no single right way to play. Coaching is for the players, not for the coach's ego or the coach's identity as a positional guy or a relational guy. So the job is to look honestly at the players I actually have — their strengths, their stage, what they enjoy — and build a way of playing that develops them, borrowing from whichever framework fits. The coach who forces their pool into a borrowed doctrine has made it about themselves. The one who shapes the philosophy around the players has made it about the players. That's the coach I'm trying to be.

How I'd use it this week

Write down your team's way of playing and ask one honest question: is this shaped around the players I actually have, or around the coach I want to be seen as? Adjust one thing toward the players.

Takeaways

  • The future isn't positional OR relational — it's hybrid, contextual, and tailored to your players.
  • The real question is when to lean which way, not which doctrine to worship.
  • Make the philosophy about your team, not about you — that's the answer to the whole debate.

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