SuZir
Well-Known Member
This time not his own doing and he is an almost total bystander to whole thing, but it is again something very stressful he needs to cope with and learn to deal with. Till now difficult child has been lucky to play for very professional and well managed organisations. His current team is his first experience of the team, that is someone's toy so to say. Basically it is a general rule that teams owned by many people tend to be less turbulent than teams owned by one person. When it is about one person's whims, it tends to make it more turbulent all the way down to the bottom of the whole organisation. It has been evident from the get-go that this team is not as professionally handled than to what difficult child has been used to, and we did know that before he even signed, but problems he has encountered himself have been tolerable. Some late/missing/partly paid salaries, little bit problems with the flat and car, having difficulty to access PT when he needed, having difficulty to get broken equipment replaced by same calibre product in timely manner, food offered to them during away trips not being up to standards, things like that. difficult child's agent's other client was happy with the team last season, but some things seem to have changed after that and it has been evident that there are some issues. And issues tend to produce extra tension and that is what seems to be happening, at least partly.
Now relationship between the coaches and the team has hit a crisis. difficult child, being an outsider, isn't even sure what is really going on, but difficult child's older, more influential team mates are in mutiny and others are following suit. They are not happy with coach's treatment of players or his tactics. Sport teams are of course different work environments than your average office and workers safety laws etc. don't work quite the same. A pro athlete can expect to be yelled at, have to listen personal barbs to certain degree, can expect to be physically punished in some ways etc. But there are limits. Of course limits change from culture to another and from sport to another and difficult child well knew he would change from much more relaxed and player friendly environment to more traditional and authoritative environment, when he left to the country there he currently is. So he is not sure, where those lines in the sand are in this organisation. And he himself has not been treated badly (then again, difficult child has been playing well, that tends to help) but he has seen some treatment of other players that appals him. And one of the badly treated ones is difficult child's flatmate and almost only friend in the team. So he is angry for him.
For the whole difficult child doesn't really know what is going on. For example yesterday he spent three hours getting bored and not understanding a word in crisis meeting with the team and in the end only got a five minute briefing about what was talked about. So he certainly is not having the whole picture about what is going on. But apparently owner and GM side with the coaches, but almost whole team sides with the older players in their mutiny. In the end these types of things tend to end up to the same conclusion: You can't fire the whole team, you have to fire the coach. But because the team is forcing the management's hand, they tend to pay for it in way or another. Things like this tend to be always ugly. And of course cr** tends to roll downhill. So difficult child and his flatmate are in quite challenging position in this.
Only solid advice one can give to difficult child in this, and which he has already heard from many, is to keep out of it, keep his head down, play well and pretend totally oblivious out of the field. And remember that while it is almost sure that the head coach will be gone, it is very 50-50 about his positional coach, who has lots of power over him and who is a good friend with the head coach. And not let any of it get to him. Quite a tall order for my boy.
I just hope the situation solves itself to one way or another quickly and difficult child can hold it till then. But darn that he is talented in finding drama, or drama finding him, even when he isn't really even a participant.
Now relationship between the coaches and the team has hit a crisis. difficult child, being an outsider, isn't even sure what is really going on, but difficult child's older, more influential team mates are in mutiny and others are following suit. They are not happy with coach's treatment of players or his tactics. Sport teams are of course different work environments than your average office and workers safety laws etc. don't work quite the same. A pro athlete can expect to be yelled at, have to listen personal barbs to certain degree, can expect to be physically punished in some ways etc. But there are limits. Of course limits change from culture to another and from sport to another and difficult child well knew he would change from much more relaxed and player friendly environment to more traditional and authoritative environment, when he left to the country there he currently is. So he is not sure, where those lines in the sand are in this organisation. And he himself has not been treated badly (then again, difficult child has been playing well, that tends to help) but he has seen some treatment of other players that appals him. And one of the badly treated ones is difficult child's flatmate and almost only friend in the team. So he is angry for him.
For the whole difficult child doesn't really know what is going on. For example yesterday he spent three hours getting bored and not understanding a word in crisis meeting with the team and in the end only got a five minute briefing about what was talked about. So he certainly is not having the whole picture about what is going on. But apparently owner and GM side with the coaches, but almost whole team sides with the older players in their mutiny. In the end these types of things tend to end up to the same conclusion: You can't fire the whole team, you have to fire the coach. But because the team is forcing the management's hand, they tend to pay for it in way or another. Things like this tend to be always ugly. And of course cr** tends to roll downhill. So difficult child and his flatmate are in quite challenging position in this.
Only solid advice one can give to difficult child in this, and which he has already heard from many, is to keep out of it, keep his head down, play well and pretend totally oblivious out of the field. And remember that while it is almost sure that the head coach will be gone, it is very 50-50 about his positional coach, who has lots of power over him and who is a good friend with the head coach. And not let any of it get to him. Quite a tall order for my boy.
I just hope the situation solves itself to one way or another quickly and difficult child can hold it till then. But darn that he is talented in finding drama, or drama finding him, even when he isn't really even a participant.
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