Strategies

A strategy is basically laying down the goals and making a plan to reach them — for example, setting the goal of winning the season or the match and then planning how to achieve it (developing players' power, building team spirit, selecting the right players). It can be defined as "a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim."

Forming a strategy often requires a SWOT analysis — of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The coach analyses their own team to use its strengths and work on its weaknesses, and studies the opposition to find the best approach to win (for example, targeting a weak tackler).

Strategising improves a team's synchronicity: it aligns every member to the same end goal, combines their motivations and raises morale, so they play as a unit. When a team has a clear strategy, each player understands their role and individual aims and becomes more confident and motivated. Football, for instance, is a game of complex strategies and tactics: each team's basic plan for a game is its game plan, with many diagrammed plays worked out in advance; during the game and at half-time these are adjusted (offensive or defensive strategy) to counter the other team, and how well the adjustments are made often decides the result.

How strategy connects to tactics, technique and skill

It helps to see these four ideas as a hierarchy. Strategy is the overall plan decided before the contest — for example, a basketball coach deciding the team will play a zone defence for this match because the opponent has weak outside shooters. Tactics are the moment-to-moment decisions used to carry that strategy out during play — switching which player guards the ball, or calling a timeout to reset the defensive shape. Technique is the correct mechanical way of executing any single action the tactic calls for, and skill is how reliably a player can actually perform that technique under the pressure of the real match. A team can have a brilliant strategy and still lose if the players' skills and techniques are not good enough to execute it — which is why all four are taught and developed together, never one in isolation. …