11 Questions with Kieran Doyle

The pursuit of wisdom in any walk of life quickly reveals that what you think you know is not nearly enough to get you to where you want to go. As I'm starting out in my football scouting journey I challenged myself to reach out to those already working in various roles in football to answer a short list of questions. My goal wasn't to get answers but relevant perspectives on the game within the game.

Here is Kieran Doyle, Assistant Coach University of Toronto Women's Soccer:

How did your first opportunity in football come about?

I played at McMaster University in Canada for a few years while I got my undergraduate degree, realized I wasn’t much of a player so started to think about how I would involve myself in the game afterwards. I started working youth academy sessions with Hamilton Sparta, a local development club, who’s technical director was a coach at the university I played at.

What attracted you to coaching? What’s more intriguing now winning or developing players?

I was a goalkeeper as a player, partially because I hated running and partially because I liked the control of it. The same thing attracted me to coaching. No running, and all the control. There’s something very satisfying about making an in game adjustment, or preparing just right, and it all coming together on the field.

I think both parts are important. In the university environment, results matter, these are jobs and investment from schools on the line. However, this is a crucial time in the life of many young athletes, you have to develop them as people first, and players second. If you do that, the winning is a lot easier.

Who is the first coach/teacher that resonated with you? What stood out?

The TD I worked with, Joe Valvasori. Joe sadly passed away last year, but his attention to detail in preparation, and his desire to put his players in positions to succeed is something that will never leave me. It sounds small time to say someone like this instead of Bielsa or Guardiola, but truly gave me a lot of the basis for anything I build from here.

What is the biggest misconception in coaching? Why?

That 90% of players care at all about what you’re talking about. They just want to win games and enjoy themselves.

If you could start over what skill would you build on first?

Learning to teach. You can have all of the knowledge in the world tactically, technically, physically, but if you cannot convey that message clearly and succinctly to your players it’s not really worth anything. I’m still not great at this, where I like to think I have reasonably good footballing ideas, but conveying them in a short meeting with players, or in a 90 second coaching point during a session is really hard.

Do you see player development or player recruitment as more essential? Why?

So, this depends. At the university level, we see players 6x a week for 3 months, and 3x a week for 6 months, and then potentially 0x a week in the summer when they go home to play. Developing players is *hard*, especially balancing school (which is absolutely priority #1). Given we push players through every 4-5 years depending on their degree, you are constantly recruiting new talent to replace and push the ones you develop. For us, I would say recruitment matters first, development matters second, but both are essential.

What is your favorite sports moment? Why?

As a fan, Toronto FC MLS Cup was an experience I will never forget. A culmination of nearly a decade of not very good teams. In general, the Raptors title win last year was something else. Lot of national pride in that one.

What coach inspires you? Why?

I’m a big fan of Chris Wilder, he’s basically managed at every single level and just keeps making the step up, trying things, innovating. Graham Potter, another one, took big chances on himself going continental and showing up really well. Marco Rose and Rene Maric are obvious ones, given how young Rene is and his background, I think he’s someone that a lot of young coaches who float around the online space really look up to.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into coaching?

Run as many sessions as you can, evaluate yourself, evaluate the session, and see what you like and don’t like, what delivers messages effectively and gets the desired action out naturally. Then, rip them all up and run some more.

For actually getting into it, reach out to your local youth club. They are always desperate for people, and if you can make a 7 year older understand why they need to do something, you can convince anyone.

Who is your favorite athlete of all time? Why?

LeBron James. Exceptionally naturally gifted, but also puts more time into improving himself technically and physically than any normal human being. His basketball IQ is insane, and then there’s just all the incredible things he has done off the court.

What other sport/hobby/discipline do you feel improves your work as a coach? Why?

I’m a huge basketball fan and really think a lot of the concepts are useful to bring into football. Certain shots are much more valuable than others, spacing is really important, a lot of our set piece work comes from basketball with pin downs and hammer screens etc.

But really I think having ANY other sport/hobby/discipline is useful for sprouting ideas. I use stuff I learned in R for making Messi heat maps for work I do in my graduate studies.