NO EXPERIENCE, NO WORRIES!

André Villas-Boas became the most expensive coach in football history last week. Chelsea coughed up the €15million required under his release clause and are likely to fork out over £4million a year in wages, not including bonuses.

Although other coaches may earn more, especially Felipe Scholari, whose fee is no doubt paid by some ‘unethical’ Uzbekistani businessmen, there is something very different about the new man at Chelsea – he has never played professional football.

If anyone tells you that you must have played professional sport to coach it, they are one of two people: a professional sportsman or an idiot (and possibly both).

FC Porto went through the 2010/11 season unbeaten; this has only been achieved twice, by Benfica, in 1972/73 and 1977/78. And this is without the likes of Messi, Ronaldo or any other faces you’ll see on cereal boxes or on tv advertising motor oils. In fact Porto are to world football as the “most improved” trophy is to sporting ability.

But Villas-Boas has no professional playing experience. So how is that possible?

These days coaching is less about doing everything yourself and more about managing a team of experienced and knowledgeable professionals. The manager doesn’t need to oversee every pass, shot, or fitness test as he has 487 staff members to look after that for him.

The two most important things a professional coach needs to do is set the right environment for the squad and the staff, while communicating closely with all of them. Couple that with the right decisions on match day and you have one very successful manager. Playing at the top level may help you with making better decisions on match day, but if your staff and players can’t get to match day in the right shape or frame of mind then you may as well be turning up to a gun fight with a knife.

Villas-Boas fits the mould of today’s elite coach perfectly. But what is most amazing about him is he is only 33. He is the youngest manager in the history of the English Premier League and is now in charge of one of the world’s biggest clubs.

Someone once told me that a coach with professional playing experience only needs to do one thing right to gain recognition; a coach with no playing experience needs to do ten good things to gain the same respect. Yet clubs nearly always pick the former player because they have the public persona, rather than coaching ability.

Telling someone they can’t coach professional sport if they haven’t played it is like telling a self made millionaire they have no right to earn money if they weren’t brought up with it.

Ironically, André Villas-Boas is now both. 

IS GPS TRACKING ALREADY OBSOLETE?

If you look closely at the back of every AFL player's guernsey, you will see a small lump at the top where a GPS tracking device has been fitted. Analysts sit alongside coaches providing them with key data and trends, so when Chris Judd has covered 14km at speeds ranging from 5-27kph, Brett Ratten knows it's time for him to sit on the bench and drink some Powerade.

GPS tracking has a variety of uses. Coaches can track players to see if they are defending or attacking in the correct formation and even determine whether they are facing the right direction at the right time. Training loads can be monitored and training can be altered to replicate what a player would normally do in a match.

Unfortunately GPS tracking can also be used in ways that may mean players' private lives are a thing of the past (if they weren't already), as Robin Van Persie of Arsenal seems to think.

But just as GPS tracking becomes the must have technology in all elite sports, it may be on the way out. IBM has trialled SecondSight at Wimbledon this week, changing the way players are tracked and data is collected.

SecondSight works with two cameras recording the movement of the players and ball, displaying a graphic on screen that almost looks like a slightly improved version of the original version of Atari's Pong. Distance, speed and hitting patterns are recorded and IBM hope that this will be the future of information for tennis players and coaches. 

With most elite sports signing billion dollar TV rights, an extra couple of cameras at the ground to track all movement throughout the game is surely the next step. Coaches will love the instant feedback and TV audiences will have their viewing experiences taken to the next level.

But as good as GPS tracking can be, it is only as good as the coach using it. Data can be great, but only if you understand it and use it to your advantage. As they say, 48.76% of statistics are made up; as for the other 51%, people don't understand what they mean anyway.