Football coach Francky Dury organized a secret lecture. Successfully.
A few days before the 2017 cup final, we organized a big one at Zulte Waregem conference for all first class head, assistant and youth coaches. About 400 people came.
The main speaker was Geir Jordet, a Norwegian professor of psychology whom I had met at another conference.
All the guests hung on his every word, but no one knew that I had asked Jordet to give a separate lecture for the staff of Zulte Waregem. He had just completed a study on the psychology of penalty shootouts. I suspected we could put his knowledge to good use.
KV Oostende was our opponent in the final. Today Ostend and Zulte Waregem play football in 1B, at the time we were part of the Belgian sub-top. With Zulte Waregem we qualified for play-off I almost every season and KV Oostende had grown into a very strong team under Marc Coucke.
I expected a close match, possibly ending in penalties. And so it happened. 2-2 after 90 minutes, 3-3 after extra time.
Winning a prize is always nice, but that story with Geir Jordet made it extra special for me as a trainer.
Jordet had three important tips when it came to penalties.
Firstly: both the players and the staff had to stand one and a half meters closer to the goal than the people of KV Oostende.
Secondly, we had to stand shoulder to shoulder and cheer enthusiastically at every good penalty kick from us or every missed one by our opponent.
Third, our goalkeeper, Sammy Bossut, had to control the momentum. Bossut was allowed to take his time and, for example, knock off his shoes extra slowly. Let the other person wait. This way you get into his head.
Consequence? We kick in all our penalties, Ostend misses two. I am 100 percent sure that Jordet’s tips made the difference.
Winning a prize is always nice, but that story with Geir Jordet made it extra special for me as a trainer. My staff and I prepared that match down to the smallest detail, thinking about details that no one was thinking about.
We also got the team along. Seeing the players cheering with every penalty goal, arm in arm, and then the explosion of happiness when Brian Hamalainen scored the decisive penalty: I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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