By Faniki Deche Sports Editor
Growing up as a football fan in Kenya, the women’s game carried this Wild West mystique to it. Apart from the World Cup and the Olympics, it was never really on television which meant those occasions carried an excitement akin to when the FA Cup Final was the only time you could watch Sir Stanley Matthews (or Marta in this case) on TV. It was this bubbling feeling of wanting to know more about this game that motivated me to take up the role as coach of my University Women’s Fourth Team. As a student who also plays for my University Men’s Team and coached their fifth and sixth team last year, these are my experiences entering women’s football.
The start of men’s training sessions are a bit like herding chicken. Whenever I set up, balls are already flying around. Some are doing rondos, a couple are exchanging long passes and others are taking shots. The chickens are everywhere until you call them with your set up and they come dribbling back. However, the women are a bit more like herding sheep. I’m setting up but the balls aren’t flying. I turn around and I see them waiting for me to finish before stepping in. Eventually I ask why, and they respond with “I didn’t know we could do that” and “that would be disrespectful.” Honestly, I find this “chicken-behaviour” to be important for a player’s individual development, but I found out within this space there’s a lot of authority placed on the coach as the perceived holder of wisdom. I believe this comes from their surprisingly short “careers” compared with my male teammates. Even in the fifth and sixth men’s teams, many were among the best in school and have been playing since childhood. Meanwhile, a good number of the girls only started playing seriously post-2020 with the Lionesses winning the Euros being a key factor meaning the guys have more self-confidence in coaching themselves. As a result, my first role was to be a confidence builder for the girls to trust in themselves to take initiative without solely relying on my knowledge.
My biggest struggle about coaching women is communication. Personally whenever I give instructions to individual players, I would reference current professionals that match their playstyles. However, over 97% of the players that I know in depth are men, which worked well when coaching guys but feels disingenuous in this context because it’s the same sport but a different game. The pace and physicality is different so telling them to watch Iniesta is less helpful than telling them to analyse Putellas’ game. Moreover, most of the girls extensively follow the women’s game. I remember one time the girls were talking about how Arsenal lost to Real Madrid in the Champions League and I was like “Real need to beat Athletico in the second leg to play Arsenal?” but they meant the Women’s UCL so you’ve got to understand their game if you want to teach them how to play. It honestly feels like learning a new language, cause you need to expose yourself to it by watching it consistently and you need to start thinking women’s football in order to speak it. I made personal files for each player stating their roles, strengths and weaknesses and I tried to compare their profile with current female players. I based my criteria purely off FC25 ratings so there’s still lots to improve.
Tactically, it’s clear that football was coded by and for men. From the dimensions of the pitch, goals and balls, the women’s game has had to adapt and so do my tactics. Take goal kicks. You cannot default to going long at this level because girls who can kick that far come at a premium. Good news is that pressing becomes key and an easy way to create chances. Bad news is, especially at the beginning when I had to build confidence among the group, buildup becomes a problem. The players don’t trust themselves to play through presses and going long is a problem. So you have to compromise and we settled on playing over the press. With teams pressing high, they leave gaps between their defensive and midfield lines where one of our attackers could drop in. You lure them in with the keeper playing it short to the centre back who, with a moving ball, doesn’t have to kick far and with lift can bypass the press and find our attacker between the lines. A couple of successful plays and the opposition drops deeper creating more space for the centre backs to play thus building their confidence game by game.
Sticking to how masculinely dominated this game is, I was very naïve on who my opposition coaches would be and I think it’s because of Emma Hayes’ recent rise which painted a false narrative on how diverse coaching really is. Only half the WSL managers are women and it’s worse at this level. Basically, our opponents either had a white man in charge or none at all with their captain taking responsibility. One did have a female among their coaching staff and I greeted her first assuming she was the gaffer but she was the assistant to another white man. As a man coaching women I do begin to question whether “I am the problem.” The original job description stated they preferred a woman but I applied and fortunately landed the role which I love but I cannot help but wonder whether I am part of the glass ceiling blocking female coaches.
Coaching is regularly framed as paternalistic with the greats seen as father figures but I remember one training session where one of my players was visibly underperforming. I asked if anything was wrong and she confessed that she was on her period but kept quiet and went on with it. In all fairness, why would she tell me? I would never get to experience that but football moves on devoid of any empathy towards female experiences. In that regard, coaching women requires you to be maternalistic. Now can I be a mum, should I and is it even possible? Funnily enough on Mother’s Day after our penultimate training session of the year, the squad gifted me flowers and a thank you card for the season. My friends joked that I had become their mother. So maybe in a way, I have.
