Almighty Coach

The music stopped.

Neol swept the sweat from his forehead. His face was still filled with curiosity. As a foreign player from Brazil who had just been here for one year, he had just square danced for the first time in his life. Neol found it interesting to do such a dance with unique movements to pleasant music.

But the domestic players didn’t know what to do. They were all professional soccer players and some of them ranked top in the nation. They had experienced a lot and, of course, they had met many different coaches. But it was the first time for them to see a coach getting everyone to square dance.

But then, Dai Li’s training became even more surprising. He asked everyone to follow him to walk fast around the training ground.

At first, everyone thought that Dai Li was about to start a long run. This kind of training was normal for soccer players. But after a few laps, the players found that Dai Li did not want to run.

"It has been a couple of laps of walking. When are we going to run?"

"Will we keep going like this? What exactly does this newcomer Coach Li plan to do?"

"The coach doesn’t have to run with the athletes in a normal long run training. Doesn’t Coach Li know? He is with us now."

"Why don’t we ask Coach Li for the exact number of laps he planned for us and accomplish it ourselves? We might finish this program more quickly that way."

"It seems that Coach Li never wants to run at all. His plan is to walk fast."

"And with music. Walking while listening to music. This kind of training is new to me!"

"This music serves our walk properly. Look at Neol. He is enjoying walking."

"A typical man of South America, who can enjoy a funeral as long as there is dynamic music there."

"Your words remind me of the popular ’Outbreak’ lately. Isn’t it the same as what we are doing now? Walking fast with music!"

"The ’Outbreak’? Right! We are now doing ’outbreak’!"

"First the square dance, then the ’Outbreak.’ What does Coach Li want? What kind of training method is this?"

"Gao, you are familiar with Coach Li. Go ask him. When should we start to run? It makes no sense to keep walking like this!" a player told Feng Gao.

Gao nodded after a little hesitation and then ran to Dai Li.

"Coach Li, what are we doing?" he asked.

"Training, of course," said Dai Li without hesitation.

"Should we keep walking? Or should we start to run?" Feng Gao added.

"No, just walk." Li continued, "We need to warm up before the formal training."

"Coach Li? So, it is the warm up!" Gao found out and nodded.

After one and a half hours, Dai Li had to stop the ’outbreak’ although he wanted all the players to continue.

Physical ’Outbreak’ would greatly improve a player’s physical strength. Dai Li wanted to keep those athletes doing the ’outbreak’ as long as possible. But he could not do that. A training plan fully occupied by ’Outbreak’ would get questioned by the public, regardless of whether the athletes were willing to follow the plan or not.

Therefore, Dai Li had to call his physical ’outbreak’ training for the players a ’warm up.’ But players in training couldn’t always be warming up. So Dai Li administered normal physical training programs for the rest of the training time.

The physical ’outbreak’ took up a lot of time. In Dai Li’s opinion, the improvement brought by his system skills were much more obvious than the improvement from normal physical training programs.

...

"We finished the training so quickly this morning. I don’t think we went through many programs."

"Of course! We warmed up for one and a half hours, so the time left for other training programs was much shorter. That’s why the training seemed to end quickly. "

"Coach Li’s style of training is so strange. I’ve never seen such a long warm up before."

"Maybe it is because he, as a newcomer who doesn’t know us, is afraid of injuring us in training. And he is not a coach of the Harman team. As a coach hired by the club itself, he tends to be more careful in training," someone reasoned.

"That makes sense. If players like Neol get injured in training, the responsible coach will probably only be criticized if he is from the Harman team. But if the coach is hired from outside, like Coach Li, he will definitely be fired or at least be given the cold shoulder."

"That is the so-called ’no merits, no demerits.’ And of course, such sufficient warming up was effective. I was in good physical and mental condition during the training today. I even wanted more after the training ended."

"But the time of the warm up was too long. It was a three hour training in the morning, of which one and a half hours were spent warming up. And the walking around the ground almost made me dizzy."

"It’s okay for me. There was music anyway. The music was great. And I enjoyed walking with the music. Later I will ask Coach Li for his playlist."

It was inevitable for the players to discuss the training after it was finished. And such discussions spread across the whole team in the following days.

Everyone now knew that Dai Li was a coach who liked to ask athletes to warm up, and everyone now knew that Dai Li did it because he was more careful and was afraid of injuring players in training.

Every coach had a different style of training, and some coaches were passionate when they were training. Some coaches were very serious in training. Some coaches had a high requirement for training, which required the athletes to reach the limit and to be exhausted every time. Some coaches were extremely strict with data, so if you were asked to do 20 push-ups, you had to make it 20 exactly.

Those were all styles of coaching. There was no right or wrong when it came to training styles. The matter was whether it was suitable or not. Some athletes were more comfortable with the training of a certain coach, so that they were able to get a great improvement in training easily. While some athletes couldn’t fit in the training of a certain coach and they just got half the result with twice the effort.

But people can’t judge that the training style of Coach A is right and Coach B is wrong. Sports training can only be defined as "effective" or "ineffective," rather than "right" or "wrong."

Therefore, Dai Li’s method of "two hours warming up and two minutes formal training" would never be called a wrong method.

What’s more, everyone agreed that Li was doing so to get the athletes warmed up and to avoid injury during training. Taking Dai Li’s identity as a coach hired by the club rather than a member of the Harman team into consideration, people showed understanding to his way of training.

Some even marked Dai Li with the adjective "cowardly." In their opinions, Dai Li’s style was cowardly because he intentionally increased the warm up time to shorten the time of normal training, which would weaken the effects of training, only to avoid injuries to the players.

...

"Do you know that the training this morning contained a warm up of more than two hours?"

"Two hours for warming up? No wonder! When I went to copy the papers today, I saw them walking around the field, and when I came back, they were still walking around the field."

"Coach Li is too cowardly! Two hours for warming up. That’s not a warm up. I think he’s deliberately trying to reduce the time of formal training."

"Why would Coach Li do that? Won’t the reduction of training time lead to inefficiency of training?"

"Don’t you know? If the coach reduces training time, it is less likely for players to get injured in training."

"So it is! I never thought of that. However, I am sorry for the Coach Li. Those Europeans are always looking down on our local coaches. Working with them is never easy. Perhaps a tiny mistake will put you in the doghouse."

"You are right. It is not easy for everyone to make a living."

Dai Li soon found out about these discussions. He discovered that he had won the title of "the most cowardly coach."

"Well, just let them misunderstand me. They will know the power of my training in the game. That will correct their opinions," Dai Li thought.

...

Claude invited Dai Li to his office.

"Try this cup of coffee. I made it myself." Claude handed a cup of coffee to Li and continued, "People of your country prefer tea. So, I found it difficult to buy my favorite flavor of coffee here. The coffee we are drinking now is brought from Europe by me. Its origins are on the Ethiopian plateau of Africa."

"Thank you." Li took the coffee and tasted it, but he didn’t think it made any difference.

That’s not because Claude’s coffee was fake or his way of making coffee was wrong. It was because Dai Li knew little about coffee. Chinese people prefer tea. Many Chinese can tell the differences between "Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong" black tea and "Jin Jun Mei" black tea. But few people in China know the differences between Indonesian coffee and Brazilian coffee.

The Ethiopian coffee was, of course, not the reason why Claude had called Dai Li to his office. He cleared his throat and said, "Coach Li, I’ve found that you like asking athletes to warm up."

"Of course, it is the topic of this meeting." Dai Li had guessed Claude’s purpose. So he replied immediately, "I think the sufficient warm up’s will make the following training more effective."

"But a warm up that is too long will shorten the time for normal training, right?" Claude smiled and then added, "I know that you might be worried about injuries and choose a conservative way of training. That is understandable."

"My purpose to get you here today is to tell you that you need not worry so much about training." Claude assumed a serious look, then said more slowly, "I have chosen you to take charge of the period training. And that represents my trust in you. I will support you. Do you understand?"

"I understand." Dai Li nodded and then explained, "Mr. Claude, I think you might misunderstand me. I am also good at athlete recovery. So, I don’t worry about their injuries caused by training. My plan of extended warm up’s is based on research and practice. I can assure you that such a means of training is more effective."

"Really?" Claude smiled and argued no more with Li. He looked at Dai Li as a youth.

This young man needs to go through a hard time to learn what to do. I was the same as you when I was young. Energetic, stubborn, and unyielding. Claude thought that in Dai Li, he saw himself at the young age.

This guy is pretty good, the best of his peers. But he needs a mentor! Claude suddenly felt that he had a responsibility on his shoulders, and it was to be the mentor of Coach Li.

"The team is going to Denmark a few days from now, and I hope I can see the effects of your training," said Claude, and turned his mind to other things.