Last night at the Haifa Municipal Stadium, the local Maccabi returned from a 2-0 deficit to Maccabi Tel Aviv to win 2-3 and register their first victory over the yellow rival in five years. This was not really the first comeback of Barak Bachar’s Maccabi Haifa and it really is not the first impressive comeback that Bachar’s team is recording.
Read more in Calcalist:
Bachar’s Hapoel Beer Sheva has also recorded several historic comebacks and certainly one of the most impressive comebacks in the history of Israeli football. It happened as part of the Europa League 2016/17 season. The big Inter led 0-2 in Be’er Sheva until the half. “In the locker room in the half against Inter at home. The Italians lead 2-0 and we hardly touch the ball, not really forces,” says Gil Levanoni, who worked with Bachar at Hapoel Beer Sheva at the time. “When everyone feels on their face, angry, frustrated. Lightning enters. He is quiet and calm. He moves on to practical actions that everyone needs to do. Gets the details down to the ground. It is very faxing, very reassuring and precise people into actions instead of concentrating on unhelpful hysterical feelings.”
This is Bachar’s normal conduct under pressure. Be the most quiet, calm and practical in the room. Focus everyone on the small details, with very clear comments. Each player receives a very specific instruction or two about his or her performance. Calm down. No motivational exercises and certainly no nerves. This is very likely to be exactly what happened last night at halftime. And also during the second half.
Despite what is shouted from the stands and said many times on TV, players do not need extra motivation in a season game or in a game against a big opponent. They need to lower the level of excitement – which sometimes impairs the cognitive decision-making process – and they need very precise and specific instructions. And these two things, Bachar and his team give to their players.
It is not easy to stay cool under fire and hand out super-specific instructions. Need to work on it hard but it is the right strategy for almost all coaches and teams. As Barak Bachar proves.
Dr. Christian Marcouli, a sports psychologist and organizational organizational psychologist and former FC Basel footballer, has written an entire book on this strategy: The Melting Point: How to Stay Cool and Sustain World-Class Business Performance.
Marcoli – who has worked, among other things, with Roger Federer – argues that one of the things common to all calm successful people is the ability to focus on very specific things and not take on too many tasks. “You have to focus on a clear task. Once you do that, you suddenly have the time, space and freedom to deal with other things,” Marcoli writes.
In the case of a striker, if he is asked in defense only to close the angles for delivery from the brake to the defender and he will do well, he will suddenly find himself instead of getting a good depth delivery from the central midfielder who snatched the ball – thanks to his and the striker’s specific work.
A football game has a great many moving parts like that. These are the parts that need to be assembled into a functional puzzle. The pressure is always high – probably in a home game with tens of thousands of disappointed spectators in the stands. A coach who knows how to put this puzzle together during a game, after his original plan has fallen apart, and he knows how to do it time and time again – is a great coach.
Two other things teach about the special mindset of Barak Bachar and his team. The first: Immediately after the victory, the Maccabi Haifa players started the festivities and it seemed that Bachar’s team members ran among the players to make sure that they would not do or sing nonsense that they would later regret – and perhaps lead to a suspension or a stupid fine.
Second: Bachar said he was happy with the victory but clarified that “with all this great victory we are still in second place.” That is, stay focused. We reduce gaps – fast but calmly. Maccabi Haifa, at the moment, is a bit like the T-1000 (the robot-policeman on a deadly mission 2): it walks behind you quickly, without batting an eyelid, without unnecessary and ineffective facial expressions. And when she catches you, and she catches you, she’s going to kill you.
There is something very threatening about a group that does not crack. Players have a hard time forgetting opponents with ice in their veins. They recall moments when they lost their minds while opponents remained focused on their mission. Immovable. Players testify that it is a fear that can paralyze and allow cool opponents to take control of the game. Therefore, last night’s victory is not just a big and historic victory for Maccabi Haifa. Is a victory that is a clear and very threatening message to the whole league. Barak Bachar’s Maccabi Haifa does not crack. It’s scary.
.