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Sports Activated talks to one of the most influential and sought-after coaches in the world. Roby Stahl talks about his outlook on the ‘beautiful game’ and where technology fits into coaching.

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SA: Coach Stahl, tell us a little about your background in the sport of soccer.

COACH STAHL: I was fortunate to grow up in an ethnic-based community in Cleveland, Ohio with many first generation immigrants and grew to love soccer. As a successful youth player I was noticed by US Soccer and included in the youth national team pool prior to playing at the University of Akron (2010 NCAA D-1 Champions) where I also was named to the Olympic team pool. After college I was drafted in the ASL by the Cleveland Cobra where I played in between training with West Ham United of the English Premier League and a few seasons with Cork Celtic of the League of Ireland and other professional clubs. Upon my retirement I taught school for a few years and then was employed as a collegiate coach for nine years. I was fortunate to marry a women’s national team player and develop an elite camp for aspiring elite soccer players. After my divorce I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in a position as the Director of coaching for Ohio South in further charge of the development of 60,000 players and over 9,000 coaches. Leaving Ohio South to form the Ohio Elite Soccer Academy allowed me to further focus on player development. After my move to the Kings Soccer Academy the process was even further enhanced. So I guess I come to the Kings with a wealth of experience. I now work with a wide range of players from pros down to the U9 and U10 program.

SA: What types of technologies have allowed you to deliver continued innovation and value to soccer training and development? What are some examples of how you use technology to improve the way your athletes train?

COACH STAHL: I think the biggest technology advance is in the coaching field. When I grew up there were no coaching mentors to learn from. We had to develop our technical abilities as players by playing or watching the older players perform and learning from them. I was fortunate in that I had several good adult players/coaches to model myself after. Several of the good coaches were from foreign countries and had the ability to translate foreign coaching manuals or magazines and use those materials in their practices. I always took notes on all the training sessions I participated in. The biggest thing was going to a US Soccer coaching school to learn how to coach. That took a lot of money and time. Now much of that can be accomplished over the Internet. I recently took a League Manager’s Association course from England right in the comfort of my own office. Now with the advent of the Internet it is so easy to learn more about coaching drills, sports psychology, sport science, modern trends, etc. Instead of spending hours searching for a training session to suit your needs, it can be done in ten minutes on the web. An example of this is in the sports training field for athletes. When coaching the Kings I can compare where their fitness levels are against those of a top professional athlete in another country. I simply pull it up from a web site and plug in my data. Then I can assess and download the training protocol for upgrading an individual’s performance and get to work. The Chelsea performance manager has data collected from all over the world. This helps them with their assessment of whether to buy a player or not.

SA: Through your years as a player and coach, you may have seen many types of training technology come and go. Which stand-out in your mind as the most and least successful in your opinion?

COACH STAHL: As a player there was not much thought put into coaching and it was just play. The coaches did do a good job of teaching us the passion of the game. There was not much skill training or knowledge of physical training. In fact I was probably over training in terms of long distance running too close to the a game. I grew up in the pre-game meal time of steak and eggs mostly because that is what American Football did. We now know that is not beneficial. Through science/technology we now realize better ways to train not only the team in tactics but how to develop players in terms of technical superiority. Instead of ordering a book and reading about it I can get right into a web page and ask questions/read studies with the push of a button. We have become so much more universal due to the fact that I can ‘Google’ a question and get the latest answer in seconds sometimes from a world renowned expert. I have just become involved with a former player of mine Kamal de Gregory to form http://www.PlaySoccer.me – a company which provides these types of services. I am writing as an expert in terms of curriculum development and player information. I am excited about this new venture and it is opening up a whole new world for me.

SA: Where do you see the application of technology making the biggest impact in the world of soccer training and performance analysis in the future?

COACH STAHL: Two areas- video analysis (YouTube) and curriculum development. Videos of players doing the latest skills and of coaching legends running training sessions are extremely valuable. The value of these is immeasurable. For example with my players if I am working on certain part of their game I give them homework. I describe what I want and send them a link of a player doing the skill. Now they have some concrete idea of my demands. YouTube has opened up a new world in player and coaching development.

In curriculum development there are subscription sites which help the coaches with their daily lesson plans. For example can I go to the site and type in “Playing Within the 4-4-2 System” and bingo, the information is there.

SA: In our February issue, we had asked the readers about the impact that various technologies can have on player development. For example, when technology is used to help an athlete understand and learn a particular skill, do you think that this would be a detriment to an athlete’s skill development?

COACH STAHL: I think the more evidence (information) that a player has the better. Of course no player likes to think he is not training properly or not performing up to the coach’s standards in games…but the fact is the video does not lie. I think this opens up a new course of dialog in the coach-player relationship. The modern player is much savvier than in my day and demands to know how, where and when. Now we can give the player a link to train on and then he can video back to us and we can assess. In terms of scouting players I receive large numbers of YouTube links daily to sort through.

SA: Do you think there should be increased use of video aided technology in professional soccer? In your opinion, would this type of technology hurt the way referees make game-play decisions or open the door to much more scrutiny?

COACH STAHL: Two issues here- clubs are already spending large sums of money on video companies like ProZone to assess their opponents and their own player’s performances as well s scout players to potentially buy. An individual player’s performance in a certain aspect can be looked at i.e. tackles won and where on the field, passes attempted and completed in the attacking third, etc.

I think FIFA is way behind in goal line technology. Tennis uses the Hawkeye and it is quite effective. Only recently have the officials in soccer been given headsets and granted officials who monitor goals from the end lines. Hockey has been very proactive in the way they station a camera directly over the goal and can tell within 30 seconds if the goal stands or not. Statistics show that is awarding goals the soccer officials are nearly perfect in awarding or disallowing goals but there is human error. I guess that gives us all talking points! – SA

Originally published in Sports Activated magazine: http://www.sportsactivated.com/April2011