We

I recently hosted a team meeting in preparation for a month of pre-season in which the focus will be on 'we'.

I asked the players:

Here are a few of the answers I got:

We win / We lose.

Playing as a whole team / keeping possession.

Warm Ups / Halftime huddle.

We win and lose together.

I have worked with these boys for the last two seasons, so their variety in answers was a surprise to me, given the answers I had were:

Next steps.

Panic - My players don't see what I want them to, even after two seasons of 'clearly explaining' things to them.

Relax - They are all moments of 'we' and identified ways that 'we' can continue to develop together as a team and I can now reframe the 'we' into the specific game moments so 'we' can execute on the game model.

Point.

How often do you get together with your players and check for understanding? Are they speaking the same language as you?

In a recent podcast I released there was mention of how the word 'check' can get lost in language and meaning to your players. A player checking as a #4 could be different than the checking movement of a #9, but we still use the same word. This, in my opinion, is no different - the players clearly see 'we' as a different thing up until I clarified what it meant for us on the field.