Welcome to another episode of "Soccer Stories: Get Into The Journey". This week's guest is Halifax Wanderers and 2020 CPL Coach Of The Year, the illustrious, Stephen Hart!
I love him as a coach. I think he is a phenomenal tactician, and right before the interview, I couldn't believe that we were about to interview the Halifax Wanderers Head Coach but also the former head coach of not one, but two National teams - Canada 🇨🇦 and Trinidad and Tobago 🇹🇹!
It's certainly not every day that you get to speak to someone who is so well versed in football, and yet we got to chat with Stephen for a good hour covering many different topics.
We started off talking about his background growing up in a rural area of Trinidad & Tobago where watching soccer and cricket were literally "events" that people experienced. There were no replays while watching live, and he talked about how watching a lot of live games at his local field brought a romance to the game, and how that helped him tactically. Stephen's father, we found out, actually thought he was a better cricket player than a footballer!
We also spend a brief time talking about the cuisine of Trinidad And Tobago. We really enjoyed talking about food and culture and lucky for us, Stephen shares one of his favourite recipe sites for Caribbean food.
We then delved into his playing career and how he got his start in coaching. Interestingly, with not much equipment, he started training kids to kick the ball through the legs of chairs and to pick the ball up on the other side.
He mentioned one thing that was very revealing and it was that he sees himself as a "player developer" and you can see the importance of that throughout the interview. He has a passion for helping players reach that next level in their careers.
During the course of the interview, Stephen Hart gave us amazing advice for young players; the importance of enthusiasm and his belief that how you carry yourself, respecting the dressing room, and staying humble is critically important as a footballer and to the team morale.
He also explains that nothing is more important than the team. The one thing he won't allow in his dressing room is a bad attitude and a player that won’t conform to the team. Talent does not trump attitude at any level of soccer. We also had an interesting exchange on how he handled challenging players, which he has had to deal with in his career as a coach.
The conversation covered much ground, and things that came up during the interview were his thoughts on about ball winners, passers, dribblers, strikers and their different roles.
We got to chat about the Wanderers, the new squad, the Italian concept of "Grinta," which was vital during their run at the Island Games, and how Coach Hart likes a vertical game and playing forward to eliminate lines.
Near the end of the interview, we dive into more tactics and we talk about the death of the pure number 10, why that is, the re-invention of the number 10, and some players that are doing well with the re-invention!
And so much more.