Football Manager Communication Mistakes Early in the Season: What to Avoid
The opening matchdays of a football season expose communication flaws pre-season used to hide. The most common manager mistakes and how to fix them in time.
Written by
João Araújo
Physical Education Teacher (FADEUP – University of Porto) · Futsal Coach – Level II · UEFA B License · Master’s in Physical Education
15 years teaching Physical Education in schools, 20 years coaching futsal at youth development level and 5 years coaching football. Federated and amateur football and futsal player.
In football pre-season, almost everything runs smoothly on the communication front. Goals are general, no one is being left out of a real starting XI, and the dressing-room mood is naturally lighter. The opening matchdays change that abruptly: decisions now carry immediate, visible consequences, and that’s when a manager’s communication mistakes, invisible until then, start costing dearly.
The most common mistakes aren’t about tactical content. They’re about form and timing. A manager with the right system can still lose the dressing room in the first few weeks purely through how he communicates decisions.
The Problem: Right Decisions, Late Communication
The most frequent mistake is communicating decisions after players feel them, not before. A player who sees his name missing from the starting XI for the first time with no prior conversation receives the decision as a done deal, not part of a process. And from then on, any later explanation sounds like a justification, not genuine communication.
Communication Principles for the Early Season
- Get ahead of it whenever possible: communicate sensitive decisions before the player discovers them on his own (on the team sheet, on social media, through teammates).
- Separate tactical feedback from a judgement of worth: criticise a specific action, never generalise into a comment on the player’s character or commitment.
- Communicate in private, correct in public only what’s tactical and collective: personal reprimands should never happen in front of the group.
- Keep what you say consistent with what you do: promising minutes and then not delivering them without explanation undermines credibility faster than any tactical mistake.
Practical Application: A Weekly Communication Routine
| Moment | Action |
|---|---|
| Before announcing the starting XI | One-on-one conversation with anyone left out, especially if he started recently |
| During the training week | Specific tactical feedback tied to concrete actions, not general impressions |
| After a poor result | Communication to the group focused on the process, not individual scapegoats |
| After a good result | Specific recognition, not generic praise like “the whole team did well” |
A concrete example: after a defeat in the opening matchdays, gathering the squad and saying “today we didn’t do what we trained on building out from the back” communicates process. Saying “this can’t happen again” without specifying what, only communicates anxiety. And the group absorbs the anxiety, not the correction.
🔧 Useful Tool
Communicating sensitive decisions in advance requires clarity on who’s playing and why, before the team sheet goes up. SportsLabTools Callup organises the squad list and starting XI with documented criteria, making informed one-on-one conversations easier before any announcement to the group.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Announcing sensitive decisions publicly with no prior one-on-one conversation.
- Correcting a specific player in front of the whole group.
- Changing tone depending on the last match’s result instead of keeping a consistent communication line.
- Promising concrete opportunities (“you’ll play next matchday”) without real control over whether that will happen.
See also: Managing Losing Streaks in Football: Reacting Tactically and Psychologically to a Results Crisis. A deeper look at group communication in moments of crisis.
Checklist: Manager Communication in the Early Season
- Sensitive decisions communicated one-on-one before the group announcement
- Tactical feedback kept separate from personal judgement
- Personal corrections made in private, never in front of the squad
- Post-match messaging consistent, focused on process rather than an isolated result
- Promises of minutes or opportunities made carefully and kept
- Good performances recognised specifically, not generically
- Consistency maintained between pre-season and early-season messaging
Conclusion
The right tactical system doesn’t survive poorly managed communication in the opening matchdays. Getting ahead of difficult conversations, separating tactics from personal judgement, and keeping what you say consistent with what you do is what turns correct decisions into decisions the group actually accepts.
Organise the squad list with documented criteria before communicating to the group. Use SportsLabTools Callup to prepare informed one-on-one conversations in the opening matchdays of the season.