Roman Skuhravý: My Coaching Journey

I’m a choleric person. I don’t deny it.

I’ve always been ambitious and want to be successful. I believe in my vision and my style of play. However, I’m not always successful in conveying information to the players, and my fiery nature has scared a few in the past.

In my coaching career, meeting a mental coach was a pivotal moment for my professional growth. I desperately needed to manage my emotions and learn to communicate more effectively with players.

Meeting Michal was rather coincidental and arose from the situation. When I took up a position in Opava and the opportunity to have a mental coach directly on the coaching team presented itself, I didn’t hesitate. I had already experienced personal coaching and knew exactly how it would help me, where it would make my job easier, and where I could progress because of it. I realized long ago that the development of the team begins with the development of the coach.

1. First Active Steps

Our collaboration began with long private and group conversations with the coaching team. I needed my closest colleagues to first understand and embrace my vision. It was essential for Michal, in his role as a coach, to understand what I wanted to convey to the players and what I wanted to teach them. Together, we gradually uncovered how to achieve this.

2. Team Analysis

I consider the mental coach’s ability to understand players’ personalities, read their social strengths and weaknesses, to be absolutely crucial. A player is just a human being, and as a coach, I focus a lot on the body, the game system, etc. Michal helped me understand why some players reacted differently, why some understood and others didn’t. We closely observed the development and reactions of players to what was constantly being revised and developed: my communication with individuals and the team.

3. My Progress

In endless discussions, I understood why Michal was teaching me to ask players questions. I struggled when he taught me not to react, to create a “safe space in communication” for players, and especially to “wait for their response.” Through this, I realized that we don’t need to squeeze players, but rather teach them to take full responsibility for their careers and development. We learned to show players the path, but they had to do the work. Otherwise, there was no place for them.

4. Working with Mistakes

One of the key topics was “working with mistakes.” You know, when a player misses in a clear situation, it can give me a stroke as a coach. Michal taught me to adopt a “position of perspective” and we transferred this mental skill to the players as well. The result was courage in the game, and players no longer fell apart after making mistakes. I dare say this is one of my strong and well-adopted topics after years.

5. Incredible Progress

In addition to team development and refining game organization, individual development for some players was happening in the background, with those who privately utilized Michal’s help. I know Michal uses a diagnostic tool, Balance Management, which reveals a player’s current mental state and mindset. This gave me almost perfect recommendations for communicating with individuals. We initiated their learning process.

With some, it took a while, but it was amazing to see how even players who had been written off became hot commodities on the football market. Their value increased incredibly!

Just for interest, here are some players and their market value growth:

If you’re asking about the result of our collaboration, under which the entire implementation team, of course, signed, we unexpectedly made it to the finals of the MOL Cup in the first year and in the second year, we advanced to the first league among the absolute elite. We achieved our goal.

It was expectedly confirmed to me that the communication triangle “coach – player – mentor” is the way to unleash the player’s potential.

It is absolutely crucial for me to accelerate the flow of information towards the player and the team, and collaboration with a mentor helps me in this. Each of us is an expert in a different area, which is why it complements so well.

Essential for me is the knowledge of players’ typologies and the intricacies of their characters and personalities. I have learned to perceive constant communication as a fundamental prerequisite for the success of any team. If I base this knowledge on a clear organization of the game and a functional playing system, half the success is achieved.

I fondly remember the collaboration with Michal because we challenged each other, in the best possible sense of the word. We complemented each other as people. I am the gas, and he is the brake. He taught me to reflect, weigh my words, and individualize my approach to players. We are still in contact and always look forward to endless discussions about our protégés.