According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus, an ‘expert’ is defined as someone “having or showing special skill or knowledge because of what you have been taught or what you have experienced.” Elite sport is littered with experts, and countless others who fancy themselves as one. With all that expertise floating around, coaches and managers are often tempted to bring in an external source of knowledge to improve their athletes’ performance. But is this necessary? What if a shift in mindset turned the focus inward and tapped into the wealth of internal knowledge within the playing group? CONQA Sport speaks with Paddy Upton and discovers that the solution to the problem is often right under your nose.
As we head into 2016, the world has never been more connected. With high speed internet, affordable air travel, and satellite TV, there world is literally a global village, one that is shrinking everyday. The sports world, like business or entertainment, has cottoned on to this new way of thinking and more and more, athletes are representing domestic and national teams in countries they were not born in. So what place does patriotism and national pride have in all this? If we are all united by a love for sport, and ideologies such as nationalism are outdated, is there any point in international competition? CONQA Sport explores.
Remember your first day at a new job? Were you nervous? Were you eager to impress straight away? Now imagine that you had the world’s eyes fixed firmly on your every move. Every decision you made, every experiment you attempted was scrutinised by millions of strangers. Now you get a sense of what Jürgen Klopp, the newly appointed manager of Liverpool FC must be feeling. To understand what challenges the new coach at a prominent team faces, CONQA Sport spoke with Gary Kirsten, former head coach of the Indian and South African national cricket teams
Every player wants to be in it, but stay out of it too long and your place in the team will be at risk. Form is something that every sports star, coach and fan can relate to but few know what it is or how to measure it. Its symptoms can be seen such as a batsman scoring runs or a striker scoring goals, but the notion of form remains open to interpretation. Paddy Upton, head coach of the Sydney Thunder (BBL) and the Rajasthan Royals (IPL) discusses the ideology of form and whether or not there is a method to ensuring one stays in it.
