@Damir Djukic thanks, great recommendations! did you ever try to actively install a winning culture, through players meetings, as a kickstarter for the season or whatever?

I'm flattened from last weekend's way we played - and subsequently the crushin result in a battle for relegation. Even though we repeatedly reminded the team that the opponents would surely come out firing in their own arena, we weren't ready for that. I guess my main takeaway is that it isn't sufficient to remind the players about that, but to create situations in training that represent this type of pressure - and maybe teach more resilience along the way.

This is very interesting to me. While I was still playing in Germany, we had the issue after being promoted. We felt like we got the short end of the stick regarding calls almost every game. It changed when the then appointed interim coach pushed us to 'show' fouls more clearly to the ref. Then explicitly, but in many other situations as well, this proved to be more successful, and it's hard to not turn to this option if you are facing relegation or promotion for example. To me personally, I think the referees (and their education) play a decisive role here. If they establish early that they won't fall for exaggerated reactions (holding the face, forcing a charge), players adapt. If they do not, it is very hard to advise your players to play the game the right way, if they are being punished for doing so (not flopping themselves, but being sent off if the opponent does so); especially in must-win games. I think the officiating in the 2nd half of last weekend's high-profile match between Magedburg and Berlin showed, how the upholding of sportsmanship standards can be achieved this way.

For drills, I often like to give freedom on how to find solutions for a situation, before offering advice if things don't work out/how else could we do it. There are many different ways of solving problems, and I don't want to minimize my players' horizons. Individually, in a best-case scenario, there are 2 coaches per session, where one can focus on general training design, and the other can offer more specific feedback. This is when I try to be both corrective and positively reinforcing. Lastly, I think a player's personality and his/her worries are often undervalued, so I try to include that as much as possible (which might get lost in hectic scenarios). Business and scientific research about leading a team highly values such aspects, and I think good coaches should do the same.

@Damir Djukic The boring answer - it depends. I think for younger players it tends to be more technical than tactical, but not always. For games, as we discussed before, I like to have one player subbing out for defence/attack, and most times I talk to them a lot, both technically and tactically, with a tendency to technique if it mainly concerns him. Same in time-outs: They are mostly tactical, but sometimes my feedback/advice might be focused on HOW to specifically/technically attack our opponents (why we are not generating great looks).

@Damir Djukic thanks for that, great numbers to maybe rethink my distribution (www.handballytics.de have some as well). Do you - outside of game, analyze the shots more specifically? F.ex.: If you generate great shots from the wing, you'd probably be looking at higher xG-value - and your attack does well, even though the numbers tell a (slightly) different story.