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The Premier League kicked off this weekend and one of the big talking points was Manchester United. It has been a big offseason for United with new coach Erik Ten Haag coming in and superstar Cristiano Ronaldo trying to force a move away from this club. Of course these topics made up much of the build up and the fall out from United’s defeat to Brighton on Sunday. It got me thinking about the coach-athlete relationship and how it may be applied to this situation.
The coach–athlete relationship refers to all situations in which a coach and athlete’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviours are inter-related (Jowett & Cockerill, 2003). The most frequently cited coach–athlete conceptual model in the sport psychology literature is Jowett’s (2007) 3 + 1 Cs framework.
These 4 constructs are:
Closeness - how much the coach and athlete care, support and value one an other
Commitment - the extent to which the coach and/or athlete intend to maintain their relationship together
Complimentarity - the extent to which the behaviours of the coach and athlete correspond to each other
Co-orientation - whether the coach and athlete have established common views regarding how the athlete may progress in their sport
When these 4 constructs of the model are present, it is a sign of a strong coach-athlete relationship, which has been linked to improved performance, happiness and an improved self-concept (Jowett and Cockerill, 2003; Jowett and Cramer, 2010). In contrast when coaches and athletes are engaged in a poor relationship, they may lack the commitment and desire to pursue ambitious objectives, are unwilling to work with each other to develop physical skills (e.g., new techniques), to overcome difficulties (e.g., injury) and in turn achieve important outcomes together.
From the outset we can see how these factors may not be in play between Ronaldo and Ten Haag. It is interesting to note that in many instances Ten Haag has attempted to display a commitment to Ronaldo, through reiterating his desire for Ronaldo to stay at the club and to extend their working relationship. This was also shown, in having Ronaldo come in against Brighton at the weekend, despite, having down little preseason training with the squad. This commitment doesn’t appear to be reflected with Ronaldo seeking a transfer all summer and flouting rules that Ten Haag had in place, for example leaving a friendly game against Rayo Vallecano at half-time.
In terms of closeness which has been described as including qualities such as trust, respect, appreciation, and liking among others - there certainly does seem to be aspects of these qualities between the two. Indeed Ronaldo said that was excited to work with him after his fantastic work with Ajax. Ten Haag has been quoted in the media speaking about how Ronaldo would be an important piece for United this season. However research by Jowett, Kanakoglou, & Passmore (2012) implicates the importance of communication as a component in the development of closeness in this sense. With Ronaldo spending most of the summer in Portugal away from United training, it could be that the channels for quality, face-to-face communication were limited, resulting in limited oportunities to build closeness.
Again, with both parties having spent little time together there has been minimal chances for the two to develop a sense of complimentarity through reciprocal behaviours. And, it could be argued that Ronaldo not turning up to training could be viewed as the opposite of cooperation with Ten Haag. Although when called upon by the coach in Saturday he was available.
As a result of the disjointed nature of closeness, commitment and complimentarity between Ronaldo and Ten Haag, the +1 factor Co-orientation factor, which represents the Iink between the other three constructs is lacking. Both athlete and coach seem to have differing views on how best to proceed.
This isn’t to say that the relationship has already run its course as these things take time to grow. It will be interesting if Ronaldo stays at United how this relationship will develop.
Again this is only a commentary from the outside looking in, so there are certainly aspects of the relationship that are unknown, but I thought it would just be interesting to look at the relationship through the 3+1 Cs lens.
References
Jowett, S., Kanakoglou, K., & Passmore, J. (2012). The application of the 3+ 1Cs relationship model in executive coaching. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 64(3), 183.
Jowett, S., & Poczwardowski, A. (2007). Understanding the coach-athlete relationship. Social psychology in sport, 6, 3-14.
Jowett, S., & Cockerill, I. M. (2003). Olympic medallists’ perspective of the althlete–coach relationship. Psychology of sport and exercise, 4(4), 313-331.
Jowett, S., & Cramer, D. (2010). The prediction of young athletes’ physical self from perceptions of relationships with parents and coaches. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11(2), 140-147.
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