Science of the half-time team talk: Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid among those consulting Minute9 in search of an edge

Carlo Ancelotti has won the Champions League five times as a coach, more than anyone else, but he is still willing to learn. He recently spent over seven hours with a boutique sports communication company talking him through the science of the half-time team talk.

That Eamon Devlin, founder of Minute9, and his team of four data analysts have delivered a number of workshop to Real Madrid, the reigning champions of Europe, is probably a clue in itself that football is yet to find the best way to utilise what is surely the most important 15 minutes of the coaching week.

“People will not look for a solution unless they think it is a problem,” Devlin tells Sky Sports. And yet, this is a sport that can be sceptical about new ideas, especially from outsiders. “There can be a reluctance. But the top coaches always find time to learn, especially those based in continental Europe.”

How did an Irish lawyer turned Gaelic football coach end up offering team-talk insight to the most successful manager in the history of European football? It is a story that began while living in Switzerland when Devlin’s daughter Zoe was on the receiving end of a nine-minute rant from her coach.

She was 10 years old.

“That was it for her,” Devlin tells Sky Sports. “She just left the team and did not come back. That is why we called the company Minute9.” It is one little anecdote but Devlin has heard many since. “Where do I start? Everyone in sport has got their own half-time story.”

There are tales to tell. There is the one about the player ordered to remove their shirt before the manager trampled on it to illustrate that his opponent had walked all over him. How about the player who had the temerity to leave the field with an injury.

“The manager came in and just walked straight over to him, grabbed the ice pack, threw it at the guy and asked him if he was going soft.” Horror story or motivation tool? Devlin regards all of this as evidence of managers failing to fully recognise what actually works.

It is almost 30 years now since John Sitton’s infamous half-time team talk was captured on camera, the Leyton Orient boss offering out one of his players with the expletive-riddled addendum that he should ‘bring his dinner’ – but Sitton was no lone voice.

“What happens is that when teams are losing, the trend is for coaches to speak more. We would argue they should speak less. Players’ brains are on fire. They are well aware if they are getting battered. They probably do not need someone to tell them that.”

For personal reasons, Devlin, 46, pivoted from law to psychology, choosing the subject of the half-time team talk for his dissertation – only to find that literature on the subject was limited. “There were only nine published papers in the world, among all sports.”

He is now doing a PhD on the subject at Leeds Beckett University – “the first in the world on football half-times” – his research encompassing interviews with former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and England’s World Cup winning coach Sir Clive Woodward among many, many others.

“I interviewed coaches in America and Australia, widened the research to other sports, but similar themes kept coming back. The results were not good. Players were just not overly enthused by what they were hearing at half-time.” It was a missed opportunity.

“The psychological themes accounted for roughly 60 percent. The message was basically ‘work harder’. And we should be doing that more emotionally charged stuff, but if you are doing that twice a week in professional football, it loses its impact.

“We kind of realised there is quite a big gap between what players want to happen and what coaches want to happen. Players are not getting actual information. Coaches are not getting engagement. That is not ideal because you could argue it is the crucial time.”

Making those precious minutes as impactful as possible is the key. Devlin has found that some sports do this better than others, citing basketball coaches and boxing trainers as among the most effective at getting their message across efficiently.

“In boxing, there are 11 ‘half-times’ but there is no time to waffle. There is a very famous boxing trainer in Ireland called Billy Walsh who explained to me the heart rate of an Olympic boxer is between 85 to 100 per cent of its maximum for the entire bout.

“That is basically an 11-minute sprint – three round and two one-minute breaks. How do you communicate with someone literally trying to survive? A hand on the shoulder can bring the heart rate down quite quickly. They have learned to be concise and clear.”

Devlin is not permitted to name most of the Minute9 clients and does not want to reveal all the secrets, saving those for the workshops and longer-term team communication assignments, but that is the core message to all football managers out there. “Basically, we try to make teams more effective by cutting up those 900 seconds.”

The average half-time speech lasts for five minutes and 30 seconds. Devlin tries to bring that down to just 60 seconds. “What we see is coaches losing people just by blasting them with information. And players just zone out. We try to make sure they are present and ready to listen.”

He adds: “First of all, we try to ensure players have landed after the half-time whistle, that they have actually calmed down. We develop strategies to help players because they can be extremely anxious. You are unlikely to listen in a moment of stress.”

Devlin even looked beyond sport for inspiration. “Hospital staff in A&E have to deal with 20 people coming in at once and there are protocols in place for that. We also studied air-traffic controllers because they have complicated decisions to make,” he explains.

“That is a particularly high-pressured environment. Air-traffic controllers would not see the end of their shift if they started shouting bad language at pilots in the air. The best chance of getting your message across is by being calm and concise.”

Being heard helps. “One of the challenges in football is that they have very big coaching teams.” Devlin mentions one Premier League team with 28 staff in the room for away games. “One of the first things we try to establish is who exactly is in the dressing room,” he says.

“We have had chairman in there, board members, sporting directors, sponsors, people getting shirts signed, shareholders, bankers. People say that it does not matter because they are not saying anything but that does not mean they are not communicating.

“The challenge is the power dynamics in that room. Players wonder who is in charge. As soon as they are thinking that, you have lost their attention. Keep it simple. Generally, just try to clear the room. It gives managers more chance of being listened to.”

One piece of information clearly imparted works better than half a dozen. “The long and short of the issue is too much information. If you overload the brain with information, it just gives up.” And sometimes, that information might not even need to be vocalised.

Some people learn better through visual aids. “It is about finding ways to get messages across without using words.” And that has never been more important in a globalised game. “It is like the United Nations in these rooms. You have to change your method of communication beyond one long speech in a singular language.”

So far, so sensible. But some of Devlin’s insights are a little more counter-intuitive. For example, despite him discouraging shouting at the players, his research has suggested that there can be too much positive communication. It needs to have real meaning.

“Just saying ‘well done’ may be seen by Generation Z as a form of control. That’s me, the old bald guy, judging you. The other problem with ‘well done’ is that you have just played 45 minutes of football and made 300 decisions. Which bit did you do well? All of them?”

Ensuring the feedback is specific is more likely to have a bigger impact. “A better way might be to say that I have noticed you have been doing your work in the gym and that helped you to make a certain number of attacking runs into the box,” he adds.

“That way, you are not just noticing what they have done, you are highlighting what they did well. Therefore, they can try to repeat it, right? Attacking runs are good , therefore they will try to do more of it. That is a simplified version but you understand the point.”

Perhaps most surprisingly of all, Devlin is open to the idea of players being able to use their mobile phones during the half-time interval. While checking social media is probably unwise, making sure loved ones are safe and well could prove reassuring.

“Coaches might block phone use for the right reasons but when I get stressed, I scroll my phone,” he explains. “I get pretty jittery if I have not checked it. That is my way of dealing with stress and I do not think I am the only person in the world who does that.”

It is an intriguing thought and Devlin himself does not claim to have all the answers. But in a sport where everyone seeks an edge, it is perhaps inevitable that fresh approaches to that precious interval are being debated by the forward-thinking – Ancelotti included.

Ultimately, the skill of the coach remains paramount. “The best coaches have different records to play at half-time. They might have a collection of at least six records, ideally more, and it is about choosing to play the right one at the right moment,” says Devlin.

Still an art, then. But there is science to the half-time team talk, too.

What happened to Zoe?

The good news is that while daughter Zoe never did return to her team in Switzerland, she did start playing football again after a three-year absence following the family’s move to England. She now plays for Oxford City academy and is enjoying the game again.