In season 3, episode 7…Ted and Beard have the players swap positions. What was the psychology/thinking behind NOT giving Jamie an opportunity to play in a different position?
It’s very possible that Ted was a far, far better coach than anyone ever realized. My theory (which yall might think is kind of out there) is that Ted understood that Jamie needed to figure out his role on his own. The idea that Jamie needed to balance being a team player while also playing like the best player is a major part of his arc and Ted did that in that practice to kinda make him uncomfortable with the idea of being the new Zava almost
In the system your technically best players controls the play because everything goes through him. With man City it was de Bruyne.
Now in this situation he’s their best player technically so to give him the ball he will do what you need to, to make the system work. Without Jamie the system fails. It’s why everyone around him can swap but he can’t he has to stay there.
When the ball goes to Jamie he has the ability to create space, the vision to make the pass. He is the key!
It was partly because they didn’t want to upset him and let him know he wasn’t the striker… they still thought they had to baby Jaime a little bit
I like to think that there’s two reasons.
- Jamie had come through the ranks at Pep’s Man City, and as beard points out in his presentation, Pep had adopted his own brand of total football at which means Jamie would have a good understanding of the system and how to be in different positions already.
- (I think this one could be more important). Jamie spent the second season becoming a team player and less of an absolute prick (paraphrasing Roy) and lost some of his prickish brilliance, which they tried to fix with their signal. They want Jamie to be Jamie, the real Jamie, the Prick. They don’t need him to pretend to be anyone else to get the message of what they’re trying to do.
I might be wrong and people will have their own opinions but these are mine.
i thought they wanted him to realize on his own that he’s willing to switch. because that was much stronger than making him switch. He originally in
season 1 says to Ted “coach, I’m me, why would i wanna be anyone else” and his hat says “ICON”,
but by not giving him anyone to switch with, they let him to the realization that he indeed can be a team player, he is willing to sacrifice himself to the team, switch,if necessary,etc.at the end, his hat says I,COG
I saw this as the writers really doing their football homework.
In the Johan Cruijff Total Football teams, he remained up front and was the focal point who had a series of constantly interchanging parts around him.
Jamie is the Cruijff of Richmond - he doesn’t need to and shouldn’t leave his position because he needs to be the focal point who everything runs through.
i think the psychology/thinking was exactly what shows later when Jamie gives his “Stop going to meh and start going through meh” speech. He originally in
season 1 says to Ted “coach, I’m me, why would i wanna be anyone else” and his hat says “ICON”, at the end it says “I,COG”
…by not giving him anyone to switch with, they let him to the realization that he indeed can be a team player, he is willing to sacrifice himself to the team, switch,if necessary,etc.