The Pros and Cons of Hiring Foreign Coaches |
| The badminton coach plays an important role in every player's life and career. Their influence and presence can be so powerful that young players and players who want to succeed in the game of badminton constantly look up to them for guidance. |
For today's topic, I would like to discuss about the pros and cons of hiring foreign coaches. One of the countries, which are known for hiring foreign coaches, is Malaysia. Since foreign coaches train the Malaysian players, they tend to produce better performances in international tournaments, especially in doubles.
One of the advantages of hiring a foreign coach is that our local players tend to get trained with the new training methods. The new training methods that are brought in by foreign coaches may make a very big difference in their game.
One of these foreign coaches is the legendary doubles player Rexy Mainaky who is currently training Malaysia's doubles players. Since he took over as the Malaysian Men's doubles team coach, they seem to be playing more like the mighty Indonesians who dominated the sport in the past.
Local players can gain new knowledge and ability that are passed on by different coaching methods. Take Malaysia's top player Lee Chong Wei, for example. About 4 or 5 years ago, Chong Wei was seen to be one of the backup players when the local coach Misbun Sidek trained the Malaysian team.
He was playing a very defensive game at that time. However under the tutelage of the foreign coach Li Mao, Chong Wei's game has achieved a new dimension and his attacking game has improved a lot. By gaining the new training method, Chong Wei, now, has a solid defence, imparted by local coach Misbun and a decisive attacking game developed by Li Mao.
But there is a flip side to this trend too. Let us now examine the bad effects or disadvantages of hiring foreign coaches. According to Malaysia's legendary Datuk Eddy Choong, Malaysia must eventually rely on local coaches and they should be given more opportunities to prove themselves. And that includes Misbun, who still makes it a point to take part in local competitions despite being 46 years old.
In coaching, as in all businesses, you can bring in foreigners but you must affect the transfer of technology and expertise to the locals because the loyalty factor far outweighs everything else. Take the example of other strong Badminton nations such as Indonesia, China and Denmark, which currently rely on their local coaches and former players to train their current crop of players.
To conclude, hiring foreign coaches is all well, but the local coach cannot be abandoned. No matter how good the foreign coach is our locals still play an important role in developing the country's standard. Until now, Malaysia's Misbun Sidek has contributed a lot towards training the young players and grooming them to represent the country in the future.
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