This past week, the PCB proved once again that when it comes to drama and entertainment, it can match any Turkish TV soap we can import to dub into Urdu. Once the dust settled, one of the main conclusions to come out was Moin Khan’s appointment as the Head Coach of the national team ahead of Waqar Younis, who had emerged as the other front runner for the job. Prior to Moin’s appointment, everyone had an opinion over who would be the better choice. However, one thing that was unanimously seen as a strong positive for both Moin and Waqar was the fact that both had distinguished playing careers. Many considered a successful playing career a necessary prerequisite for the coaching job.

Coaches who have played and won at the top level know what it takes. They’ve been there, done that, so it’s easier for them to show their players how it’s done. That’s the argument usually made by those who believe a playing past is necessary for a good coach. But is that the right criteria to have for a sports coaching role? Is it important for a sports coach to have an accomplished playing career? Do great players make great coaches?

Pep Guardiola, Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer are often mentioned as examples of great football players who went on to become great managers; rightly so too, having won almost everything there is to be won in both capacities. In cricket, Gary Kirsten is perhaps the best recent example. An accomplished opener during this playing days, as a coach he took India to the top of the Test rankings and World Cup glory in 2011. He then went on lead his native South Africa to the top of the Test rankings. The abysmal performance at the recent Ashes aside, Andy Flower can also claim to be in the same boat as Kirsten given England’s achievements in the past 5 years under his stewardship -- 3 Ashes wins, No 1 Test ranking in 2011 and a World T20 title.

However, for each successful player-turned-coach, one can name several former superstar players who have flopped as coaches. Diego Maradona, one the world’s best-ever footballers, had an unsuccessful stint as manager of the Argentina national side; a stint that came to an end when Argentina were routed 4-0 by Germany in the quarterfinals of the 2010 World Cup. His only other managerial experience since then has been at UAE club Al Wasl, who sacked him after one year. Michel Platini and Bobby Charlton are two other examples of great footballers who never took off as managers. Former baseball legend Ted Williams, ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, and former NFL great Mike Singletary are examples of players from other sports too who have tried their hand at coaching and failed. In cricket, we have to look no further than at home to find a fitting example. Javed Miandad, one of the game’s finest ever batsmen, had a topsy-turvy experience as the Pakistan coach. His three stints in the role were characterised by mediocre results and constant bickering from players about his hands-on approach.

The fact of the matter is this -- being a great player does not guarantee success as a coach. There’s no doubt a coach can provide a lot of valuable lessons to his players from his own success as a player, but that is only if the coach is effectively able to channel those experiences into a coherent message for the players. Taking it one step further, it can perhaps be claimed that an exceptional playing career can in fact sometimes work to the detriment of the coach. Rather than being an asset, it can become a liability. In the case of some great players, their talent is natural. Playing comes easier to them than most. They do not need to be as thorough students of the game as their more ‘mortal’ peers to be successful players. As a result, when they become coaches, they have a hard time relating to their players. Rather than acknowledging the fact that each of their players have their own individual strengths and weaknesses, they begin to judge their players by the unfair standards of their own playing careers.

Even when a coach manages to successfully turn his playing career into added strength, he or she only ticks one of the many boxes required to be a successful coach. Coaching, especially at the highest level, is far more about managing and motivating personalities than it is about teaching players how to play. There is only so much technical improvement a coach can bring in a player at that level. Instead, the main job of coaches is to know the strengths and limitations of each of their players, and to know what motivates them. They need to find what really makes their players tick.

Guardiola himself is a testament to this. After retiring as a player, he spent over a year just studying the game, and meeting his mentors in different parts of the world, before taking his first steps into coaching. One famous anecdote from his year of research is his meeting with renowned Argentinian coach Marcelo Bielsa. Guardiola travelled to Argentina specifically to meet Bielsa and ended up having a conversation that lasted 11 long hours. They ran through man-marking routines using a chair in the garden. Guardiola understood that despite his success as a player, he needed to study coaching as a new trade.

But just as technical prowess doesn’t guarantee good leadership, a lack of technical expertise doesn’t preclude someone from being a great leader. There are numerous examples of great coaches across various sports who had modest playing careers, or in some cases, had no playing experience at all. In cricket, there is arguably no better example than John Buchanan who, despite only having 7 first-class matches to his name as a player, led Australia through one of its most successful eras including a world-record 16 consecutive Test match victories and 2 World Cups. In football, Carlos Parreira is someone who never played yet managed 25 teams and is a World Cup winner with Brazil. Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho are perhaps the most well-known names in this category. Ferguson had an ordinary professional playing career but his managerial career is undoubtedly one of the greatest the game has ever seen. Jose Mourinho, whose achievements include winning the Champions League twice with different clubs and the domestic league titles in four countries, never played professional football. He got his breakthrough into football management by way of being an interpreter for the late Sir Bobby Robson during his stints as manager of Sporting CP, Porto and Barcelona.

However, despite all the names and stories mentioned so far, any discussion on this subject would be incomplete without the name, Arrigo Saachi, considered one of the finest football coaches Italy has ever produced. His AC Milan side, the last team to win the European Cup in consecutive years, was previously considered the benchmark of footballing excellence, prior to Barcelona’s glory years under Guardiola. Having never played as a professional, Sacchi firmly believes football needs to become more open to more non-playing coaches. As he famously put it when questioned during his own coaching career: "I never realised that to become a jockey you needed to be a horse first."