Tony Annan is a soccer coach, but he’s also a student of other sports when it comes to learning and applying things to his own game. Whether it’s at South Carolina or in his previous coaching experience, the Gamecock men’s soccer coach likes to bend the ear of his colleagues in other sports to improve his own program.
“It started with the Atlanta Falcons when I was down there,” Annan said. “We had access to those guys, and I started to listen to how they would strategize, not just with their culture but how they structure their training and the things they do. When you’re involved with an elite sport and you get access to people like that, you have to listen because even though it’s not your sport, I think there is a ton of crossover in all different sports.
“In my past 20 years, I mostly focused on soccer. I’d go visit a soccer club or another academy or another coach that was doing well. As you get older, you broaden your horizons and open your mind a bit to other sports and even corporate. I have friends in corporate America, and even their strategies can sometimes be related to sports and management.”
Annan has been in the U.S. for nearly 30 years so it’s not unusual that he has taken in a lot of sports. He has come to love ice hockey and other sports as well. Annan is a former boxer, something that was common in his own family history. He also played rugby and also studied jiu-jitsu.
“I love ice hockey,” Annan said. “I love the movements. The movements on ice are relative to what I do. I love to watch pretty much any sport. I think all sports have some sort of link, whether it’s movement or method. There is something that connects them all. The movements in basketball are very similar to soccer. The movements of a wide receiver in football are very similar to wide player in soccer. Attacking wise, I think the movements in football are very similar to soccer in certain positions.
“I’m a big believer in the holistic development of youth. I’ve heard a stat that nearly every pro athlete was a multi-sport athlete until the age of 14. A multi-sport athlete develops different muscles and hand-eye coordination.”
While American football and soccer are vastly different in some ways, Annan found similarities.
“It was mostly culturally and the way they developed their culture in the locker room,” Annan said. “The way they used common themes to bring players or units together. Those are things that stuck out…