The Would-Have-Beens: Why Talent Alone Has Never Been Enough
Part 4 of a series of articles on developing players by Rein van Eijk, head coach of the Belgian national women's team
A follow-up to “More Than Talent” and “The Ones We Leave Behind” — from early advantages to elite excellence: why resilience, collaboration, and sacrifice still define the journey.
In "The Ones We Leave Behind," I wrote about the could-have-beens—the ones who, through no fault of their own, didn’t get the time or trust they needed to truly discover what they were capable of. They didn’t lack heart, or drive, or spark. What they lacked was room to grow. Patience. People who saw the long arc rather than the short-term snapshot. And I argued, as I still believe, that we need to build better systems for these kids—longer pathways, later selections, fewer closed doors. Because potential doesn't always show itself in the first act.
But alongside the could-have-beens walks another group, harder to spot, harder to speak about honestly.
The self-proclaimed would-have-beens.
They’re the ones we’ve all heard. The guy at the barbecue who tells you how he almost played pro. The former youth star who insists they had what it took, but life got in the way. The ones who say they would’ve made it, if only… If only they’d had a different coach, or trained harder, or avoided that injury, or been given the chance someone else got.
They speak with conviction. Some even believe it. And to be fair, in their own memory, it might feel true. But after years immersed in the realities of coaching, mentoring, selecting, and developing players—after seeing promising talent thrive, stall, or quietly disappear—I can say this with as much compassion as conviction: most of them are wrong. Not because they didn’t have potential, but because they dramatically underestimate what it truly takes to go the distance. They see a snapshot of their younger self and confuse aptitude with readiness, effort with endurance, a flash of promise with a fire that never stops burning. And while their stories may feel compelling, they are often constructed without a full understanding of what separates the dreamers from the doers.
Because what it takes to "make it"—truly make it, all the way to the elite level—is never just what you see on the surface. It’s not just about being good. It’s about being good enough for long enough, in the right places, under pressure, across environments, and in moments where excuses don’t matter anymore.
What If Everything You Think About Talent Is Wrong?
The first mistake most of these self-proclaimed would-have-beens make is misunderstanding what talent actually means. When people throw the word around, they usually mean someone has good hands. That they’re fast, or read the game well, or scored a lot when they were young. And yes, those things matter. But they’re only a slice of the picture.
Talent is any early advantage. It includes technical skills and physical gifts, of course, but it also includes psychological composure, the ability to learn quickly, self-organization, emotional stability, and yes— even things like sleep habits, diet, and support networks. A teenager who learns to structure their life, balance school and training, recover well, and stay consistent is showing a form of talent that won’t make a highlight reel but will absolutely separate them five years down the line.
And especially in team sports—complex, fast, ever-evolving team sports—one of the most crucial, undervalued talents is the ability to operate within a group. To play a role. To connect. To elevate others. Being a great teammate isn’t just nice—it’s decisive. Because coaches don’t just select individuals. They build teams. And if you’re technically gifted but emotionally selfish, if you shrink when the attention shifts or disrupt the group when things don’t go your way, you’re not helping. And you won’t last.
I’ve seen players who didn’t have the flashiest skills, but made others better every time they stepped onto the pitch. We won the junior world cup with a center back without a flashy long pass. But he could defend, he could organise, and he could lead. I've coached teams where the captains were not the most athletic players, nor did they have the biggest game intelligence, or even sometimes they would not be the best decision makers. But us coaches trusted them. Teams relied on them. That’s a massive talent as well.
And here’s where we need to take a long, honest look at ourselves as coaches, as selectors, as systems. If we’re going to talk seriously about talent, talent identification, or player assessment, then we need to be very clear about what it is we’re actually looking at. And not just in buzzwords or instinct, but in terms we can define, explain, and defend.
For me, when we assess players, we need to go beyond the surface. Too often, we fall back on gut feeling or default to raw technical ability—but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Talent in complex team sports reveals itself through many layers, and no two coaches will always see the same thing in the same player. And that’s okay. In fact, I think it’s a strength—not a weakness—if we can admit we interpret things differently.
Why? Because in complex, dynamic, context-rich environments like ours, objectivity is a myth. What we should strive for instead is clarity and structured intersubjectivity — that is, building shared constructs and frameworks that allow us to talk about what we see in consistent, transparent ways.
If we can create a culture where we tell our players, 'Here’s how I see you, based on these specific constructs,' then even when there's disagreement, there’s also direction. It’s not vague. It’s not arbitrary. And players have something to work with. We owe that to them.
Ultimately, it’s about moving beyond opinion dressed up as truth. It’s about admitting that evaluation is, by nature, subjective — but that doesn’t mean it can’t be structured. And when we do that, we allow for development that is not only more fair, but far more effective.
Over time, I’ve come to work with eight core parameters that shape how I assess a player’s potential— not to reduce them to a checklist, but to bring structure to what is ultimately a subjective process. They’re not perfect. They’re not universal. But they help me name what I value, and more importantly, they help me explain that to the player standing in front of me. For me, these eight parameters are:
Athletic abilities — How well does the player's body support their game? Can they accelerate, decelerate, repeat high-intensity actions, recover, and hold their own in physical duels? This speaks not only to natural explosiveness or durability, but also to the capacity to cope with the increasing physiological load of elite sport.
Technical, sport-specific abilities — Do they consistently execute the fundamental and advanced skills of their position at pace, under pressure, in small spaces and big moments?
Game awareness and understanding — How well do they read the game? Do they adapt to changing situations, understand structure, and make decisions that fit the context? The best players often have superior decision-making skills developed through experience, feedback, and environmental variability.
Social competence — What is their impact on the group? Can they connect, communicate, listen, support, challenge? According to Coté and Gilbert (2009), effective team athletes tend to show higher emotional and interpersonal intelligence, both of which are essential for maintaining cohesion and psychological safety in performance environments.
Position-specific qualities — Do they understand their role and what success looks like within it?
Effectiveness / Impact — Do they influence outcomes? Are they efficient, reliable, and able to make good decisions count? Can the player's contribution to team success be reliably quantified not just by volume (touches, runs) but by value? To what extend does their ability turn actions into advantages consistently.
X-Factor — Do they bring something unique that can change a game? It might be flair or consistency, or a mindset that makes them indispensable. In certain sports it might be unique selling points like a free kick taker in football, or a drag flicker in hockey for example.
Willingness and capacity to learn — Are they coachable? Curious? Willing to do the work when no one is watching? Carol Dweck’s work on mindset (2006) reminds us that those with a growth mindset and self-driven reflection are more likely to engage in productive struggle — the kind that drives long-term growth and resilience.
Taken together, these eight parameters help form a more holistic, honest view of a player—not just where they are now, but what they might become. And when we as coaches can be open about the lens through which we’re looking, we create something powerful: a culture of clarity and trust.
Because in the end, I believe this: the most respectful thing we can do is tell a player, “This is how I see you right now. This is why. And here’s where we go from here.” Even if they disagree—and sometimes they will—at least they’re not left in the dark. They’re not guessing. They know what we’re working on. And they know the door stays open if they’re willing to step through it.
I always ask myself the following question: does it not, in essence, mean that when you are a coach or a trainer, you help people change? A trainer might help develop, perfect or acquire new skills, and therefore let a new and changed player prevail. A coach might ask questions, and help a player become the better version of him or herself. Is the essence of this profession not that people can change? If so, then why do we not have pathways and selection checkpoints that resemble exactly this ideology? Should we not make sure we always assess players based on more longitudinal perceptions and observations?
If You Can’t Run, You Can’t Play
Then there’s physicality — the one factor that continues to be downplayed by some, as if sharp tactical understanding or excellent technical touch could somehow substitute for it. But let’s not sugarcoat it: in today’s game, if you can’t run, you can’t play.
In every top-level environment I’ve worked in — across countries, styles, and levels — physical robustness has moved from being an edge to being the bare minimum. It’s not enough to be smart. It’s not enough to be skilled. If you can’t handle the demands of repeat high-speed efforts, dynamic directional changes, body contact, pressing, tracking, recovery — then you are not prepared for what the modern game requires. You become a tactical liability, a weakness in the system, no matter how clever you are between the ears.
And let’s be clear: this isn’t just about sprint speed. It’s about repeatability. It’s about durability. It’s about the ability to perform the same explosive movement in the 55th minute that you performed in the 5th. This is the physiological backbone of modern high-performance sport.
The literature supports this shift. Gabbett’s (2016) research on workload and injury risk points to the vital role of chronic physical conditioning in both performance and long-term athlete sustainability. Likewise, studies across team sports consistently show that acceleration, deceleration, and repeated sprint ability are differentiators at the elite level — not luxuries, but essentials.
That doesn’t mean every athlete has to be an Olympic-level sprinter. But they do need to meet the game where it is. Because the game, right now, is relentlessly fast, physically intense, and increasingly demanding (in this case hockey, but I am certain this goes for all sports nowadays). If a player cannot physically keep pace, their other qualities can’t be fully expressed.
So while we can and should value intelligence, skill, and vision — we must also understand that without physical readiness, those traits remain theoretical. In today’s high-performance context, physicality isn’t optional. It’s the ticket to entry.
Sacrifice: One of the elementary Skills That Doesn’t Show on Stat Sheets
One of the most consistently overlooked intangibles — and one that the self-proclaimed would-have-beens nearly always fail to recognize — is sacrifice. And that’s largely because sacrifice doesn’t look or feel like a skill. It’s not celebrated in highlight reels, not quantifiable on a stat sheet. But make no mistake: it’s always there, quietly but relentlessly present in every elite athlete’s journey.
Every top-level player I’ve worked with, across different cultures, systems, and styles, has made a series of decisions that separated them from the rest. They gave things up—things that many others considered non-negotiables. Time with friends. Nights out. School trips. Weekends away. They chose discomfort over convenience, often more than once, often without anyone watching. They didn’t just love the game — they architected their life around it.
Because no one becomes great from 9 to 5. Excellence doesn’t happen in the hours left over after a full schedule of everything else. It demands something deeper—sacrifice, focus, and a reordering of priorities that few are truly willing to embrace.
During my own playing days, I remember one teammate vividly. He wasn’t on the top youth team at his club—he played in the second U18s, got overlooked for selections, and initially didn’t stand out in any obvious way. But what he lacked in early prestige, he made up for in something far more rare: unwavering commitment. After every training session, when most had already hit the showers or moved on to post-practice drinks, he stayed behind to hit 100 more balls. Quietly. Alone. Relentlessly. He didn’t join for nights out. He didn’t need anyone to watch. He simply put in the work, again and again. Years later, that same player became a Dutch national team member.
He wasn't gifted with a golden pathway. He created one. Not because someone gave it to him, but because he built it from repetitions and rejections, from missed parties and early mornings. He showed that sacrifice isn't just some romantic ideal — it's the actual architecture behind elite performance.
Who’s the last person you saw make this kind of choice? Tag them, they deserve credit.
What people often mistake for talent is, in reality, compounded effort — a layering of daily sacrifices, subtle adjustments, consistent behaviors that accumulate like interest. Sacrifice isn’t just a cost — it’s an investment. And those who think they could’ve made it "if only they’d tried harder" often miss the deeper point: trying harder isn't an isolated sprint. It’s a daily discipline. A long-term identity. A version of yourself you keep choosing, even when it's lonely, even when it hurts.
Sacrifice makes you different — not because you're better, but because you're willing to live differently. And that difference, over time, becomes the margin that matters most.
The Greatest Hits of Almost: Excuses We Tell Ourselves
Over the years, certain phrases tend to resurface; excuses that sound convincing, even honest, but reveal a deeper misunderstanding of what it really takes to make it. They’re part rationalization, part regret, and they can trap both players and coaches in narratives that protect the ego, rather than expose the truth.
Understanding these narratives isn’t just about debunking myths — it’s about clarifying what separates fleeting talent from long-term excellence. Because in each excuse lies a missed opportunity to name the real intangibles that make a difference: discipline, resilience, delayed gratification, team ability, and self-awareness. When we brush these stories off or leave them unchallenged, we risk confusing surface-level talent with substance — and we fail to coach for what actually matters.
These aren't just personal stories; they’re cultural myths we often fail to challenge. And if we want to build development systems that reflect what elite performance really takes, we need to be honest about the stories we let slide. So let’s look at some of the classics, and what they really say.
“I didn’t train that much, but I was still really good.” Then you weren’t good enough. Being good in low-effort, low-stakes environments doesn’t mean you were ever going to survive the relentless grind of elite sport. At best, it means you had potential in an untested world. But elite sport isn't built on maybes. It’s built on hours. On obsession. On learning to love the lonely reps. If training wasn’t a priority then, you lacked one of the most fundamental building blocks of success: the willingness to do the work long before results arrive.
“If I hadn’t gotten injured…” Yes, injuries matter. And yes, they can change a path. But almost every elite athlete I’ve ever worked with has an injury story — some with multiple surgeries, long layoffs, even career doubts. What sets them apart isn’t that they didn’t get hurt. It’s how they came back. Did you rehab properly? Did you come back better conditioned, more focused, more grateful to compete? Or did the injury become a permanent asterisk in your personal narrative? Of course careers get ruined due to injury, and if this really applies to you, then do ignore this segment. But nevertheless, let's not underestimate the necessity of Resilience in high performance. And resilience isn’t avoiding setbacks — it’s using them.
“My coach didn’t believe in me.” That’s painful — and sometimes, it’s valid. Coaches can get it wrong. But belief at the highest level is rarely unconditional. It’s earned through persistence, consistency, and proof of growth. Sometimes the question needs to flip: did you give your coach something to believe in? Not once, but over and over? Belief isn’t given out freely — not because coaches are cruel, but because high performance demands conviction. And conviction comes from evidence.
“I didn’t care that much at the time.” That’s exactly why it didn’t happen. Because you have a short window, and it closes faster than you think. The players who make it don’t just care when it’s convenient. They care on Monday mornings. They care when no one is watching. They care through fatigue, through benchings, through silence. If it didn’t matter to you when the moments were there, then it probably never mattered enough. And that’s okay. But own that. Don’t pretend you were close when the fire wasn’t even lit.
“Politics kept me out.” Sport isn’t always fair. Systems are flawed. Coaches have biases. And yes, sometimes politics play a role. But the players who go furthest are the ones who make themselves undeniable. They put up numbers. They lead teams. They grow. They get so consistent, so versatile, so resilient that even if politics delayed them, they still arrive. Because in the end, sport loves winners. And if you kept winning — in training, in attitude, in growth — you’d find your way in.
These aren’t just stories. They’re protective narratives. They let us explain why the dream didn’t happen without confronting the possibility that we didn’t really do what it takes. But growth starts with honesty. And that honesty might just be the real bridge to whatever comes next.
Which of these narratives have you heard, or even said, before? Let’s talk.
Timing, Luck, and the Myth of the Missed Call
Let me be honest, and very clear about this: luck matters. Timing matters. And yes, being in the right place at the right time has propelled many athletes into visibility — especially in complex, competitive sporting ecosystems where performance alone is not always the sole currency. There’s ample research to back this: for example, Abbott and Collins (2004) noted in their work on talent development that chance events and non-linear pathways often play a major role in elite athlete progression.
But here's the hard truth: luck rarely carries anyone the whole way. Luck without readiness is a missed opportunity. Timing without preparation is a story that ends too soon. Readiness — that persistent state of physical, mental, and emotional preparation — is built over time, through effort, exposure, and daily choices. So while we must acknowledge that luck and timing play undeniable roles, we can’t mistake them for reliable systems.
This is exactly why I’ll always argue against early centralization and overly narrow pipelines. If randomness and timing influence selection — and they do — then the most responsible, performance- friendly response is to widen the funnel. Keep pathways open longer. Create more checkpoints. Provide second chances. Let more flowers bloom. And stop pretending that every late bloomer is just a late arrival; sometimes, they’re the real thing that took time to show itself.
Real Adversity Doesn’t Cut You — It Teaches You
Adversity isn’t something to avoid. It’s something to learn through — but that doesn’t mean we should turn it into exclusion. One of the greatest missteps I’ve seen in talent development is the misguided notion that cutting players from a pathway builds resilience. That’s not adversity. That’s elimination. And it’s not only counterproductive — it’s a form of negligence.
True adversity should be built within the pathway, designed into the learning process, not used as a test of worthiness. A dip in form, a stretch of limited progress, a growth-related injury — these are not reasons to eject players from a system. They are normal, even expected stages of development. And when systems are built with compassion, structure, and foresight, these moments become fuel, not failure.
Scientific research supports this. Collins and MacNamara (2012) in their work on the Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence (PCDEs) emphasize that resilience is most effectively nurtured through exposure to challenge supported by reflection and feedback, not through arbitrary deselection. The very idea that athletes become better by being dropped is flawed pedagogy. Setbacks must be navigable, not fatal.
I’ve witnessed firsthand the careless removal of talented young players — often with the rationale that "this will show them what it takes." But in practice, what it shows them is that opportunity is brittle and belief is conditional. Talent is a rarity. When you’re working within or leading a pathway, you must treat it as such. Not by lowering the bar, but by strengthening the bridge.
There are many examples of 16-year-old players with huge upside who hits a plateau during a transitional year. This is a time we tend to cut players from pathways ever too often if you ask me. Instead of being sidelined or demoted, this player could also be enrolled in an individualized training plan, paired with a mentor, and given clear, measurable objectives. Even something as simple as changing their environment for a couple of weeks — a short exchange, a training, or a camp with another group — can reframe the challenge and reignite growth.
We should be designing pathways that expect adversity and prepare for it. We want to build athletes who are robust, not fragile. But fragility is often created by how we respond to struggle, not by the struggle itself. The setback should be a slope to climb, not a cliff to fall off. The fire still matters — just don’t burn the bridge they need to cross.
Make the Path Wider — Not the Standards Lower
All of this is why I’ll keep fighting for longer development pathways—not because I believe we should make it easier to reach the top, but because I’ve seen too often how narrow timelines and premature decisions choke out potential. We don't need to lower the bar. We need to give more people the chance to reach it.
Making things "harder in a better way" means building a system where adversity is part of the curriculum, not a reason for exclusion. It means understanding that development is non-linear and that some players need more time—not because they lack drive, but because their growth simply unfolds differently.
The bar stays high. The expectations stay sharp. But the timeline stretches because we recognise that excellence often emerges late, and true talent doesn't always come pre-packaged. That's not softness. That’s smart, evidence-informed design. That’s what respectful and responsible coaching looks like in the modern age.
Treat talent like the rare thing it is. Nurture it, challenge it, protect it. Don’t discard it for the sake of a quota or a false notion of teaching toughness through rejection. We don’t build resilience by slamming doors shut—we build it by keeping doors open and designing meaningful tests along the way.
Let’s not just talk potential. Let’s honor it.
So what does it take? It takes talent, yes—real, broad, multidimensional talent. It takes a love for the process, not just the outcome. It takes physical readiness, psychological stability, tactical clarity. It takes planning. Patience. Sacrifice. Self-awareness. Grit. It takes a quiet fire that doesn’t go out, even when no one else believes in you yet.
And from our side—from those who coach, mentor, and create the systems—what it takes is a commitment to building environments that reflect this complexity. That don’t reduce talent to a single snapshot in time, but treat development as a living, breathing journey. That don’t confuse early bloomers with finished products, or late bloomers with afterthoughts. That have the courage to resist shortcuts, and the humility to admit that identifying talent is not an exact science.
Because in the end, our job isn’t to make flawless predictions. It’s to build resilient ecosystems where talent can emerge, where potential can fail safely, where athletes learn what it really takes before being judged for not having it.
Let’s reduce the number of could-have-beens—the ones who deserved more time, more care, more opportunity. Let’s stop glorifying the self-proclaimed would-have-beens who never really showed up when it counted.
Let’s talk honestly. Let’s design bravely. Let’s challenge wisely. And above all, let’s stay close to the people in front of us—the ones who are actually trying.
Potential without perseverance is a half-built bridge. Talent without sacrifice is a story half-written.
Let’s stop writing half-stories. Let’s build the full ones.
About Rein van Eijk
Red Panthers Head Coach | Culture, coffee & counterpress | Helping good players become great teammates | One pass at a time
Previous masterclass with Rein van Eijk ↓
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Make sure to join us when we go live on June 27 with a new masterclass by GB coaches Jon Bleby and Mark Bateman ↓
