Sporting Club Jacksonville turned heads globally when they announced that Mark Warburton will be the club’s first Head of Soccer. The Londoner has succeeded at the highest levels of European soccer and looks forward to a new challenge stateside.
It’s a unique opportunity in more than one way. After serving at clubs like Rangers, West Ham and Nottingham Forest, he will take charge of Jacksonville’s first-ever professional women’s sports team. Additionally, the league will have only existed for one season when Sporting JAX kicks off in August. Such a new situation can make it tricky, meaning his top-notch experience will be critical as he looks to build a successful club.
Getting Started
Perhaps the most important aspect of Warburton’s role in these early days is selecting the individuals that will lead Sporting JAX’s teams. As a former coach, he understands how crucial it is to let them do their jobs without excessive hovering.
“My job is never to tell the coach what team to pick or what formation to play. That’s what the coach gets paid for. My job is to support him or her in that responsibility,” Warburton said.
It’s his experience as a manager at Europe’s highest levels that provides priceless value as he appoints the tactical leaders of his new club. The level of understanding that comes with the pressure of Europe has shown him what it takes to be a successful coach, which he looks to translate into this new opportunity.
“You have to create an environment that’s conducive to learning and to development, but one that the players and staff enjoy coming to every day,” Warburton said. “If you enjoy going to work, you enjoy being a better person, better end product and everything is geared towards success on the field…”
There will still be standards, of course. He zeroed in on things like identity, intensity and ball movement all being critical for the Sporting JAX soccer he yearns to see. He can’t share too much, though, as he would hate to give the talented rival clubs of the USL any upper hand.
Family Matters- And So Does Winning
Fans want to win. It’s the worst-kept secret in sports. Nobody understands this more than someone who’s coached professional soccer in the United Kingdom- or maybe college football coaches in the impatient South. Either way, Warburton strongly values the fan experience, even if it’s for a club that hasn’t played a match yet. This is all part of building the family-like fan community that Sporting JAX is looking to institute.
“What they want from their sports is they want to win. Of course, who doesn’t want to win?,” Warburton said. “But it’s about doing it the right way, about building the right environment for the players and for the staff and for the fans, and making sure that the experience of the fans when they come to watch both teams play is a good one.”
Winning right away is rarely easy. One positive aspect of Warburton’s new gig is that everything is brand new. Rather than picking up the pieces left by a predecessor, Warburton will get to build things exactly the way he wants.
Coming from an environment where things are often set completely in stone, Warburton is excited about this opportunity to shape the fundamentals of Sporting JAX.
“As the project unfolded, you can see the potential and it excites you, and you’ve got to embrace that opportunity,” Warburton said.
Dealing with Pressure
With Warburton’s background, the idea of pressure isn’t much of an external concern. Coaching in leagues like the English Premier League and the Scottish Championship are some of the most cutthroat appointments one could dream to have.
The benefits of this new opportunity can provide an added element of accountability, though. Designing a club’s structure the way you want is great, unless things aren’t going great. All of a sudden, blame can quickly fall on its architect.
During his time as a player and early on in his coaching days, he worked as a financial trader in London. This alone provides plenty of stress, but he did this while balancing a career in soccer as well. These two worlds, he learned, share much in common and it has ultimately helped him become a better soccer professional.
“It’s pressure, risk and reward; it’s a very similar world,” Warburton said. “For me, that transition to dealing with a dressing room was, I wouldn’t say seamless, but it’s a very easy transition to make.”
Here at Last
Lastly, Warburton took a trip to the future to speak on what it’ll be like on Sporting JAX’s first-ever matchday this August.
“You’re lucky to be in sport, privileged to be in soccer,” Warburton said. “So you have to make sure you’ve done all your work, if you’ve done your work right and you’ve got everything in place, just enjoy the experience.”
This will undoubtedly be a momentous occasion, sure, but the work will be far from over. As Sporting JAX fans file into Hodges Stadium for the first time, players, coaches and staff alike will be seeing months and even years of hard work reaching its climax.
From there, more matchdays will follow and everyone will fall into routine. It’s then that these early days of laying a strong foundation, which Mark Warburton is setting out to do, will truly matter as Sporting JAX looks to establish itself as a winning club that will not only make a difference in the league standings, but also in the Northeast Florida community.
