A new man in a demanding seat Edin Terzic has taken over at Athletic Bilbao, and the Spanish press framed his arrival with a striking number: he is the twelfth manager the club has employed since the year 2000. That churn tells you something about the pressure at a club with Athletic's traditions and its unique Basque-only recruitment policy. The seat is warm before you sit in it.

Athletic open their league campaign against Sevilla, and the local edition of the sports press led with an analysis of the fixture. For a new manager, the first game is where the honeymoon either begins or never gets started. Terzic knows that, which is why he did something worth noticing before he even accepted the job.

He picked up the phone Before committing, Terzic reportedly consulted Jupp Heynckes, the veteran German coach who once managed Athletic himself. Heynckes had a notably strong record in his opening league games across four seasons at the club, with three wins and a single defeat. Terzic went to the source, a man who had done the exact job well, and asked how.

That is the part US coaches should sit with. A professional manager, experienced enough to be handed a club with a century of history, still called someone who had walked the path before deciding to walk it himself. Good coaches do not assume they know. They find the person with the relevant scar tissue and they listen.

Why the mentor call matters for your career Coaching can be a lonely profession, especially at the youth and high school level where you often run your program alone. The instinct is to figure everything out yourself. Terzic's move is a reminder that the fastest way to get better is to borrow from people who have already solved your problem. There is no medal for reinventing the wheel.

Build yourself a version of that Heynckes phone call. Find one or two coaches a level above you, or with a decade more experience, and make it normal to ask them specific questions. How do you handle a parent who wants their kid moved up? How do you plan a preseason for a group you inherited? The specific, honest answer from someone who has been there beats any generic article.

The first-game trap There is a reason Terzic asked specifically about league openers. First games carry outsized weight in how a season gets narrated. Win it and the players believe, the doubters go quiet, and you buy yourself time. Lose it badly and the questions start before the group has even found its rhythm. Heynckes' record of fast starts is exactly the intelligence a new man wants.

Your own openers work the same way, whether it is the first tournament of the fall or the first league match. Do not treat game one as just another fixture. Prepare your team to start well, keep the plan simple enough that players can execute it under nerves, and understand that an early result sets the tone for how everyone, players and parents included, feels about the whole season.