No two ways about it

When you look at all the aspects that need to be right to win a major tournament, you realise that there is not 2 ways about it:

A winning team needs a coach. A winning team needs a captain.

While the roles can overlapp, they are distinct requirements.

The coach focuses on the development of the players skills and performance. Clearly bridge knowledge is important, but more important is the understanding how one goes about achieving best performance, both technical skills and performance skills. The coach knows the players, their strenght and weaknesses. The coach also knows the strength and weaknesses of the opposing players.

The captain is in charge of the team on the big day. The captain ensure that the team gets there in good time, ensure optimal conditions, decides on the sitting strategy, observse performance on the day, decides who goes in, who gets to sit out, who plays whom. The captain goes to the appeal, and mabe most important of them all, the captain has/shows a winning attitude and keeps the spirit up throughout.

In both bases, bridge knowledge is necessary. But while knowledge that is required, it does not require the same expertise as what the players themselve needs (appeals aside maybe).

Next post will then be the jobs for each of these mythical people.