Players require a calm environment facilitated by an emotionally controlled coach for a compelling HT talk (Smith & Sherwin, 2022).

Players expect to be generally encouraged by the coach, especially when trailing, as it elicits greater effort from players (Berger & Pope, 2011).

Coaches displaying a positive mood, as opposed to a negative one, tends to enhance player performance (Zach et al., 2022).

Elite players expect to be challenged and held accountable if game plans are not followed (Devlin, 2023).

 Players negatively perceived long coach speeches (Breakey et al., 2009).

Players respond positively to coaches who show genuine emotion, speak concisely and meaningfully, and refer to team values (Breakey et al., 2009).

Players reported strong preferences for tactical and technical information during HT (Smith & Sherwin, 2022).

Leaders' unpleasant affective displays can yield beneficial results, including greater leader effectiveness, competence, and status (Tiedens, 2001).

The relationship between the intensity of leaders' displayed unpleasantness and team performance will be curvilinear (in an inverted U-shaped fashion) (Staw et al., 2019).

Correlations showed that coach unpleasantness was significantly and positively related to team performance, while coach pleasantness is significantly and negatively associated with performance (Raya-Castellano et al., 2022).

Psychological themes comprised about 60% of HT speeches, whereas tactical themes only comprised 30% (Zach et al., 2022).

Coaches deliver messages at an average pace of one theme every 13 seconds (Zach et al., 2022).

Teams that tend to lose are given longer HT talks and contain more themes, whereas winning teams tend to have shorter speeches with fewer themes (Zach et al., 2022).

Coaches and athletes were less than 40% accurate in understanding one another, indicating a lack of communication (Lorimer & Jowett, 2009).

During crucial moments, athletes prefer a more authoritative coaching style (several papers).

Tactical instructions related to offensive and defensive strategies were found to dominate coaches' type of comments at high-level teams (Zetou, Amprasi, Michalopoulou, & Aggelousis, 2011).

Coaches with high success rates use more motivational and appraisal content (e.g., attention focus, general encouragement, reassurance) when talking with their players (Feltz, Chase, Moritz, & Sullivan, 1999).

The scarcity of encouragement and positive statements within the coaches' speeches was salient (Avugos et al., 2020).

Players were universally supportive, particularly of visual aids (Smith & Sherwin, 2022).

Used with the spoken word, still images add to the chances of remembering. Dual Coding Theory posits that human memory uses two systems to represent information, one verbal, one visual, with storage of information in both systems resulting in greater information retention (Paivio et al., 1988).