The basis of sports are interconnected activities: training, coaching, competitions. Achieving success in sports requires a high level of formation not only of physical qualities and motor skills, but also psychological readiness for training and competitiveloads. The inability to control one’s emotions can nullify years of training. The coach and the sports psychologist are key figures in preparing the athlete for the main starts. Their main professional responsibilities include: timely study of individual characteristics of the athlete’s psyche, development of an individual plan for the development of abilities, strategies of pre-competitive and competitive behavior, formation of necessary mental qualities to win, creating psychologically comfortable conditions in sports, identifying ways to overcome emotional burnout in crisis periods that are caused by various reasons: defeat in the competition, transfer to another team, change of coach, problems in personal life, etc. The tandem “athlete-coach” in the context of psychological interaction and mutual understanding is a basic lever in the education of personal qualities and achieving high sports results.In the context of our study, we distinguish a number of professional functions of a modern coach - educational, managerial, regulatory, formative, gnostic, socio-psychological. The main function that allows to exercise psychological influence and control over the condition of the athlete at different stages of sports training is socio-psychological. This function, on the one hand, requires the coach to be able to establish contact with students, clearly, accurately and clearly explain the requirements for athletes, and on the other - to provide psychological support, create a psychologically comfortable microclimate in the sports team and more.A detailed analysis of the socio-psychological function of the coach suggests that the coach must have a number of theoretical knowledge, professional and practical skills, language, public speaking, communication skills, ability to make managerial decisions, experience of their own sports, have a high level of empathy, stress, etc., the symbiosis of which allows him to have ahigh level of leadership, authority, competence.