The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders (17 page)

Brendan Rodgers accepts the implied compliment to English footballers, and builds on that on his own training ground: ‘The English players have a will, and that goes back to part of my
philosophy, about integrating into their football their other qualities. Decision-making is the big one. I build their decision-making capabilities. We practise this. Get intelligence working
alongside that natural fight, that willingness the English player has, and you get a big player.’

The training ground is an ideal environment for building the team and for the manager to assess the quality and state of his players. Many issues can be addressed and opinions formed. Howard
Wilkinson found a need to address head-on a poor behaviour before a match: ‘I had a player who didn’t like doing set pieces in training. Every time we were practising them he would be
mucking about. So one morning I went out with a ball with his name on it and said, “Here you are – this is your own ball – you go and play with that, and we’ll get on with
this!” I wanted to keep it light, but give him a clear message: what you are doing is at the expense of everyone else. Carry on doing it by all means, but understand that while you may think
it’s funny, it’s actually disrespectful. We’ve all actually said that there are certain common goals and common ways of doing things and processes that we think have to be there,
and we have committed to them. We all agreed that this is the best way to do it, so you are being disrespectful of your teammates.’ And did it work? ‘Just about. There was a laugh
because he had got what he wanted, but he was suddenly not with the team. He wanted his own way, but he wanted to be included too. At least we got to a greater awareness.’

Sam Allardyce uses the training ground as a place to build on what’s going well. ‘I do put my hand on the shoulder of a player and have a conversation when times are tough –
just like my managers used to do with me when I was playing. But it’s even more important to say, “You are playing really, really well – don’t start slipping up! I
don’t want to be coming to you when things go bad, don’t let them go bad.” I tell them don’t start practising when it’s too late. Most players start practising when
they are going bad. Practise while it’s going well, because it’s easier then.’

Training is about preparation on every front: both skills and mindsets can be assessed and addressed. Neil Warnock vividly remembers his first encounter with a player whose position was unclear,
but whose mindset was excellent. ‘Craig Short was at Scarborough when I started there. He was a bank clerk earning a small wage and he had such a great attitude. I was only a young manager
then. They told me he was a right-winger and I played him everywhere: right-winger definitely not, midfield definitely not, striker definitely not. One game I told him, “Look, you’ve
played everywhere else – just go and play centre half.” He was marking Peter Withe, who was one of the top players at the time, playing briefly in the reserve team at Birmingham. I told
Craig to mark him, wherever he went: “Just go with him everywhere. If he gets subbed, you go down the tunnel with him.” He was all over him like a rash, and after about 20 minutes Peter
came over to the bench and said can someone get this so-and-so off my back! In the end he made a great career out of it – and he’s such a superb lad as well. To see people like that,
that’s what makes me proud.’ Warnock stuck with a player whose mindset was ideal, and coached him through the technical challenges.

Football managers are at home on the training ground. We’d expect that. For the former players especially, it is a second home. The great football leaders push themselves and their team on
the training ground, and fashion team spirit, character and a winning mindset.

Team selection

When Ancelotti played for Fabio Capello at Milan, he got angry with his manager for leaving him out of the team. ‘He took me out. I didn’t play and I didn’t
understand the reason because I wanted to play, and I was really angry with him. Capello told me, “One day you will understand, you will be a manager.” And when I became a manager I
understood that it’s not easy.’

Team selection – picking those who will start, those who will be on the bench and those who will not appear – is one of the toughest tests of a manager’s leadership. Few if any
find it an easy task. Mancini is no different: ‘It is difficult because if you are a player you know that when the manager says we need to play [in this particular way] that you will be on
the bench. This is my worst moment as a manager because I understand their feelings in that moment and this is difficult. I would like to change this, but until they change the rules to play with
14 or 15 players then 11 players will be happy, the other players will be upset. If you are a top club you have maybe 20 top players and I think that moment can be difficult.’ Mancini feels
this keenly. David Platt recalls the dream situation where City had a settled, winning 11 for the six-match run-in to their title in 2012. A dream on paper – but a real pain for the leader.
‘He really does not enjoy having to leave players out. That run of games meant that good players were on the sidelines, and that gave him great personal concern.’ But when Mancini finds
the winning mentality he so keenly seeks in his players, his selection task becomes less painful. Kolo Touré was not always a first-choice defender under Mancini, but he does embody the
winning mindset. He reflects: ‘It’s not easy to not always be the one who is picked by the manager. But my attitude is always to keep going and give 100 per cent, and put pressure on
the manager to give me time to play as well.’

Actually playing – bringing their skills, capabilities and flair to the big stage – is probably the greatest single motivator for true professionals. The top managers agree that this
dwarfs the question of money for pretty much everyone. And it is the very mindset that Mancini promotes at all levels of his squad: the desire to play, the desire to win. Small wonder then that
there is a disconnect when players are asked to take a back seat, however temporary. And with a squad of more than 20 players vying for 11 starting places, it is a leadership challenge. How then do
the managers deal with it?

Most football managers do three things. The first is to be up front, clear and personal – without prejudicing team morale. Mick McCarthy tells people individually, but picks his moment
carefully: ‘If I’m leaving a player out I speak to him and tell him. I never pin a team sheet up or anything like that. It’s a horrible one for them, but at least they are getting
it from me. They all prefer to be told. I’ve never done any different. I’ve never shied away. I may have left someone off a subs’ bench, but the subs get named just before the
kick-off. If you tell the subs prior to the game, that will have affected them completely, so you need every one of the 20 to know they have a chance of being involved. The 11 starters will know
either Thursday or Friday, so you get some of them feeling a bit disenchanted, but if you tell any of the rest of them they aren’t going to be playing at all then they will come along heads
down and that’s unsettling for everyone else. Some will have an inkling, but they don’t know. You have to keep everyone involved.’

Alex McLeish adds to that the need to be discreet with the modern football professional: ‘At Aberdeen we would sit and have a pre-match meal and then we would watch
Football Focus
on the television. Archie Knox [the assistant manager] would come and tap somebody on the shoulder and say, “Gaffer wants a word with you.” This would be about 1 p.m. before going to
the stadium and you knew as soon as you got that tap on the shoulder, that’s me dropped. It was fine for us, and Alex [Ferguson] was great – but I’ve found it really awkward in
recent years trying to do it that way because all the players know, and I know that the modern-day guy is extremely sensitive. One or two players at Birmingham wanted me to tell them on the Friday
– anything, but not getting that tap on the shoulder in front of their colleagues. After a few times, some players would even find the one-on-one approach disconcerting, when I thought I was
giving them great respect. I now use the tap on the shoulder for other things like a tactical change – but for team selection I try and mix it up a bit to keep them on their toes.’

The second thing is to engage the players in the reasoning. This is not about consensus decision-making, nor about a leader justifying himself. It is about treating players like the adults they
are, and cutting them in on your thinking. Many of today’s managers have learned from less-than-perfect experiences as players. Glenn Hoddle recalls: ‘When I was a player, I
hated
getting left out and not told why. Too many managers do that. So when I became a manager, I always told people why – even if it was just a quick word. Then I’d say,
“If you want to talk more, come and see me on Monday after the game.” Lots of them did come. In fact if he
didn’t
come, I would have a question mark over his
appetite!’ In short: a leader needs to be transparent with his people. If a leader has integrity, he has no reason to fear being open, and Hoddle’s invitation to his people to
‘find out more’ earned him considerable respect among his players.

The third thing is to work with the players who are left out. Hoddle believes there are times when managing the ones that aren’t playing is more important even than working with the ones
who are. ‘When I had a team I used to ask them which is the most important team: is it the one that starts the game or the one that finishes the game?’ Games can be won or lost by the
substitutes – they are very, very important people. And the ones that are out of the team remain crucial to team spirit – and might be tomorrow’s first choice. So in the World Cup
in France, we did everything to make the players who weren’t selected feel part of the team – that at any given moment they could be called on – and they had a part to play in
winning the World Cup.’

Selecting the best 11 for a given day is a technical, knowledge-based skill. Knowing your own mind, communicating your choices, and inspiring the rest of the squad to continue to give their all
day after day – this is a real test of leadership.

The half-time team talk

The half-time team talk is the stuff of legend in football because of its potential to change the course of the game. Most fans will be able to point to the time their team
staged an extraordinary turnaround – or suffered a reverse in the second half – but fans cannot really know what goes on during those few crucial minutes.

Half-time emotions can run high, but more often it is a practical session, an opportunity for the manager to communicate clearly with the players in an oasis of calm before 45 more minutes of
intensity. Mancini is honest about the variability of the talk: ‘You can have different situations depending on the score, depending on the performance and whether we made a lot of mistakes,
and depending maybe also on my confidence at that moment.’ Regardless of the content though, his players know to expect a standard pattern: ‘During half-time it is important for the
players to have a 10-minute rest and to recover because they spend a lot of energy. After, we talk for five minutes on specifics, tactics for the second half.’ It’s interesting –
though unsurprising – that Mancini’s focus is clearly on the needs of the players: hearing their experience and offering them rest.

Most managers make time for encouragement – for the whole team and for individuals. Hoddle would always finish on the positives, making sure they walked up the tunnel with a positive
mindset. As he candidly admits, ‘Sometimes as a footballer they switch off during a talk – the last thing that they hear is probably the only thing they remember.’ Mick McCarthy
agrees: ‘Sometimes I just encourage a player at half-time – say something on the way out, just a little word to say how much you love him, I guess. That’s what we do. You have to.
One of my philosophies is love them for what they bring to the party, try and make them better, practise, but you actually bring them in and love them for what they’ve got, don’t loathe
them for what they haven’t got.’

Of course, there are times when tough love is the right approach – and some characters respond well to a stern word. Martin Jol admits he can become ‘autocratic’ if the
situation merits: ‘I can remember being really angry in the dressing room when I think we [Spurs] were 2-0 or 3-0 down away to Middlesbrough. The second half we came back to 3-3, so it
helped. But if you do that all the time, I think it loses its impact on players.’

Alex McLeish remembers vividly his encounter with the young Alex Ferguson at half-time in Aberdeen’s celebrated European Cup-Winners’ Cup final against Real Madrid in 1983. ‘We
were 1-1 and I’d had a hand in both goals! We had been 1-0 up and well worth it. It was a sodden night, torrential rain. I had been quite meticulous in my warm-up – I’d checked
conditions and everything – then I’d said to the lads in the dressing room before kick-off, “Look if you are trying to pass it you need to try and chip it a bit because it’s
going to stick in the water.” Of course, the ball came to me and in those days the goalkeeper could pick it up. Instinctively between myself, Willie Miller (fellow centre back) and Jim
Leighton (goalkeeper) we had a really fantastic understanding. But I was a victim of my own teaching. I was under pressure, I struck one back and under normal circumstances it would have just run
safely back to Jim, but it got stuck in the water and although I shouldn’t say it, big Jim was a bit slow off his line! The Real Madrid striker – a famous name at the time, Carlos
Santillana – rounded Jim; Jim brought him down and they converted the penalty. I just wanted to bury my head in a hole in the ground.’

When McLeish arrived in the dressing room at half-time, the boss was ready for him: ‘It wasn’t a calm “what were you thinking about, big fella?” It was the famous
hairdryer treatment. I was equally vociferous and Archie Knox had to calm things down. Nowadays we can beat players up with TV coverage, HD, slow motion, super slow motion – you can kill
players if you choose to. In those days coaches just had to remember exactly the detail of the moment something happened – a goal scored, a goal lost or a mistake and, of course, they could
dress it up in those days because you didn’t have the benefit of looking at 20 replays. Sir Alex said it and you just had to accept it. That was the kind of motivational powers that he had in
those days and we thought he was just like any manager! But in that second half I knew that I couldn’t put a foot wrong; I didn’t want to let him down and I didn’t want to let my
teammates down. It was a kind of fear probably – there’s a fear of failure that drives you – but with that comes the determination and I’ve always had that trait and
character.