The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders

by Carson, Mike

  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.

  ‘The second half went to plan; we won in extra time. We must have played really well in that second half and I was so glad at the end when we had won – but there is that individual thing where you still think of the mistake. We’d just won the European Cup-Winners’ Cup and still my mistake was uppermost in my mind. Alex came into the showers and I was last out – I was kind of reflecting and thinking the newspapers are going to kill me. It was a massive overreaction, but that’s what it’s like, that’s what the mind does. He came in and I always remember the shower splashing on his trousers because I was looking down and I was kind of laughing to myself thinking he is getting soaked here and he said, “Really proud of you. A lot of people would have crumbled tonight, but you stood tall and it was superb.”’ Sir Alex knew how to get the best out of his man, and played it to perfection – great leadership in action.

  Half-time talks then are a mixture of the standard pattern and the variable content, depending on the player and the circumstance. But, whatever the circumstance, dialogue rather than one-way communication is becoming the norm. Hope Powell begins her half-times with no management staff – just the players and medics – and five minutes so they can have their own dialogue. Then she comes in with clips of the game. ‘I’ll bring those clips in then my first words to the players are: “Right, what do we think?” and I give them a voice. Then I’ll go through and the clips hopefully marry up what I’m saying with what they are saying and I’ll visually give them some feedback. Half-time is a really powerful opportunity and they embrace it.’

  Hoddle goes even further on the dialogue point: ‘I used to like it sometimes if two players had a confrontation in the dressing room. If they had a bit of a spat, verbal not physical, I didn’t mind that – it showed to me that they cared.’ The dressing room is almost unique in this regard – outside of sport, probably only the military in liberal societies allows for this level of head-to-head confrontation. Hoddle would use it for good though: ‘I’d always say “Right, give me your input – you’re the ones out there and let’s see if we can work this one out.” Some youngsters wouldn’t say a word and then you’d get the captain and a few others saying things, but it’s good to entice them to bring out their thoughts.’ But even the great dialoguers reserve the right to resort to a one-way conversation in a crisis. Powell admits, ‘If we are having an absolute shocker and we are not doing the things we say we were going to do, I don’t show any clips. I let them have five minutes, but I know when there is silence they know they aren’t performing well and then I say, “Right, you need to do this, this, this and this and that’s how we do it.”’

  In the heat of the battle leaders must choose carefully how to inspire their people. They use silence, listening, asking, telling, even shouting; they use calm reasoning and, from time to time, emotional appeal. There is no simple formula – a great leader will know what works best for his team in the particular circumstances.

  Tactical change

  One of the most dramatic ways in which a manager’s craft is judged is by the substitutions he makes during a match. Some will be reactive, driven by injury or as a response to a red card and the enforced change of formation. The most interesting ones though are the substitutions a manager makes when he perceives that something needs changing. Something – or someone – isn’t quite working out. His team needs fresh impetus.

  Mancini’s Manchester City were neck-and-neck with Ferguson’s Manchester United all through the dramatic run-in to the 2011–12 season. With two matches to go, United were behind on goal difference alone. City needed to win both remaining games to be sure of clinching the title. The first was away against a talented Newcastle side brim-full of confidence after an excellent run of wins themselves. With 30 minutes to go, the match was still goalless. All eyes were on Mancini. What would he do now?

  His response was to send on a defensive midfielder (Nigel de Jong) and withdraw a world-class goalscorer (Carlos Tevez). To some observers, this might have been a surprising substitution, although by anchoring the midfield, de Jong would allow the powerful Yaya Touré to move forward and pose a new threat to the Newcastle defence. But used to seeing him play deeper, the home team were caught out. Yaya Touré scored twice in the last 20 minutes, and City won 2-0. The fans were delirious; the press praised Mancini as a tactical genius and City were firm favourites for the title going into the last match one week later.

  The vastly experienced Martin O’Neill outlines his approach to substitutions. ‘There is no question that substitutions can turn the course of a game. We see endless examples of this every weekend and the art or fortune of making these decisions can impact greatly on the result. I suppose there is a science that can be attributed to this, but it is really down to intuition and obviously an element of good fortune if it works.’

  This demonstrates the power of a decisive intervention. O’Neill would be the first to acknowledge the element of good fortune involved; but there is science too – and intuition. ‘First, you have to know your players pretty well. You’re then looking at the state of play with 20-something minutes to go: (1) whether you are chasing the game or holding on to a lead, and (2) whether you think the energy levels have dropped considerably. If you’re chasing a game, you may need a bit more forward play, you might have someone on the bench that you think might be capable of doing something. If you are holding on to a lead, it’s important not to drop back too deeply, but maybe you can get a bit more solidity.

  ‘When you know your players well, you get a feel for how they play at certain stages of the match, and how they’re doing. You may have a good player playing in the team, but that particular day is not going right for him. You know that on another day he could turn it – so at what moment do you decide that because he’s a good player, you just forget about what happened in the last 25 minutes and believe he’ll
turn something for you? If there is someone there that might be able to do that then maybe that’s worth the gamble of keeping him on; then another time you might think he’s run his race, and know that no matter what happens, he won’t find that energy and determination and you make the substitution accordingly.’

  The tactical substitution is another real test for the leader. The stakes are high personally and professionally, since the match outcome can turn on the choice; and the world will have as long as it likes to review the decision afterwards. In big matches it requires deep knowledge, clarity of thought and conviction against the backdrop of noise, drama and emotion, and leaders facing these tests need intuition and self-belief to carry them through.

  The fallout

  After the 90-something minutes are done, the leader’s primary task is to take the team forward. Whether the result is cause for celebration or upset, there are lessons to learn and then a future to play for. When Mancini’s men lost at Arsenal with six games of the season left to play, it appeared to most onlookers to be the end of their title chances as United were eight points ahead of them. Mancini chose not to dwell on what had gone before, but to focus purely on the final few games. ‘At that moment we had a lot of pressure and the players had a lot of pressure around them and we decided with the staff to take off this pressure from the players. I told them we did a good game, we are a top team and now we need to finish our championship well. If we win all our games, we will finish second.’ While publicly declaring it impossible to go on and win the Premier League, Mancini privately thought it merely difficult. His public declarations had the desired effect: ‘Once we took the pressure off, the players started to play calm and controlled and we started to win the games.’

  Where Mancini tends to be calm and phlegmatic, Sir Alex tends to be direct and crisp – and yet there are similarities between the two. Sir Alex says: ‘I think it’s black and white. If they’ve had a bad performance, I would tell them. I wouldn’t hold back. And once it’s over, we would never revisit it. I would say my piece on a Saturday after a game and that’s it finished, we wouldn’t go over it again. I’d have no time to go over it again, I’d have next week to consider.’ This is the core of Sir Alex’s philosophy: ‘There is no point going back. Suppose you have a game on the Saturday and you give them the Sunday off. You come to the Monday training session and you’ve maybe got a Wednesday game – two days to the next match. There is absolutely no point whatsoever raking over old ground. The other important thing is always to tell them the truth. You have to be black and white about it. There’s no softening for one player over another player, they’ve all got to understand what black and white means, and they’d also have to understand what I am. Once they accepted that, we’d have absolutely no problems.’

  While the need to move forward is paramount, leaders give more or less vent to their emotions depending on their character and the circumstances. Mick McCarthy is not prone to shouting in the dressing room, but admits from time to time emotion carries him away: ‘I did it twice in my last year at Wolves. Once was at Manchester United when we lost 2-1 in the 93rd minute. We had the ball and all we had to do was take the draw – don’t try and win the game, just take the ball to the corner and keep it there – job done at Old Trafford. We come on the inside, give a bad pass, concede and we lose. I went mental; I threw stuff around, I booted stuff. I was very close to lamping the bloke who gave the goal away, but I didn’t.

  ‘Bolton was the other one. There was a throw-in in the 94th minute, we were drawing 0-0, he throws it, little back-pass and it goes to Sturridge and it’s a goal. I apologised afterwards for it. It wasn’t calculated; it wasn’t to shock anyone. I was waiting for them to come in, I was throwing stuff, I was incandescent with rage; I could barely control myself. I didn’t do anything that stupid, but it was good for them to see it. I am calm generally and I think it shocked them how much it hurt me that we’d lost. I more often come in and sit them down and say, “Look, lads, let’s analyse this: this happened, that happened, you could have done this better... ” Discuss it and move on to the next game. Then it’s done with. If there is an individual that has done something then I may point that out, and then maybe four or five things tactically with the team we might just have a discussion about.’

  Even the serene Ancelotti can get riled – but only around poor behaviour. And when he does, it is calculated: ‘Sometimes we play well and we lose for an individual mistake. Then I don’t say anything. But recently we drew a game because the players were selfish and didn’t want to pass the ball and wanted to score themselves. I killed the players for three days.’ Ancelotti also makes sure the effect is not lost: ‘After the game I spoke in Italian. Usually when I shout, I shout in Italian. I am more fluent in Italian. It doesn’t matter if they don’t understand the words – they understand the sense and the emotion. Sometimes in a foreign language it is very difficult to show emotion. This is not good, because sometimes you have to show what you really feel, and if you don’t have the proper language it is very difficult. One of the most difficult things is to motivate the players. You have to use the right expression. Sometimes with a foreign language I don’t have the expression – I speak like a computer. This is the most difficult thing. I show something with my volume and body language.’

  The final piece of the post-match jigsaw is dealing with the individuals. As we know from McLeish’s encounter with Alex Ferguson, this matters a great deal. Ancelotti’s approach is to take his time: ‘When an individual makes a mistake, I wait. I say nothing. Normally he wants to think for himself. If you say something like “it doesn’t matter,” or “you have to look to the future,” – it’s not good enough. It’s better for me to stay a little bit back. I have to wait.’ Keegan learned from the great Liverpool masters, Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. ‘When I had been sent off with (Leeds United striker) Billy Bremner I think I got an eight-match suspension and Phil Boersma had gone in and done very well. I’d also been injured and hadn’t even played a match for the reserves. Then the first game I was available and the manager chose the team, I thought he might not play me. He announced the team and there I was and Boey was sub. I felt so sorry for him – but in some ways very clever from Shanks – because Boey had done well and in my mind he just said to me you’re my guy, go on. I played a cracker – I had to!’ Keegan the manager would in turn always persevere with key players: ‘It’s not about “I am just going to take you away for a little while”. Unless they are having a desperately bad time, it’s the opposite. Don’t even question it, name your team and say his name first. I don’t go to him and say, “You are having a shocker here but I am going to play you.” I say, “There’s the team – I trust that team to go out here today, I think it’s the right team for the day and off you go.” That way you put it back into the player’s court. That is what I would want a manager to do with me.’

  It is interesting how managers who are ex-players talk often about what they experienced at the hands of other managers. The power of empathy is transmitted down the generations.

  In the matter of the post-match fall-out, it is clear that when the referee blows his whistle, the leader’s work is not done. How he deals with his players in the hours and days that follow will shape their ability to perform in the next match.

  The Solution: Command, Lead and Manage

  Much has been written on the subject of leadership, and much debate exists around the difference between leadership and management. In England, we talk about football managers. In the rest of Europe, they more usually talk about coaches. Neither of these titles tells the full story. In reality, like most leaders, their work falls into three distinct categories, each requiring a different approach. Which approach depends on the situation in which they find themselves – and a little bit on their own natural preferences.

  Leadership and management expert Professor Keith Grint of Warwick University defines these categories vividly. One approach is ‘command’. We don’t ofte
n think of leaders as commanders, except perhaps in the military. In fact, football managers quite often use command. It is the act of ‘taking charge’ and imposing a solution. It provides little or no room for discussion or disagreement, and is a sound approach in a crisis. When the going gets tough, people become worried and unsure. They look for direction – and commanders provide certainty and answers.

  When the team is not in a crisis, the question then becomes: is this something we’ve faced before – something to which there is a clear answer? If the answer is yes, then it will respond to well-tried methods. It is a ‘tame’ problem. This is ‘management’. The manager is about rolling-out things that have been done before, where the degree of certainty is high. The problem may feel like a puzzle – may even be quite complicated – but there is a solution, and the manager engages in a familiar process to solve it.

  If it is not something we have faced before, and there might well not even be a clear answer, then we’re into ‘leadership’. Grint calls these challenges ‘wicked problems’. In football, this could be about unusual individual behaviour, about a club near to bankruptcy, about a critical injury or about facing opponents who on paper are better in every department. The leader will need to ask questions. He will often hear himself saying: ‘I’ve never seen this problem before; I need to get people together to work out what to do.’

  Mancini is a natural commander. As a player he was known for his assertiveness with his colleagues. Sven Göran Eriksson was Mancini’s coach at Sampdoria where he observed his young colleague’s natural leadership: ‘He wanted to be a manager even while he was a player. He was the coach, he was the kit man, he was the bus driver, everything. He wanted to check that everything was in place before training. Sometimes I would have to tell him: “Mancio, you have a game to play on Sunday. You’ll be exhausted if you have to control everything.” But he was like that.’ Perhaps the young Mancini recognised this in himself: ‘I thought this when I was 12 years old – that I wanted to be a manager. When I started to play football I thought I would want to be a manager. When I finished playing football this was still in my head.’