Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United

by Alex Ferguson

  Every game requires 11 starting players and seven substitutes, and our whole organisation was designed to produce them. I always wanted to know about what the pipeline of players looked like for the team we would select three years in the future. It is so much easier to produce a consistent level of high performance when you nourish youngsters, help them develop and provide a pathway to success.

  This was no easy task, because it meant sifting through all the millions of boys who dream about becoming football players. It means watching tens of thousands of games–many of them in the pouring rain and bleak surrounds. I read recently that Steve Coppell, who played for United between 1975 and 1983 before going on to a career as a manager, said, ‘It’s like turtles in the South Seas. Thousands are hatched on the beaches, but few of them ever reach the water.’ Steve is dead right, except at United we were more interested in the turtles that we thought would be able to survive long journeys in the sea, rather than those who could just reach the water’s edge.

  When I joined Aberdeen in 1978 we had two scouts; by the time I left we had 17 scouts, who were responsible for identifying promising youngsters who lived in Scotland. The result was fabulous. When Aberdeen played in the European Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1983 against Real Madrid, we fielded eight home-grown players who had worked their way through the youth teams and only three players who had been bought (and that number included one, Gordon Strachan, who was at the club when I arrived).

  My experience with Gordon only served to strengthen my belief in the benefits of developing youngsters. When I arrived at Aberdeen his head was on the block because my predecessor had decided to sell him. I put the transfer on hold until I had given myself the opportunity to make my own assessment and I liked what I saw. So we kept Gordon, helped him improve his skills–particularly using the entire width of the pitch and getting himself into the right position–and he went on to great things: a sterling career as a player for Manchester United and Scotland and a managerial career which has culminated in him leading his own country.

  At United, in the mid-1980s, there were scouts everywhere–all over England and all over Ireland. But there was a gaping hole in the system. There were just four scouts to cope with Greater Manchester and the wider city region, and only two for the whole of Manchester. To combat this weakness we changed the management of the youth system and instilled new energy and leadership under Les Kershaw, who was helped by Nobby Stiles and Brian Kidd, who had both played on the 1968 European Cup-winning team, and who knew the area. Les was a real, and unusual, find. He had taught chemistry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was scouting part-time for Arsenal when Bobby Charlton mentioned his name. Les brought the detached objectivity of the science laboratory to Old Trafford and had an enormous impact on the way we built the backbone of our youth programme. The scouts were part-timers and we built an incentive compensation scheme. They got a fixed weekly stipend, and bonuses if the boy was signed for the club, made the first team or represented his country. They were also paid extra if the player stayed with the club for multiple years.

  In retrospect the greatest evidence of the power of youth was in the United squad that won the Treble in 1999. That squad contained 30 players of whom 15 were under 25 years old. It included David Beckham who was a great advertisement for the youth-team policy. We first heard about David in 1986 when he was 12 years old and he was spotted by our scout Malcolm Fidgeon. The real pull for David came through meeting Bobby Charlton when he attended the Manchester United legend’s soccer school. Coincidentally, 1986 was also the year we heard about Ryan Giggs. Ryan and David made their debuts for the first team when they were 17 years old. Nicky Butt and Gary Neville were also 17, Phil Neville was 18 and Paul Scholes was 19 when they first played for the first team.

  The full impact of our youth programme became apparent at the start of the 1995–96 season, when six of the 13 players I used during the game against Aston Villa–which we lost–had come through our system. Alan Hansen, the television pundit, surveyed the result and concluded, as he announced to the British public that night, ‘You can’t win anything with kids.’ I have always thought the opposite–you will never win anything without kids.

  Youngsters can inject a fantastic spirit in an organisation and a youngster never forgets the person or organisation that gave him his first big chance. He will repay it with a loyalty that lasts a lifetime. For young players, nothing is impossible, and they will try and run through a barbed-wire fence, while older players will try to find the gate. Every generation also raises the level of the game, because they stand atop more shoulders than the previous one. That’s truer today than ever before, because of the spread of television and the catchment area of a large club’s scouting organisations. Television means that boys all over the world are able to watch Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. I am sure there are thousands of them trying to emulate Lionel’s feints or Cristiano’s moves. Somewhere there are a couple of boys who will be trying to improve upon their heroes’ skills, and eventually they too will be inspiring yet another generation to ever more creative heights.

  I suspect that the way we approached the young players was a highly magnified, miniature version of the way in which employees are trained to progress through a large organisation. We had distinct layers and a structure, and the road to success was as clear for them as it might be for a graduate from college who joins a company in a trainee scheme and dreams of one day becoming a vice-president, managing director or CEO. At United our layers were the youth academy, the B team, the A team, the reserves and the first-team squad. The FA Youth Cup was important for several reasons. It gave the youngsters a taste for a tough competition, for the sort of preparation that was an echo of life in the first team and a sense of the difference between being a winner and loser.

  When we first came across young boys with talent, we were all over them. We gave them endless drills and were not shy about telling them precisely what they needed to do. We wanted to be confident that they had mastered the skills essential for their success, which was why the youth academy was no laughing matter. The boys fell under the gaze of Eric Harrison and they trained with great intensity on Tuesday and Thursday nights, during sessions in which the first-team coaches were also heavily involved. Archie Knox and I made it a point to watch these sessions, and Eric made the boys feel as though these sessions were as important as a cup final. Some of them found their time with Eric far more intimidating than their time with me. As the boys matured, we eased off a bit and, eventually, if they made the first team, we might have demanded that they polish some aspect of their game but, for the most part, the management challenge changed. We knew that they had the skills and trusted in their competence, so our focus started to shift to their emotional and psychological needs. We also shielded them from the press. For example, Ryan Giggs did not give his first interview until he was 20, and then it was with Hugh McIlvanney of the Sunday Times, who we knew as trustworthy.

  One of the ways we blended youth with experience was out of the sight of the television cameras. Every now and again senior players like Bryan Robson and Darren Fletcher would play with the reserve team. That was a shot in the arm for the players we were counting on for the future. Even if the experienced players just showed up to stand on the sidelines and watch the youth team, the youngsters got a huge boost of confidence. Bryan Robson, Steve Bruce, Brian McClair all did that, and Gary Neville would also help the young players sort out their contracts. They each had their own way of helping the youngsters. Gary would always be rebuking them, but he wanted them to be successful. Oddly, when Gary himself came into the squad, he had been under similar pressure from Peter Schmeichel. When Ryan Giggs made it to the first squad he was really helped by Paul Ince, who took him under his wing. The same thing had happened to me as a youngster at St Johnstone, when three of the older players–Jim Walker, Jimmy Little and Ron McKinven–had looked out for me. At United, Eric Cantona performed one of the most avuncular acts to
wards younger players when, after the whole squad pooled the pot for FA Cup final media appearances, each individual was given the choice of taking their share or leaving it in for a draw to win the lot. All the young players, like David Beckham and Gary Neville, took their share, but Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt stayed in. When Eric won the draw he gave all his prize money to Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt, who had just entered the first-team squad and for whom, at the time, £7,500 was the equivalent of two months’ wages. His reason was typical Eric: ‘Because they have balls.’

  It is such a tonic for a youngster to feel that he has a mentor whom he can trust and who has his interests at heart. There is more of a natural bond between players than there is between the coaching staff and the players. Some of this is because of the normal organisational gap that exists between an employee and a manager. The other is because of age difference. For example, towards the end of my time at United it would have been much easier for James Wilson to identify with Patrice Evra than with me, since I was old enough to be his grandfather. There is a lot to be said for either picking, or being lucky enough to land, the right mentor. The best ones can change your life.

  No matter how hard we worked to blood youngsters, Barcelona is still able to do this better than any club. The way they develop boys into some of the best players in the world is breathtaking. It demonstrates the benefits of long-term investments in people and thorough training in the ways of the organisation. Great teamwork comes from deep familiarity and developing close bonds with others. In a company, people who have worked together for a long time will know how others will react in certain situations, and may even be able to anticipate what their colleagues might say. The same thing holds true on the football pitch. The most magical example was the Messi-Iniesta-Xavi troika at Barcelona. The three of them knew each other so well that the way they passed the ball in a wee circle among themselves made you dizzy. It’s like watching a spinning carousel.

  At Arsenal, Arsène Wenger has had his own twist on building for the long term. When he arrived in England his policy was based on his knowledge of French football and his method for developing the team was to buy a lot of French players in their mid-teens and early twenties, such as Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Nicolas Anelka. More recently, Arsène has adapted this approach and has spent big sums on Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez and also bought young English players like Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott and Chambers.

  In my last decade at United, we employed a similar tactic. We just cast our net farther afield and bought the Da Silva twins from Brazil when they were 17, Giuseppe Rossi, the Italian centre-forward, whom we later sold to Villarreal, and Gérard Piqué, from Barcelona when he was just 17. In England, players can be offered a professional contract at 16, which can be signed at 17. At the time, Spanish regulations allowed us to offer Piqué a contract at 16, but Spanish clubs could not do this and could not therefore protect their assets. This was also the case when Cesc Fàbregas signed for Arsenal.

  Our emphasis on youth strengthened as the years went by, and our system became better tuned. United’s global network expanded in relation to identifying the best young players, regardless of which country they were playing in–Macheda (Italy), Possebon (Brazil) and Januzaj (Belgium). During my last few seasons at United we put a whole bevy of youngsters under contract: Tyler Blackett, Paddy McNair, James Wilson, Andreas Pereira and Will Keane. If I had my way I would make sure that any sons of United players with great promise would all be targeted for our youth system. It underlines the importance of investing in the sorts of facilities that will attract youngsters and, in particular, help sway their parents. Every parent wants the best for their children, and the clubs that can demonstrate this sort of support will strengthen their negotiating positions. It makes it far tougher to sell the dream of the future if you cannot point to the staff and facilities that will make it come true.

  4

  ENGAGING OTHERS

  Teamwork

  Balance is the key to every team. It is impossible to win a football game with 11 goalkeepers or with a group of people with identical talents. I imagine that’s true in other organisations too.

  We thought a lot about the age composition of our team, and kept close track of how many players were over the age of 30, between 23 and 30, and aged 20 to 23. I never wanted a team that was either too old, where players had lost a yard or took longer to recover from injuries, but I also didn’t want one which was too young, inexperienced and impetuous.

  I’ve read some of the stuff that was written about the condition of the United squad when I retired. You would have thought that I had left 11 corpses on the steps of a funeral home. It’s hilarious. At the start of the 2012–13 season I had not imagined that I would be retiring, and I was as intent as I had ever been in ensuring we were well equipped for future campaigns. At the end of that season the average/median age of our squad was just under 26–or about the same as it had been throughout the previous 25 years.

  A lot has also been made of the fact that we had some players who were aged 30 or older. That’s true, but it also ignores the fact that these days the player who takes good care of himself can expect to perform at a very high level until he is 35 or 36. That was not the case 25 years ago, before we all started paying attention to the benefits of sports science, nutrition, more modern training regimens and better pitches. Juventus didn’t sign a two-year contract with Patrice Evra in 2014 when he was 33 because they were daft. Patrice was part of the Juventus team that beat Real Madrid to reach the Champions League final last year, a starting 11 that included six players aged 30 or over. Chelsea signed 36-year-old Didier Drogba in the summer of 2014, and he went on to make 40 appearances in a season that saw them win the Premier League and the League Cup.

  When I arrived at United, the average age of the squad was too high for my liking. I tried to figure out whether I could shape them into something stronger, and went about analysing every detail of our set-up: pre-season preparation, training, the way in which we started the season and the reason we lost specific games. Between 1988 and 1991 I concluded that Father Time was the enemy, and told our chairman, Martin Edwards, to conduct a fire sale and get rid of the lot for whatever he could get for them. Today, I probably would do this more quickly but, in the 1980s, before the dawn of the Premier League and the barrel-loads of television money, we did not have the spending power. I also had hoped that, with time, I could get the players, especially the established internationals, to increase the scale of their ambition and boost their performance. By the late 1980s, though, I was determined to wipe the slate clean and keep as many young people as I could. So we sold Jesper Olsen (27) for £400,000, Gordon Strachan (32) for £300,000, Paul McGrath (29) for £450,000, Chris Turner (30) for £175,000 and Norman Whiteside (24) for £600,000, and gave free transfers to Kevin Moran (32) and Frank Stapleton (31). That cleared the decks and gave me the opportunity to start redressing the balance of our team. In their place we signed Gary Pallister (24), Neil Webb (26), Mick Phelan (26) and Danny Wallace (25). Facing up to the issue, concluding that we had the wrong people and changing the composition of the team, laid the foundation for all our subsequent success. It took me time to confront reality and sell these players and, in retrospect, I was too hesitant. Afterwards, when the deed had been done, I remember feeling like I’d almost gone through a cleansing ritual. It was liberating. I wondered why it had taken me so long.

  Getting an organisation into balance doesn’t occur once. It requires perpetual work. I felt I was always re-tuning things–although, once in a while, we had to do more than just a simple brake adjustment and oil change. We needed to change with the times, so we did, and this occurred on a regular four-year cycle. Our squad in the early 1990s was British and muscular. By the late 1990s it had become more refined, and a decade later we had a decidedly continental flair. Players like Ronaldo, Nani and Evra would have seemed like oddities in the late 1980s. Whenever we sold popular players who were past their prime
or had lost their place in the team, there would always be a lot of flak. It wasn’t something I enjoyed doing, but it was just one of those ugly necessities of life. When we sold Paul Ince to Inter Milan in 1995, I got a raft of abusive letters. But what the fans did not appreciate was that I was under considerable pressure to make sure that we could make room in the side for Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and David Beckham. Ben Thornley, another youngster at the time, also looked as if he would make it, until he was terribly injured in a reserve game. I did not want these players going to other clubs and, at the time, we were getting lots of enquiries about whether Butt was for sale. Something similar happened when I decided to sell Jaap Stam, the Dutch centre-back, in 2001. He was 29 at the time, and Lazio offered us over £15 million for him, which I thought was a very good deal, particularly because I knew that I could sign Laurent Blanc for close to nothing. I felt terrible telling Stam of the decision because I could see he was devastated. I met him at a petrol station to break the news–a venue that probably did not make things easier for either of us. It was the right decision for United, even though Jaap continued to play well for several years after he left Old Trafford and, in retrospect, his sale was premature.

  Every member of a team has got to understand that they are part of a jigsaw puzzle. If you remove one piece, the picture doesn’t look right. Each player has to understand the qualities and strengths of their team-mates. In football eight players, not 11, win games, because everybody has off-days and it’s almost impossible to make 11 people play to perfection simultaneously.

  Out of the 2,131 games that I managed over nearly 40 years, I can only point to about 20 games where every player was absolutely magnificent. The one game that sticks in my mind as an example of this was when we played Wimbledon in the FA Cup fifth round in 1994. At the time Wimbledon were in the Premiership, and they had a team composed of big, powerful players who would trample you to death. We never seemed to give the ball away, and there was one goal that we scored after a magnificent passing move. It was one of those rare games where our performance could have been set to music. Whilst the Wimbledon game may be an under-the-radar example, most will remember the 7–1 victory over Roma in the 2007 Champions League quarter-finals. It was the perfect illustration of a team ethic, and co-ordination that was as close to perfection as you can get.