We’re all football managers. It’s just that some of us haven’t been appointed yet. The Football Manager Guide to Football Management looks at every aspect of this increasingly scrutinised role and asks whether there are lessons from history to be learned that might help with the game itself. What can the career path of Brendan Rodgers tell us that might assist an aspiring manager? What has Joe Kinnear taught us about media relations? And is it really worth having a youth academy if you’re minted? Or, more pertinently, if you’re not? But perhaps it’s just as important to ask yourself a question: What kind of football manager do you want to be?
DYNASTIC:
When other managers claim that they’re only thinking about the next game, you scoff. How very short-sighted. You’re not thinking about the next game. You’re not even thinking about the next season. Your mind’s eye reaches further than that. You know exactly which members of the elite development squad are truly elite and which are destined to drift out of the big time. You know who among the U18 squad has the best chance to prevail. You are even aware of a bright talent at U13 level who you can see anchoring your midfield in the future. You intend to be there to see it all happen.
You have coaches preparing the players, not just for their next opponents, but for their future. You do not ask what role they are playing now. You ask what role they could play in the future. You have scouts prowling the international youth tournaments looking for the boy who will be your star man in ten years time. By that point, with the right kind of advice and a few hushed phonecalls, most of your current players will be your rival managers. And they’ll pay tribute to your talents whenever you meet. “He was the best there will ever be,” they will say. You hope.
Of course, it might not work out like that. Circumstances may turn against you. Everyone likes the sound of a five year plan. Few are still there when the five years are up. But that won’t stop you from acting as though you will be. You’ll be aware of changing tactics and you’ll know when to adapt. You’ll watch your star players carefully, and you’ll be ruthless enough to dump them when they need to be dumped.
There is no discernible end for a dynastic manager. There is no culminating point of success that marks the moment the mission is accomplished. Win the title once and you’ll only want to win it again. That’s the real challenge, isnt it? You exist only to continue to exist. You try to pile success onto success onto success. You will almost certainly push too far and tarnish your own legacy in doing so. But, for now, this is your empire. And you will rule it as you please.
DYNASTIC MANAGERS: Sir Alex Ferguson, Roberto Martinez
NOT DYNASTIC MANAGERS: Carlo Ancelotti, Guus Hiddink
TACTICAL:
Look at them out there: Your talking pawns. They laugh with each other as they stretch their million pound muscles. They banter. They know not what they are. They are your tools. And it’s time to get to work.
The aim of the game is to win within the rules. There are no other instructions. You can read the laws in every language and you’ll never find a paragraph that instructs you to play attractive football, or to pursue glory above rationality. Strip away the emotion. Remove all superfluous feeling. You play to win.
For hours, you pore over videotape. You scrutinise your opposition, planning against their strengths, plotting against their weaknesses. Every set-piece, every passage of play, every sliver of telltale body language. You can use it all against them. And then you find it: Their left-back struggles in the air, even against a player his own size. You call for seasonal statistics and they are brought to you by a tracksuited acolyte. Yes. YES. The numbers bear out your observation. The left-back is terrible in the air. You reach for pen and paper. Your big Scottish target man, who cares what his name is, he is Pawn No.9. Move him to right wing. Move the right winger, Pawn No.7, inside him. Order the ball to be dispatched accordingly. And then watch them flail hopelessly against your strategy.
Later that week, you call your players into a meeting. It lasts for over an hour. You have prepared slides. Once again, you feel hurt when you see some of them yawning. Do they not understand how important this is? When you brief Pawn No.7 on his new role, he blinks uncomprehendingly and then starts to scratch himself. This is not how you visualised this moment. And yet these are minor distractions.
On Saturday afternoon, the ball is blasted out to the right. Pawn No.9 rises like a Amish barn and nods the ball down to Pawn No.7, left alone because the centre-back drifted out of habit to mark the target man. He takes a touch and then blasts the ball into the top corner. The crowd erupt in jubilation. But you do not. You are a tactical manager. It is enough for you just to nod in approval.
TACTICAL MANAGERS: Jose Mourinho, Marcelo Bielsa
NOT TACTICAL MANAGERS: Harry Redknapp, John Carver
TRANSFORMATIVE:
Look at this place. There is dogs’ mess on the training ground. There are nettles growing out of the cracks in the terraces. Three of the players are smoking in the car park. The chairman is drunk and it’s only 11am. You know what this place is? It’s perfect.
The first thing you do is to take a tin of paint and a brush into your office. With every stroke, you don’t simply remove a patch of the nicotine stained past. You lay down a example of purity for the future. You are creating a nerve centre and from here you will radiate change. The people who work here, lethargic and broken by failure, stare at you in awe. And this is just the start.
You set up a meeting with the players. You speak to them without hyperbole or spin. This club is changing, you say. You can be a part of that change or you can leave. It is entirely down to you. The older players smirk, they’ve seen this sort of thing before. But they’ve never seen you before. Within days, they’re packed off to your rival clubs, replaced by earnest youngsters and a couple of grizzled leaders who can guide them, on and off the pitch.
You bring in an old lieutenant to run the training sessions. You tell him that you want zip and oomph. You want noise. You want smiles on faces. A younger man, with an iPad and a box of heart monitors is there too. You have created a marriage of old values and new technology. You chat with a local journalist after training. He is impressed. He describes you as, “softly spoken, but a man of action.”
And when the season starts and the sound of clattering studs fills the tunnel for the first time, the supporters can sense something different. There is purpose now. There is drive. Their old club, their typical bloody team, has morphed into something else. Something crackles through the air, teasing the hairs on the back of their necks erect. They look at you, standing impassively in the technical area, in tracksuit and boots, and they feel something they haven’t felt in some time. They feel inspired.
TRANSFORMATIVE MANAGERS: Kenny Jackett, Alex Neil
NOT TRANSFORMATIVE MANAGERS: Avram Grant, Michael Laudrup
DICTATORIAL:
In all your years of management, you have never seen anything so brazenly unprofessional as this. This is a disgrace. This must be stamped out before it spreads. You know that you cannot avoid confrontation for fear that others will see your cowardice as an incentive to transgress. You stand up. The canteen falls silent. You march across the room, dozens of eyes follow you. You loom in front of him, you take a deep breath and you slap the tomato ketchup sachet out of his hand. If I EVER see that again in here, you bellow, I will have your contract incinerated. And then you storm out. It’s the only language they understand.
You’ve only been here three hours, but you can tell why this team is bottom of the table. Training was a waste of time. Three players were two minutes late, meandering out of the dressing room as if it was the first day of school break. You fined them a week’s wages. You fined your centre-back as well because if you don’t make a stand on snoods, who will? And all of that talking on the training pitch, that was appalling. No-one learns anything while they’re smiling, it’s a scientific fact.
You sit down at your desk with a sigh. It was never like this in the old days. Back then, the players listened. They felt privileged to be professional footballers and they were keen to develop. This rabble now? Frankly, this job is beneath you. But jobs have been hard to find of late. The glory days of the late 1980s and early 1990s seem so long ago now. You’ve spent the last 15 years bouncing from one international job to another, learning new languages and how to swear in them.
You’ll get this team going, you tell yourself. A few more bollockings. A few more fines. Then they’ll learn. You stare at your desk. Something isn’t right. You’ve put a pencil in the pen jar and a pen in the pencil jar. You see! This is what happens when you’re too easy on people. Indiscipline spreads! You fine yourself a week’s wages and stab yourself in the leg with a fork. You’ll learn. One day, you’ll learn.
DICTATORIAL MANAGERS: Paolo di Canio, Felix Magath
NOT DICTATORIAL MANAGERS: Roberto Martinez, Roy Evans
WHEELER-DEALER
This team is a mess. A right mess. And you’re going to be on the phone all night trying to clean it up. You said this to the chairman over dinner last night, a decent enough bloke all said and done, didn’t know much about the game, but his heart’s in the right place. You said, I don’t know what you let the last bloke get away with, but he’s left you with a right load of old pony. And then you explained what pony meant.
Don’t worry, you said. I’ve got a man in Spain who is perfect for this sort of thing. Everyone’s looking in France, right, but no-one’s looking in Spain because they get distracted by Barcelona and Real Madrid. But what about all the players beneath that? The ones they let go earlier, the ones who drift out to your Racing Salamanders and your Sporting Hee-Hons? That’s where the bargains are. Your man’s been out there since he set up that urbanisation outside Alicante. It went tits-up, he blames the EU for that, but he stuck around anyway, making contacts at local clubs. You’ve got another man out in South America too. Or is it Central America? Which one is Costa Rica? Doesn’t matter. You don’t see nationality, you just see quality. And some of those boys really are quality.
It’s going to cost a bit, you know that, but that’s football nowadays. You’ll get a bit of money back on the empties. That lad in goal, he’s got to go. Both strikers, they’re absolutely terrible, aren’t they? You’ll get the big lad in to replace them. You’ve bought him three times already and he’s never let you down. It might be a bit old fashioned to knock it up to the giant, but you need results now. You can worry about your sexy football later.
The phone rings. It’s Dale. Dale’s a good lad. Not all agents are, some are just spivs, but you’ve got a lot of time for Dale. When was it? 2004? 2005? Doesn’t matter. It was definitely in Dubai. A long lunch, some even longer cocktails and he talked you into signing that geezer from Montenegro. Turned out all right though, didn’t it? Seven goals in three months. Can’t turn your nose up at that. Actually, what’s that lad doing now? Dale will know.
WHEELER DEALER MANAGERS: Harry Redknapp, Steve Bruce
NOT WHEELER DEALER MANAGERS: Arsene Wenger, David Moyes
MEDIA DARLING
That’s a great question, Steve, you say. You always call journalists by their first name. You like the way they glow when you do it. And why shouldn’t you do it? They’re good guys. Most of them anyway. Not that disrespectful nugget on the broadsheet who gave you that nickname and keeps taking the piss in his column, what’s his name again? He’s never played the game. Ah, who cares? He’s not important. Steve’s important. He’s a good lad. He’s not a proper football man, hardly of them are, but he’s a good lad all the same. Likes a drink.
Other managers moan about press conferences, but you like them. This game is about the fans and that’s how you talk to them. They’re all watching at home, that rolling 24 hours sports news, so this is for them really. But it’s all just great banter.
The chairman had a word with you the other day, he wasn’t keen on all the punditry. You laughed. It’s not punditry, Geoff, you told him. It’s scouting, but this way you don’t get the expenses for the petrol money. If you weren’t there for the radio station, you’d be there on your own anyway. And what’s wrong with the Sunday morning show? You’re not even supposed to be in work on Sunday, so why shouldn’t you be on a sofa in Chiswick in that nice pink jumper? And what’s wrong with a few days in the Middle East with the boys, cracking jokes about your short game and getting a bit of a tan? It’s like a mid-season break, but again, the club doesn’t have to pay for it.
Besides, it’s a short career. It didn’t used to be a short a career. In the old days, when you worked for and with some proper legends, you used to have things like transitional seasons. There was something called patience. That doesn’t exist anymore. Unless, of course, you’re friends with the right people. It’s funny really. You can have two similar situations, two managers in the mire, but only one of them is under pressure. And it’s not the one who took the lads out for tapas and wine the other night. Funny that.
MEDIA DARLING MANAGERS: Harry Redknapp, Phil Brown
NOT MEDIA DARLING MANAGERS: Nigel Pearson, Louis van Gaal
IDEOLOGUE
The game is about glory. Danny Blanchflower said that, and by God, he was right. Who wants to just win? Who wants to create something mechanical and cold and grind their way to success? Not you. You firmly believe that if you’re going to do something, you may as well do it sexily.
Yes, the more cynically minded of your peers will tell you that the supporters don’t care as long as you’re winning, but you don’t entirely believe that. Not these supporters. They’re smart here, they know their football. And they want it served up the right way. Except for that one who sits behind the dug out and keeps screaming, “Get rid of it,” when your back four start playing intricate passing triangles under pressure. You’ll look into having him ejected.
That’s why you work with the academy coaches. You tell them that you’re not interested in winning U18 trophies. You’re only interested in the development of the individuals. You want them to be capable of playing the ball swiftly to feet, capable of playing themselves out of trouble. You need them to be intelligent, but gifted. You are not at home to lumbering centre-backs who do not feel pain.
That’s why you don’t always mind if you lose. You can draw solace from possession stats and pass completion rates. You may have lost the battle, but you won something far more profound. You won self-respect. And if these boys can take something from that 3-0 drubbing, something that might help in the future, then is it really a defeat?
You don’t limit yourself to young players. Just good ones. And you expect them to conduct themselves well. You don’t like to see the players surround the referee. You don’t want to see invisible yellow cards. Even though, by their very nature, they cannot be seen. You don’t want to take the chance. And you’ll fine your own players for diving because you don’t like to see that sort of thing either.
You want to be spoken of in the same breath as men like Bill Nicholson. Guardians of a better way. Guardians of the right way. You might put a picture of yourself up in your office.
IDEOLOGUE MANAGERS: Brendan Rodgers, Arsene Wenger
NOT IDEOLOGUE MANAGERS: Jose Mourinho, Neil Warnock
