Jose Mourinho has added to his already sparkling coaching CV with a remarkable treble this weekend. He’s won domestic titles in three countries and the Champions League with two different teams, and all without first being a top-flight player. There are those who believe a manager cannot impart credible knowledge to their players if they hadn’t first played the game but is Mourinho a nod to the future of management or simply an exception that proves the rule?
“I believe that to be on the pitch as a player can be very important, but it is not compulsory. It is a bit like studying or going to university. It does not mean that you will be a success, but it does give you an advantage.” –Jose Mourinho
Rafa Benitez came through the ranks at Real Madrid but spent most of his career in the third division, Arsene Wenger spent many years in amateur football before eventually turning pro (his professional career lasting only three years before he went into full time management), and Mourinho has no experience of being a top level footballer. These are three very successful managers who were not distinguished players. The opposition to managers without top flight experiences as players can be heard from Fabio Capello, himself an exceptional footballer in his younger years:
“If you were a good player you can teach things others cannot. There are elements of technique, of timing, of coordination which I don’t think you can understand if you never played the game at a certain level. And because you don’t have them inside you, you can’t teach them to others.”
I do not doubt the veracity of Capello’s claim; individuals who have never played lack the intimate knowledge of the dynamics of top level football and I’m certain that players would be more receptive to a respected player turned manager (an interesting side note is the treatment the Dutch players of Ajax gave Kovacs when he took over as coach in mid 1971. One of them thundered a high ball into Kovacs, without warning, and the Romanian nonchalantly brought it down and sprayed it back to the culprit. The technical test was passed; he had the players’ respect as a footballer). But this is, to me, an elitist and very dismissive stance. Capello’s words appear hollow when considering the achievements of even the few mentioned above.
The truth is it takes a lot more than just coaching badges or experience as a professional footballer to be successful as a manager. It is a position that comes under the most scrutiny yet is the hardest to quantify in terms of value for a public/media: the team acts as a representation of the manager, nothing more. Much like a sculpture is a representation of a person, we only see the fruits of a manager’s hardship, not the method itself. We have now the apogee of Mourinho’s management but many don’t see the twelve years as an assistant, the immersion in football of a young man, and the development of ideals that have been added to for nearly two decades. He is able to illuminate the gulf in training methods of the recent past to the present in his own journey from assistant to coach:
“You need tactical discipline, you need tactical understanding, and you need tactical work…I started as an assistant to Sir Bobby Robson. The training sessions started with some running and physical work, then some finishing and shooting on goal. And then we had a 5-a-side. That was it.”
This isn’t a slur on Bobby Robson, it is indicative of the progression the game has made in the past fifteen years on the management front and the lessons that have shaped people like Mourinho. To be involved with football, practically and analytically, at close quarters seems the only prerequisite to becoming a coach. Even then it takes a startlingly receptive, forward thinking, and ambitious personality to merge these experiences and have the confidence to become a good coach. Wenger took an English course at Cambridge in one summer as a player (whilst others were away on holiday, enjoying their time off) and took a cultural leap by working in Japan. These are decisions that ordinary players wouldn’t have taken. But it is also why he is a success. Wenger speaks of the transition from player to coach:
“You have to learn to forget. Not forget your experiences as a player but forget the way you processed the inputs and stimuli you received as a player. When you are a player, your mental energies are all turned inward…As a manager your inputs are all external. How are the players? How is the team playing? How are the opponents playing? All of a sudden you have to be more perceptive and less self-analytical. It’s not an easy thing to learn. It’s a psychological process which is totally different and not everyone is capable of doing it.”
I think that, as with any profession, becoming a successful manager does not have a specified route. Benitez, Sacchi, Zeman, Wenger and (at the moment, even more so) Mourinho are all exceptions to the adage that being a top player makes you a better manager. Whilst I don’t think that academia alone equips you with the tools needed to succeed, the likes of Wenger and Mourinho add an intelligible, articulate and analytical facet to management that wasn’t as prevalent before they arrived on the scene.
Sources:
The Italian Job, Gianluca Vialli & Gabriele Marcotti
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