Making the game beautiful: Inside the mind of football’s madmen

#3 THE MANAGERS

Who would be a football manager? An incredible number of people actually, if you consider that more than a million have bought the latest version of the mind-altering sporting simulator for the fifth consecutive year. However, in the real world this is a role with a unique skill set and about as much job security as Donald Trump’s hairdresser. Having previously traversed the sporting landscape across the distant and recent past to document the genesis of “the beautiful game”, there’s a clear desire to better understand the people who serve as ringmasters: The managers.

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In 2016, UEFA unveiled a shortlist of 10 deemed to have left an indelible impression on football, the coaches with the most titles, best tactics or sufficient hubris to win at all costs. Often all three, squared. Chronologically, the rundown kicks-off with Helenio Herrera, four time Spanish La Liga winner with Atlético Madrid and Barcelona, who led Internazionale to back-to-back European Cups in 1964 and 1965. Herrera’s “catenaccio” (door bolt) system was allied with the kind of “inhuman” dedication to make two players walk six miles home because they were 20 seconds late for the team bus.

Next is the architect of “total football”, Rinus Michels, named FIFA coach of the century in 1999 after rewiring the football brain as coach of Ajax and the Netherlands. Speaking about their performance at 1974’s World Cup, defender Wim Rijsbergen said, almost poetically: “He changed football. We were the ‘Clockwork Orange’.” Which basically means they hunted the ball like ADHD Rovers Under-11s. German coach Udo Lattek, who won all three European trophies in spells at Bayern Munich, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Barcelona, was another manager who traversed the line between “gaffer” and malevolent autocratic madman. “When I see all the players laughing on a photo from training camp, that’s suspicious to me. I have never seen a player who had to run until he threw up still smiling,” he explained sadistically.

The first British coach to feature is Brian Clough. So much has already been said about the Nottingham Forest boss, who won two European Cups to the astonishment of many, including his managerial peers. Who should we listen to? Him, of course: “Rome wasn’t built in a day. But I wasn’t on that particular job,” said Clough, who was from an old school featuring the exulted likes of Bill Nicholson and Bill Shankly. How do we explain why there are now so few British bosses playing their trade in the Premier League? Perhaps it’s a problem with different languages? The challenge of deploying unfamiliar methods? Or issues of trust between managers and fans?

It’s unlikely Harry Redknapp would ever be considered a “soccer scientist”. “Just f***ing run around” was his unforgettable advice to misfiring Tottenham Hotspur striker Roman Pavlyuchenko. But that was the nickname of Valeri Lobanovskiy, the next manager on UEFA’s list, who won 13 national league titles and two European Cup Winners’ Cups with Dynamo Kyiv. This was football as a system and certainly not as entertainment. “Games fade from the memory but results stay. Spectacular attacking football? I do not understand what it is,” explained Lobanovskiy.

What it is, perhaps, is the career of Johann Cruyff, a footballing practitioner whose name alone conjures the sort of wit and style more likely to be found in the mind of an artist than an athlete. Big words, perhaps. But they’re backed up by Pep Guardiola, who played in the Dutch maestro’s all-consuming early 90s Barcelona team. “Johan Cruyff painted the chapel; Barcelona coaches since merely restore or improve it,” said Guardiola. Such artistry can also be seen in the work of Arrigo Sacchi, who led a renaissance in Italian football despite a non-descript playing career. “I never realised that to be a jockey you had to be a horse first,” was his retort to critics.

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After winning back-to-back European Cups with AC Milan in 1989 and 1990, as Azzurri boss he was robbed of surely football’s greatest achievement in the first ever penalty shoot out in a World Cup final, which saw Roberto Baggio somehow outdo Diana Ross with the tournament’s worst miss. Of course, as Sacchi was well aware, there are many dangers in modern day football. Cameras are everywhere, it’s not uncommon for objects to be thrown from the crowd and social media has changed everything, something Sacchi’s protégé Carlo Ancelotti can certainly confirm.

This is a complex business and much depends on a coach’s man management skills. Next on UEFA’s list, Vicente del Bosque, conjured multiple titles for Real Madrid and the Spanish national team with his warm approach and is described by Xavi Hernández as “the most human character I’ve ever come across in a dressing room.” At the other end of the spectrum is arguably the greatest manager of them all, Sir Alex Ferguson. Wayne Rooney recently claimed the Manchester United boss, who won 13 Premier League titles, was peerless when it came to cajoling his team. “He knew the players he could have a go at and those he needed to put his arm round.” But he also knew who to kick a football boot at, when to switch the hair dryer on and the perfect moment to punch a tea urn.

In 2017, British football is awash with tactics, data, fitness regimes and unrelenting progress. But is there still room for personalities like Felix Magath, a man with ideas even more bizarre than a Michael Jackson statue outside Craven Cottage? In José Mourinho, who completes UEFA’s list, it’s clear personality remains key. “After being coached by Mourinho, I became a warrior. He infected the whole team with this will to win,” said former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba of the coach who hid in a laundry basket to outfox UEFA. The Premier League is driven by such determination: Guardiola, Mourinho, Pochettino, Wenger and Klopp, plus there’s always another foolhardy reject desperate for redemption. Perhaps it really is the hardest job in the world.

NEXT WEEK: THE TACTICS