The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders (23 page)

Brendan Rodgers

Rodgers’ story began to take shape at Reading when he was a 13-year-old boy – not so much because of the football he played, but because of the influence of a man he
admired. ‘I played my first game at 13. Then, after travelling to various clubs, I got an offer to go to Reading at 16. The first-team manager at the time, Ian Bradford, was a terrific
influence on me. I felt he had a real duty of care not only for me as a footballer, but also as a human being. So I gravitated towards him because of that feeling: he made me feel important.’
Rodgers would take that philosophy with him into his leadership for the rest of his career. But on a higher level, Ian Bradford simply inspired him to become a manager. ‘I look back now at
what he did: first-team manager at the football club, and he used to pick me up from the airport and make sure I was home. He would make me feel important every time I was over [from Northern
Ireland]. He would just do that little bit more for me and that would make me feel important and special. I sensed the real power and strength of the man. In those early days I could see how hard
he worked. There was a real work ethic: he was the manager, but he was also locking up at the end of the day.’

José Mourinho

Mourinho would also go on to play a significant role in Rodgers’ story. Meanwhile, one of his own great sources of inspiration goes a fair way to explain his affinity with
England. ‘I was a lucky man because I have had some crucial moments in my career and one of the crucial moments was when I had the chance to work with Mr Robson.’ The young Mourinho
famously encountered Sir Bobby Robson at Sporting Clube de Portugal in the early 1990s, where Mourinho worked as his interpreter. They would go on to work together at FC Porto and at Barcelona
before Mourinho struck out on his own. ‘He was not just a great manager – he was a great person. I think everybody that had the chance to meet him and had a few moments, or in my case a
few years, felt privileged. I learned so much from my experiences with him. I always remember with a little smile that after I was upset by a defeat he said, “Don’t be sad because in
the other dressing room someone is bouncing around with happiness.” So I always remember good moments with him, and every moment was a good one.’

André Villas-Boas

Villas-Boas’ first interest in embarking on a football career came from a chance encounter with the same man who would become both his and Mourinho’s great
inspiration. ‘I was a fan of Porto. Bobby Robson was the manager, and he came to live in the apartment block where I lived! Out of the blue, without me making questions to him, he took me on
board and started taking me to training sessions. My first thought was I have access to something normal people don’t have, because he would take me to training and he would give me his
training session plans! It was truly interesting. Obviously, when you are a young boy, everybody wants to be a football player, but not everybody has the talent to do it. I didn’t have the
talent, but I wanted something relating to the game and I found this interest in managing from being with Robson on a daily basis. Then I went on the coaching courses and that opened the door for
me to start coaching at Porto.’

Chris Hughton

Hughton cites two contemporary managers as inspirational for him: Glenn Hoddle and Martin Jol. Hughton served under no fewer than ten managers during a 14-year period as
assistant at Spurs, but these two stand out for him: ‘Glenn was a talker. He was very much involved in everything that we did, and Glenn would generally get excited. We would speak in the
changing room or in his office, we would speak about players he was trying to get and the positions he was trying to put them in. There would be a real genuine excitement about players and about
the work that he was doing. Martin was the man who got me most involved – where I grew the most. He was a really good coach and a really good man.’

Why it works: the reference point

Each manager has his own reference point: Carlo Ancelotti knows how much he owes to Nils Liedholm, as does Keegan to Shankly and Paisley. When someone is determined to take up
this uniquely exacting profession, it is almost always because of someone they respect and admire in the game. Knowing who that is – and what it is they admire – provides a reference
point for years to come. The story of Villas-Boas and Sir Bobby Robson is a perfect case in point: ‘From the conversations that we had he obviously saw in me a boy full of motivation and
interest in being a manager, and whether in football or business, a truly motivated person is able to transcend himself when he is doing something that he loves. Then he can achieve something that
is difficult to achieve. So when I think of Bobby Robson, I remember that he saw in me the motivation that I had to become a coach, even at a young age, and he chose me to work with him.’
When times get tough, and the unfolding story becomes unclear, Villas-Boas understands at least this one thing: Sir Bobby believed in his potential. Whatever pressures threaten the leader’s
story, the source of inspiration remains intact.

As the Story Unfolds: Making Sense of your Career Progression

For all of us, the story unfolds one episode at a time. At times we feel in control, at other times not at all. As his career takes shape, the leader needs constantly to be
making sense of what is happening, maintaining a perspective that allows him to make good decisions going forward. In leaders’ stories there are defining moments: where and how their career
began, how opportunities arose, how they performed at the new level, how they took the tough decisions. A leader needs to reflect on these and put them into context if his story is to hang together
well.

Getting started

In the event, Rodgers played senior football for only four years. A recurring injury that would have demoralised most people was the spur for him to move into something exciting
and new. ‘In my final year at Reading I was injured quite a bit, so I took some reflective time. I genuinely felt that I’d wanted to be the best I could, and play at the highest level I
could. Now at 20 I realised that I wasn’t going to play at the level I wanted because of my knee. I was a typical player, good technically, gifted; I believed I knew the game. I could go and
play non-league football, but I didn’t have the physical qualities to do what I wanted. I probably came to a conclusion much quicker than other people and I made the decision that if I
couldn’t play at the highest level then I would set my sights on one day coaching at the highest level.’ So Rodgers arrived in the manager’s chair through a mixture of
circumstance, decisiveness and resilience. Looking back, he would understand the value of these qualities – including his ability to rise above personal disappointment.

Many leaders take strength from the way their careers began. Howard Wilkinson may have stumbled into football coaching, but he realised from the earliest moments that he was built for it:
‘It was a Road to Damascus moment. I was in Brighton in 1966 [aged 22, playing for Brighton & Hove Albion]. I was in digs, and I was bored. I went down to the gym pre-season, saw a
coaching course advertised and thought I’d give it a go – one night a week and a Sunday morning and it’ll be something to do. Within two sessions, I knew that was what I wanted to
do. It was as if I’d walked into a shop and found a suit that was made to measure.’ It still took some effort, of course. Wilkinson studied for his licences, and, aged 27, made his
decision: ‘I thought, I can go on playing here or I can do something about what I want to do. I spoke to the Director of Coaching at the FA, Alan Wade, and he suggested I’d learn a lot
from a degree in physical education. So I went as player/coach to Boston United with Jim Smith and followed a degree course at the same time. Within a year Jim left, and the chairman at Boston
asked me to take over. I was now 28 and in charge of a football team.’ Wilkinson was up and running.

Seizing the moment

Sometimes the opportunity to move on and up comes to you when you least expect it. Rodgers’ reputation for building something different in the youth team at Reading had
attracted the attention of Steve Clark who had been the youth coach at Chelsea. Rodgers recalls: ‘I’d had ten great years at Reading as a coach, developing all the way through. I felt
like I was on a magic carpet ride – it was fantastic. I loved my career; I loved my life. But then I felt it was time to test my ideas and way of thinking – could all that work at a
club that was looking to move into the European elite? José got the job [at Chelsea] in June 2004, and Steve Clark did a pre-season with him, so had got to know and understand what he was
looking for in the youth role. And, of course, Steve’s teams played against my teams, so he understood the kind of thing I was doing. The club was restructuring the academy, and the academy
director, Neil Bath, had been put in place and was really starting from scratch. So in September they asked me to help form the youth structure – something that José supported at the
top end. I was being asked to implement a philosophy that was close to my own way of thinking.’ Rodgers hadn’t realised he was ready to move on – he was just enjoying doing what
he did. But when the call came, he knew it was for him. One of the key skills for leaders pursuing careers is to recognise opportunities when they present themselves. It then requires a choice and
often courage to make the move.

Like Rodgers, Hope Powell was very happy in her career. She was 30 years old and still playing when the Football Association called: ‘I thought they were going to ask me to work with a new
youth team that were setting up – but they offered me the senior England job. It was a real shock. I asked all sorts of questions and debated it – I wasn’t quite sure. In the end,
someone said to me, “Look if you don’t take the job you’ll be in the changing room sitting there thinking actually I should have done it.” My family and friends also told me
I’d be an idiot not to take it! I loved the game, I wanted to get paid for working in the game and suddenly I had my chance.’

Hughton had spent 14 years as a coach at his old club Tottenham Hotspur when he seized the opportunity to take a step closer to management with a move to Newcastle United. He describes it as a
deliberate ‘move out of my comfort zone’. ‘I had decided that management was what I wanted. I got a call from Kevin Keegan. Although I didn’t really know him, I’d met
him on a number of occasions – normally when Spurs played Manchester City. He asked if I’d be interested in going to Newcastle and assisting him. For me at that time, having had so much
time at Tottenham and all of my time in London, that request was too good an opportunity to turn down. It was the road to management – a completely different direction for me, but one I knew
I had to take.’

For some managers, the call comes unexpectedly. Others find something stirring inside them, realise it’s time and decide to go looking for it. What they all seem to have in common is the
courage to seize the opportunity when it comes.

Life on the Big Stage

Many excellent football coaches never manage leading sides. The ones who do have to adapt pretty fast to life on the big stage. The figures make harsh reading: the average
tenure for a manager in English professional football is 16 months and 55 per cent of all first-time football managers are never appointed to a second management job.

In 2007, Mourinho left Chelsea. Rodgers describes that time as ‘three years of working with arguably the best day-to-day manager in world football’. Rather than seeing
Mourinho’s departure as a setback, Rodgers viewed it as an opportunity to move up a gear in readiness for the big chance: ‘I then had a year’s experience of working without him. I
felt by working alone I would be fully prepared for what would come next. I had worked with kids of eight and nine through to some of the biggest talents in world football, and I felt I had gained
the respect and confidence of players at that level, both from a technical coaching and from a human perspective. So I believed that if I got the opportunity I would be prepared to give that a go
and take on the challenge alone.’

In 2008, after nearly 15 years on the coaching journey, Rodgers finally got the opportunity at Watford, a supportive club that was renowned for giving young managers a chance. ‘I will
always be grateful for the great start that Watford gave me. Although I have to say that the first day walking out at Vicarage Road when the curtains went back and the lights were shining right on
me, it felt like I’d had no preparation at all!’ Later, he realised that wasn’t the case: ‘After a short time I realised that all that learning and all that underpinning
knowledge was gold, and held me in great stead for my journey as a manager. But I also felt very much that I was now responsible. Now I had not only thousands of active supporters, but also a whole
city looking at me. I felt inspired.’

A fascinating feature of leaders under pressure is how they are inspired by it. Analysts in the City and soldiers in the desert pick up on it quickly: the appetite for the big challenge is half
the battle. For leaders, welcoming pressure is an integral part of pursuing a career.

The tough decisions

As leaders become successful, so more opportunities arise. The leader who adapts to the big stage and succeeds can expect to face some tough decisions. For Rodgers, after just
seven months at his new club, this happened when his old club came calling: ‘It happened pretty quickly. I had no desire at all to leave Watford. My plan had been to be at Watford for four or
five years. The club had given me a chance, and I wanted to repay them that favour – stay for a significant period of time and learn from the ups and the downs. In the end, my heart overruled
my head. I would never have left Watford for any other club, but with Reading it was like going back home. They were the first club I went to at 16, they were a club I felt I knew, they had been in
the Premier League, they’d been relegated, they’d just missed out on promotion again and it was a great challenge. But the biggest thing for me was knowing the chairman. I was given a
great bit of advice early on in my career, which was if you are a young manager pick the chairman and not so much the club. That’s what happened at Watford – the chairman gave the young
manager a chance. And going to Reading I knew I would be working with a good chairman. We had a strong relationship. It was definitely a case of the heart taking me back. Once I made the decision I
was OK, but it was far from ideal.’