Here are some of the excerpts of the story:
Winning a game is only a short-term gain-you can lose the
next game. Building a club brings stability and consistency. You don’t ever
want to take your eyes off the first team, but our youth development efforts
ended up leading to our many successes in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.
I always take great pride in seeing younger players develop.
The job of a manager, like that of a teacher, is to inspire people to be
better. Give them better technical skills, make them winnners, make them better
people, and they can go anywhere in life. When you give young people a chance,
you not only create a longer life span for the team, you also create loyalty.
They will always remember that you were the manager who gave them their first
opportunity. Once they know you are batting for them, they will accept your
way. You’re really fostering a sense of family. If you give young people your
attention and an opportunity to succeed, it is amazing how much they will
surprise you.
Dare to Rebuild Your
Team
Even in times of great success, Ferguson worked to rebuild
his team.
“He’s never really looking at this moment, he’s always
looking into the future,” Ryan Giggs told us. "Knowing what needs strengthening
and what needs refreshing-he’s got that knack.”
Set High Standards
and Hold Everyone to Them
Ferguson speaks passionately about wanting to instill values
in his players. More than giving them technical skills, he wanted to inspire
them to strive to do better and to never give up-in other words, to make them
winners.
I had to lift players’ expectations. They should never give
in. I said that to them all the time: “If you give in once, you’ll give in
twice. “ And the work ethic and energy I had seemed to spread throughout the
club. I used to be the first to arrive in the morning. In my later years, a lot
of my staff members would already be there when I got in at 7 A.M. I think they
understood why I came in early-they knew there was a job to be done. There was
a feeling that “if he can do it, then I can do it.”
I constantly told my squad that working hard all your life
is a talent. But I expected even more from the star players. I expected them to
work even harder. I said, “You’ve got to show that you are the top players.”
And they did. That’s why they are star players-they prepared to work harder.
Superstars with ego are not the problem some people may think. They need to be
winners, because that massages their egos, so they will do what it takes to
win. I used to see [Cristiano] Ronaldo [one of the world’s top forwards, who
now plays for Real Madrid], Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, and others out there
practicing for hours. I’d have to chase them in. I’d be banging on the window
saying, “We’ve got a game on Saturday.” But they wanted the time to practice.
They realized that being a Manchester United player is not an easy job.
There are occasions when you have to ask yourself whether
certain players are affecting the dressing-room atmosphere, the performance of
the team, and your control of the players and staff. If they are, you have to
cut the cord. There is absolutely no other way. It doesn’t matter if the person
is the best player in the world. The long-term view of the club is more
important than any individual, and the manager has to be the most important one
in the club.
Why should I have gone to bed with doubts? I would wake up
the next day and take the necessary steps to maintain discipline. It’s
important to have confidence in yourself to make a decision and to move on once
you have. It’s not about looking for adversity or for opportunities to prove
power; it’s about having control and being authoritative when issues do arise.
Ferguson: No one likes to be criticized. Few people get
better with criticism; most respond to encouragement instead. So I tried to
give encouragement when I could. For a player-for any human being-there is
nothing better than hearing “Well done.” Those are the two best words ever
invented. You don’t need to use superlatives.
When their teams are behind late in the game, many managers
will direct players to move forward, encouraging them to attack. Ferguson was
both unusually aggressive and unusually systematic about his approach. He
prepared his team to win. He had players regularly practice how they should
play if a goal was needed with 10, five, or three minutes remaining. “We
practice for when the going gets tough, so we know what it takes to be
successful in those situations,” one of the United’s assistant coaches told us.
United practice sessions focused on repetition of skills and
tactics. “We look at the training sessions as opportunities to learn and
improve,” Ferguson said. “Sometimes the players might think, ‘Here we go
again,’ but it helps us win.” There appears to be more to this approach than just the common belief
that winning teams are rooted in habits-that they can execute certain plays
almost automatically. There is also an underlying signal that you are never
quite satisfied with where you are and are constantly looking for ways to
improve. This is how Ferguson put it: “The message is simple: We cannot sit
still at this club.”
I think all my teams had perseverance-they never gave in. So
I didn’t really need to worry about getting that message across. It’s a
fantastic characteristic to have, and it is amazing to see what can happen in
the dying seconds of a match.
One of the things I’ve done well over the years is manage
change. I believe that you control change by accepting it. That also means
having confidence in the people you hire. The minute staff members are
employed, you have to trust that they are doing their jobs. If you micromanage
and tell people what to do, there is no point in hiring them. The most
important thing is to not stagnate. I said to David Gill a few years ago, “The
only way we can keep players at Manchester United is if we have the best
training ground in Europe.” That is when we kick-started the medical center. We
can’t sit still.
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