Do players who weren't the fastest often make the best managers?
When your life is immersed in a passion, whether sport, art, music, whatever, ideas grow merrily unchecked, often unfettered by logic. I’ve always been convinced that slow players often make good managers. It made so much sense, in terms of reliance on speed of thought rather than body, that I never really questioned whether it could actually be nonsense.
Everywhere I looked over the past three or four decades there were reassuring examples to back up a totally unscientific theory. George Graham was the “Stroller” in midfield for Arsenal and a good manager for them before temptation intervened. Sir Alex Ferguson’s playing career with the likes of Dunfermline Athletic and Rangers was built as much on determination as acceleration. Few managers have achieved as much in the game as Ferguson.
His old rival, Arsene Wenger, lacked pace as a midfielder in a modest career in France but transformed Arsenal as a manager. He certainly thought deeply as a player, seeing how the game was developing, a strength he took into management. Jose Mourinho admitted he never had the pace to make it as a player or, in truth, the ability but he always had a deep understanding of the game, and the tactics required to win as proven in an eventful, trophy-filled management career.
The theory appears to hold with even more elite-level players. Zinedine Zidane is a complicated one but the most successful manager of the modern era, Carlo Ancelotti, himself such a shrewd, garlanded Champions League-winning midfielder with AC Milan. Never quick, except in thought.
Xabi Alonso was not a quick midfielder physically but was so fast mentally, seeing opportunity clearly and early and has taken that vision so successfully into management with Bayer Leverkusen. The former Liverpool player will be warmly greeted on returning to Anfield in the Champions League next week.
Talking to some Liverpool fans about their new manager, Arne Slot, the question arose again. Slot certainly wasn’t a swift player. “A slow, old-fashioned No 10,” is how Bart Vlietstra, editor-in-chief of Dutch magazine Santos, described the former PEC Zwolle, NAC Breda and Sparta Rotterdam player in the Guardian. His managerial career highlights his tactical nous.
As well as Slot’s success, a glance elsewhere at the Premier League table lends some more credence to the theory. Manchester City’s guiding force, Pep Guardiola, was magnificent in deep midfield for Barcelona – Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team - and Spain. He didn’t hurtle between the boxes. He just cleverly built moves from deep and has proven a visionary as a manager. His former assistant at Manchester City, Mikel Arteta, now impressing as a manager at Arsenal, dictated moves during his playing career, especially at Everton and Arsenal. Again, Arteta was never the swiftest but always influential, always thinking ahead.
The theory is far from proved. Roberto Mancini was a striker with a good change of pace who always analysed the game, especially in a deeper forward role, and became a good manager at Manchester City and won the Euros at Wembley with Italy.
I remember late in Mancini’s playing career when he joined Leicester City, I went down to Belvoir Drive to grab a word on his first day of training. I’d heard he was learning English through watching Coronation Street and thought it would make an intriguing interview for the Telegraph.