Sven-Göran Eriksson: Short audio preview

Sir Clive Woodward: Short audio preview

Reckon your management job is tough? Then try steering one of England's national sports teams to world cup victory.

Many of the problems you'll face will seem familiar: tight deadlines, ambitious targets, bureaucracy, politics. But they'll be many, many times harder to solve than in any other job. Why? Because you'll be burdened with the expectations of an entire nation (however embittered and unrealistic). And when you make a mistake, you won't simply be criticised by your immediate employers. You'll have your dignity vivisected by the world's most sadistic tabloid press.

Anyone who can survive, let alone thrive, under such pressure must have useful advice to give managers in other lines of work. This was the rationale behind "World Cup Business", a London Business Forum (LBF) event that saw around 600 attendees file past the new triumphal arch above Wembley Stadium and into the nearby conference centre on a sunny afternoon, just a couple of weeks before the start of the FIFA World Cup 2006.

Inside the massive auditorium, air-conditioning and "half-time oranges" provided a welcome respite from the heat outside, while a wide screen at the back of the stage displayed footage from the 1966 World Cup final. Anticipation was building for the scheduled speakers: Sir Clive Woodward, who won the Rugby World Cup as England's manager in 2003 and was now performance director of Southampton Football Club; and Sven-Göran Eriksson, manager of the England football team since 2001.

However, when compère Jeff Grout arrived on stage, his first duty was to announce a surprise guest: Sir Geoff Hurst, the scorer of the extra-time goal that had just been shown on screen.

"Is our squad today as good as the one in '66?" Grout asked, once the longstanding England hero was settled on stage. "You've got to understand we had a very good backbone of our side," Hurst replied. "Inarguably, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard are fantastic players, but would you pick them in front of Bobby Charlton?" He continued: "I think losing the goal just before the end of normal time [in the 1966 World Cup final], any other side could have crumbled - even a great side like Germany, which had the upper hand at that moment of the game. When we came back [to the bench], Alf Ramsay said: 'You've beaten them once, just go out and beat them again.'"

This resilience in the face of adversity was something the first main speaker of the day had in spades. After Hurst had dashed off to another engagement, Sir Clive Woodward appeared, and duly began to outline his views on winning. Aim for anything less, he argued, and you are destined to be a loser.

Woodward kicked off his presentation by revealing that, in 2000, he and Howard Wilkinson, then technical director at the Football Association (FA), had collaborated on a document entitled: "A Blueprint for Winning the World Cup." This identified the common attributes of winning campaigns in both rugby and football. For example:

• The age and experience of the team<br />Wilkinson believed in football that a World Cup winning team (in terms of its starting eleven, but preferably across the squad) needed an average age of 26-27 and an average experience of 25+ caps. "Planning four years out from a World Cup, that's what you should be thinking," Woodward commented. "You've got to arrive with an age of the team that is not that young. But the biggest thing is experience. Have we got enough people with enough caps in the team?" For the rugby World Cup campaign in 2003, Woodward was looking for an average age of 27-28, because the forwards needed stronger men, and an average experience level of 30+ internationals. As it turned out, the winning side had an average age of 28.3, and an average 42.5 caps. In the 2006 World Cup, he suggested, England would have a good chance because they were going into the tournament with equivalent figures of 26.5 and 40.5.
• The starting line-up<br />"I think it's critical to go to a World Cup with everyone knowing your [core] team," Woodward argued. "The reserves will be very, very important, but they need to know they're the backup players. They need to know when they'll be called on. And you plan accordingly. I think everyone knows the England starting team. That's why they're so excited. The only thing that can screw it up is injuries..." He added that a tournament is "not the time to spring surprises on selection". This remark was pointed given that Eriksson had, just days before the LBF event, selected the 17-year-old youth Theo Walcott, who had never played in the Premiership, as one of his strikers. (Woodward would later say he agreed with the decision, though he didn't say whether his view was skewed by Walcott's previous tenure at Southampton).
• Patterns of play<br />"Fundamentally the team needs to arrive knowing how they're going to play," Woodward said. "You have to set your own agenda out and not worry too much about the opposition." The caveat, he added, was that "during games, the ability to change those patterns of play is very important." Germany stuck with the same system throughout the 1970s, he pointed out, and were very successful as a result. "Yes, the opposition knew what they were going to do, but more importantly they knew. And with the world-class players they had, they could deliver." The need to alter patterns of play is often the result of a sending off or an injury, he concluded, so it is vital for the team to practise for every possible eventuality.
• Preparation<br />There are no excuses when it comes to preparation, Woodward said, even if a coach cannot spend as long as he would like with his team. Today's technology can help you to cut corners, as can simply working with individuals or groups of players, he argued. Also, you can concentrate on set pieces. "Brazil have this myth that play wonderful football and they string together 20 passes, but it's absolute rubbish," he said. "If you look at the statistics on Brazil, they score most of their goals from corners, a high percentage of their goals from free kicks, and they score a huge percentage from fewer than three passes after the ball has gone out of play."

Overall, Woodward's message to the audience was that, no matter how fluid, unpredictable and impassioned the project ahead of you, there are always plenty of ways to approach it methodically and scientifically. At the same time, he obviously believed a manager needed to be inspirational, to rally his or her team to go the extra mile for themselves as much as their country, and he proved it by presenting a video montage that depicted some of England's greatest victories and defeats to a thumping hip-hop soundtrack. It shook the room and made the hairs on everyone's neck stand up.

The attendees took a short break to recover and then it was time to meet the man who had only one tournament left to prove that he could put Woodward's principles into action, Sven-Göran Erikkson.

Grout would interview Erikkson for the second half of the event, before bringing Woodward back on stage to join in. He began by asking whether the surprising squad selection announced just a few days earlier had been difficult to make. "Of course," Erikkson replied, "It's very difficult when you have to phone up 10 people and say you are not in the squad." This sensitivity immediately set Eriksson's style apart from that of Woodward, as did his admission that the decision to include Walcott had been based on impulse.

"It's not logic, is it? No. Sometimes as a leader, whether you work in a bank or as a football coach, you have to do things you feel for. It's like sitting on the bench: I've been accused many times in this country of [doing nothing]. Sometimes you are very lucky. You can make a change and it changes the game. Sometimes it doesn't work. But sometimes you do it by feelings, not by logical thinking."

Grout pushed Eriksson to reveal how, without ever apparently raising his voice, he could motivate the England squad. "It takes time because when you come in as a new coach, everybody is shy, a little afraid, they are not honest, they want to make themselves appear nicer than they are," Eriksson said. "So it takes... a lot of talking to the players. Today, when a player has an opinion about how to play, whatever it is, they come to me and talk. And if you have created that, you have got very far, because normally everybody's listening when a head coach speaks and they have no opinions and I've never liked a group of people who have no opinions. Question, criticise, if you think we can play in another way, better than we do. Tell me, and we'll discuss it. As a leader you should never be afraid of that."

Self-belief was also a vital factor in both players and managers, as far as Eriksson was concerned. Asked whether he believed England had enough ability to win the World Cup in 2006, he replied: "Of course we have. And the big difference today [compared with] four years ago is that the players believe it today. They really didn't think they should win it in Japan, it was not that atmosphere. Today they believe they can win it. And if you don't believe you can win things, you will never win it."

Whether or not England would go on to win the tournament, it was clear that the FA could have done more to help. Eriksson revealed that, for his entire period as England coach, he had begged for an additional week to train the squad before major tournaments - something that required a shorter Premiership season. Many promises were made at the national and club level, but none were ever acted upon. It was only after Eriksson had called Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, and asked him to "improve the World Cup" by forcing every country to give its national squads a preparation time of no less than one month, that he got the extra time that he wanted.

At this point, Woodward re-emerged from backstage to join the next stage of the interview, which concerned the steps managers could take during a tournament to align and motivate their players. Both he and Eriksson argued that a good social environment was essential, with Eriksson suggesting: "First of all you must pick the right players... You must be sure you don't take a bad guy to the World Cup. To build up the [right] atmosphere takes a long time, to destroy it takes just second."

He added that he had no problem with players bringing their wives, girlfriends and even children on tour, even though he admitted he was still "sometimes fighting with people in the building I work, because a lot of them think it's not right". "I never understood that because if you take young people, young men, 20-30 years old. They have a normal life at home. Suddenly you take them out for two months. If they can't have their wives and girlfriends there, they will go crazy." Woodward added: "You're playing in a huge tournament, you're under pressure. The more normal what's happening outside the training is, the better it is."

Asked to conclude with one piece of advice on how to create a high-performance team, Woodward said he would emphasise the word "enjoyment": "I've never seen anything go well if people aren't enjoying what they're doing." Eriksson's answer was less simple but perhaps more applicable to general business life. "Be yourself," he said. "I think it's very, very important. Don't try to copy someone else. For example, myself, I can't be Trappatoni [Giovanni Trappatoni. the former manager of Italy and Benfica] his whistling, his shouting, his standing on the bench. Jumping up and down. That's not me. I can never learn that and I have no intention to learn it. Be yourself."

He added that inclusivity was, in his opinion, the hallmark of a great manager. "When you work with a group of people there are three things that are very important: you have to explain what you want them to do, you must be sure they understand it and, third, be sure they accept it that they want to do it, that they believe it's the right thing to do. Because if you have people out there on the pitch thinking this is not the right way of playing, they will never play well."