Is everything the fault of the manager?

[Oddquine]

This is likely in the wrong place...but feel free to move it.

This was brought on by the furore about the England World Cup debacle, and the cries to get rid of the England manager, mostly.....but also the fact that, on many of the forums I read, if not post on, there seems to be some idea that the manger has a responsibility to motivate players.

I was brought up in the days when you were paid a wage, and you did a job. It was called work ethic...and seems to have disappeared along with commonsense and a sense of personal responsibility in recent years.

You did the job because you were paid the wage to do the job...whether you liked your immediate line manager, or thought he was a waste of space......and whether you thought the person above him was an eejit of the first water or not. The systems put in place may not have been the best ones, or the most sensible ones, in your opinion........but regardless, you did what you had to do to the best of your ability...because that is what you were being paid to do...and heaven help you if you brought your personal problems into the work place and reduced your competency.

Why should highly paid, and relatively highly paid footballers have any less of an obligation to give 100% minimum in every game they play? Sure, if the tactics are wrong, then that is down to the manager.....but wrong tactics are not an excuse for not bothering to do your best.

Sure the team make-up might be wrong, and not gel as expected, perhaps down to the chosen tactics.....but that does not mean that players shouldn't try to do their best.

But why on earth should a team manager, and particularly a National Team Manager, have to motivate his players to earn their wages any more than any manager in any business has to motivate his employees to earn their wages?

After all, professional football is a job like any other...hence the "professional".

[starchief]

But if you have a terrible manager, do you work as hard? I don't mean deliberately but keen-ness for the job wanes. It's not somewhere you want to be. Unhappiness doesn't produce good workers.

When I manage in the workplace, I try to inspire. I try to get my people to focus on why they are in the job and what it means (I'm lucky enough to work in a field that's as much a vocation as a career). The project goal then takes care of itself (to a certain extent).

Sure, you do your job, no matter what, as that's what you're paid for. Put in a decent manager, then it becomes so much easier to do a good job. And of course, if your manager is the one giving directions/tactics, if his guidance is patently not working and he won't listen to ideas, it's doomed to failure.

So, no, it's not always the managers fault. Individuals can let themselves down, but when it just isn't happening for the whole team - football, office or factory - you've got to look at the boss first to see if it's their fault.

[Alex MacLeod]

I'm with the odd quine. In my younger day managers and employers were bad people. they demanded a days work for a days pay and if you challenged it or didn't do it you were out on your @rse and no questions.

If you worked hard the employer or manager would start to like you and coach you to better things. So hard work would pay off in the long run.

Nowadays team work and worker involvement is the thing. People are coached into taking pride in what they do. They are made to feel part of the system and to get involved in the decision making.

Unfortunately, between then and now, laws came into being that protected the disruptive or lazy worker from being shown the door and that is the one who can upset a whole team to such an extent that no amount of motivation will make a difference.

On one of Oddquines points though.....It may not be the responsibility of a manager to motivate but good managers do it as a matter of course. Reward and encouragement are all used to motivate. Anyone, in any field, should be giving what is expected of them for the salary they recieve and if they are in any way ambitious then thats what they will be doing and the pat on the back, the well done, the thank you is going to motivate them to do even more.

[Oddquine]

On one of Oddquines points though.....It may not be the responsibility of a manager to motivate but good managers do it as a matter of course. Reward and encouragement are all used to motivate. Anyone, in any field, should be giving what is expected of them for the salary they recieve and if they are in any way ambitious then thats what they will be doing and the pat on the back, the well done, the thank you is going to motivate them to do even more.

Fair enough in that respect....you should always praise someone for a job well done....but you shouldn't have to gee them up to go out and do that job in the first place. The strongest motivation should be self-motivation because the player wants to win and in a team sport the motivation must be because the players want to win together....and actually earn their pay. Where is their pride in doing their job well?

Interesting take on motivation for footballers HERE

[The Fly]

With the England team I do seriously wonder if they have the same sort of passion that most internationalists used to have, or if there's a general feeling that playing for your country having the World Cup Finals between seasons rather interferes with their plans to spend the ?2m per year they get for doing their day job.

They seemed to play OK for Capello in the qualifying stages, and perhaps a World Cup winner's medal doesn't have the same appeal for many of today's England players as it did 40 years ago when it was the absolute peak of your footballing career. Now the key target seems to be when you negotiate that new contract that gives you ?80k a week to play for your club.

[Scarlet Pimple]

Everybody is right --to some extent.

But the true problem is that lazy and un -motivated players are paid so much money that why should they bother themselves to play out of their skins for their country. The very high salary means that it is no longer a wage for a piece of work well done,; it's way out of that realm now. And the Manager, or the club Management, cannot just fire them for non-effort because players nowadays would have a hard time deciding to sign a contract that included such a clause. And there is so much money floating about the English system in particular nowadays that there will always be a very rich arab to be found who is willing to pay outlandish sums of money to try to buy success.It's their plaything; a football club, and they measure their own worth in terms of big reward or financial success.

In short, managers now need to be more than someone who has spent most of his adult life playing the game or being around it in some other important capacity, but also needs to have a degree in psychology. The days appear to have long gone when it's the indivdual players who are dressed down or let go for poor playing attitudes. Now it is all about finding a scapegoat to make the bosses feel important and justified in taking drastic action against the one vulnerable cog in the wheel--Mr Manager....basically who cannot fight back.

Mind you, it has to be said that Managers nowadays are , by any standards, very well paid and when they lose their job at one club they are often able to join the merry-go-round and get another one , often abroad with emerging football nations, or simply quietly slide in with another club who understands the system and the fact that the Manager is simply a scapegoat but could be very useful to another team due to the experience that he has accumulated over many years service. In the case of mr Capello, or Capiello, he has wangled another two years as Manager of England because the 10 million (yes MILLION) pounds that is rumoured to be the cost of sacking him is just too rich a price to pay for the English soccer bosses. Whether it's dollars or pounds I forget, but no matter, it does seem..well...a tad excessive don't you think in today's desperate economic situation. In fact I find these sums of money so out of the park that I can hardly credit it.

The answer? Find bright-eyed -and -bushy-tailed youngsters who are willing to run all day and have the passion in their blood to work hard and play hard for their country, viewing it as an honour and a privilege to be selected.

And before I quit, do remember all the teams filled with good players who have these qualities and are devastated when they lose the game. Like Ghana today, for example.

Am I wrong?--feel free to tell me and then go on to advise what you think the answer is. Personally speaking, I think the pendulum for England has swung too far in favour of the players who no longer value the honour of being selected for their country and spend more time on the park evading their responsibilities by either passing the ball back to the full backs or the 'keeper than rampaging forward to try to attack and provide some real entertainment for the fans who, actually are the ones who pay their Prima Donna salaries.

[Johnboy]

Good post, Scarlet...

But I suspect Matilda's probably written it.

:cat:

[Scarlet Pimple]

Dead right ,Johnboy. She has her say and a paw in it for sure. LOL

Have not quite got round to persuading her that she really should consult with her oracle and name the winning teams for the future games for me. It's an ethics thing with her, don't you know. :024: :cdn-flag:

[Council Juice]

I think it does fall on the players or employers to put in their best efforts but undoubtedly people will tend to go that extra mile and be more productive in an enviroment that is both just comfotable and secure enough as well as being just strict enough and a tight ship. There needs to be a balance.

Also I can understand tactics are going to have a part to play. Its the same with most high level business. Unless you go about business the right way, you wont get results. And if your in charge of the way the business is being run then the buck stops with you- Especially if you have control over the resources (in this case players and training facilities)

It is true that there has to full commitiment from the staff (players and coaches) especially if they're highly paid international football players.

But as football is a very expressive profession then it can be hard to perform at the best if something isn't right.

In saying most of this, it doesn't make Capello a bad manager - previous results are testament to this. Nor does it suggest the players didn't try. Something however wasn't right and Capello has to find and fix this.

[Libero]

I think its very difficult to apportion blame to either the manager or the players without knowing the way the club/team operates. Often in football only one side of the story is released to the press and its very easy to incorrectly blame one party based on what the board/chairman/manager/press officer tells the press.

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the manger to get results and football as we all know is a results driven business. However footballers nowadays often play only for the pay cheque or big contract rather than the club and this quite often leads to lack of commitment/passion/respect for the team. Football is becoming less of a team sport and more a means to make indivduals rich.

Using the world cup as an example, from what we have seen in the media Capello has taken a lot of flak (and rightly so IMO) for some confusing team selections and formations however there has been a lot of rumours about infighting amongst players within the camp which would surely have had an effect on team spirit and moral. In this case it is almost impossible to apportion blame without knowing the full story.