Game of talents: management lessons from top football coaches
At lunchtime on the day of the Champions League final in 2012, Chelsea’s manager Roberto Di Matteo had selected 10 of his 11 players. He just didn’t know who to play in left midfield. The player would have to combat Bayern Munich’s brilliant Arjen Robben and Philipp Lahm. Going into the last team meeting, Di Matteo had a private chat with his left-back, Ashley Cole. He outlined the situation, then asked Cole who he would play at left-midfield. Instead of naming a seasoned star, Cole said: “Ryan Bertrand.” The 22-year-old reserve Bertrand had never played in the Champions League, let alone in club football’s biggest game. “Why?” asked Di Matteo, surprised. “I trust him,” replied Cole. Bertrand played well, and Chelsea beat Bayern on penalties. In part, this was a victory for talent management. Di Matteo had put aside his ego, and let trust between two players drive the decision. Talent management has been a business obsession at least since 1997, when the consultancy McKinsey identified a “war for talent”. The most visible battleground of this “war” is team sport. Football, in particular, is “the quintessential model for modern-day talent-dependent business”, writes Chris Brady, professor at Salford Business School. Big football clubs pay more than half their revenues to between 3 and 7 per cent of their workforce: the players. These young men are rich, multinational, mobile, often equipped with large egos and therefore hard to manage. Football managers are, above all, talent managers.
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