Ferguson Alex Quotes

I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Football. Bloody hell.

Once you bid farewell to discipline you say goodbye to success

I've never played for a draw in my life.

There’s a reason that God gave us two ears, two eyes and one mouth. It’s so you can listen and watch twice as much as you talk. Best of all, listening costs you nothing.

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.

If I were running a company, I would always want to listen to the thoughts of its most talented youngsters, because they are the people most in touch with the realities of today and the prospects for tomorrow.

In the long run principles are just more important than expediency.

You cannot lead by following.

Don’t play the occasion, play the game.

The experience of defeat, or more particularly the manner in which a leader reacts to it, is an essential part of what makes a winner.

Origins should never be a barrier to success. A modest start in life can be a help more than a hindrance.

Perhaps the most important element of each activity is to inspire a group of people to perform at their very best. The best teachers are the unsung heroes and heroines of any society,

you learn more from defeats than you do from victories

I always felt that our triumphs were an expression of the consistent application of discipline.

One mark of a leader is his willingness to share information.

Watching others, listening to their advice and reading about people are three of the best things I ever did.

For me drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat.

Eleven Nobel laureates are not going to win the FA Cup.

When I was lost in my own thoughts, Cathy would always say, ‘You’re not listening to me.’ She was right.

Sweeter after difficulties’.

We had a virus that infected everyone at United. It was called winning.

Losing is a powerful management tool so long as it does not become a habit.

I never had a problem reaching a decision based on imperfect information. That’s just the way the world works.

very often our victories were squeaked out in the last few minutes, after we had drained the life from our opponents. Games – like life – are all about waiting for chances and then pouncing on them.

With young people you have to try to impart a sense of responsibility. If they can add greater awareness to their energy and their talents they can be rewarded with great careers.

If you can assemble a team of 11 talented players who concentrate intently during training sessions, take care of their diet and bodies, get enough sleep and show up on time, then you are almost halfway to winning a trophy. It is always astonishing how many clubs are incapable of doing this.

You have to make everyone feel at home. That doesn't mean you're going to be soft on them – but you want them to feel that they belong.

Onde you bid farewell to discipline you day goodbye to success

Sometimes defeats are the best outcomes. To react to adversity is a quality.

If they lose faith in your knowledge, they lose faith in you. That grasp of the facts must be kept at a high level, for all time. You have to be accurate in what you say to the players.

You don't get the best out of people by hitting them with an iron rod. You do so by gaining their respect, getting them accustomed to triumphs and convincing them that they are capable of improving their performance.

There was no way I could contemplate taking the England job. Can you imagine me doing that? A Scotsman? I always joked that I would take the position and relegate them: make them the 150th rated country in the world, with Scotland 149.

As long as you don’t criticise individual players in public, admonishing the team is fine, not a problem. We can all share in the blame: the manager, his staff, the players. Expressed properly, criticism can be an acceptance of collective responsibility. Under

The human element tells you a referee can be wrong. But the good ones will make the correct decisions more often than not. The ones who make the wrong ones are not necessarily bad referees. They just lack that talent for making the right calls in a tight time frame.

Young people will always manage to achieve the impossible–whether that is on the football field or inside a company or other big organisation. If I were running a company, I would always want to listen to the thoughts of its most talented youngsters, because they are the people most in touch with the realities of today and the prospects for tomorrow.

Leaders are usually unaware, or at least underestimate, the motivating power of their presence. Nobody sees themselves as others see them.

Only true champions come out and show their worth after defeat- and I expect us to do that

When you run any organisation, you have to look as far down the road as you can.

Games–like life–are all about waiting for chances and then pouncing on them.

There’s a lot of satisfaction that comes from knowing you’re doing your best, and there’s even more that comes when it begins to pay off. I

advice often comes when you least expect it, and listening, which costs nothing, is one of the most valuable things you can do.

If you need one person to change your destiny, then you have not built a very solid organisation.

Inexperienced, or insecure, leaders are often tempted to make any infraction a capital offence.

Peter Schmeichel, Paul Ince, Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Mark Hughes and Eric Cantona could all start a fight in an empty house.

The most important aspect of our system was training.

The medical scans of the players who hailed from climates warmer than Britain tended to reveal much healthier joints.

drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat.

Part of the pursuit of excellence involves eliminating as many surprises as possible because life is full of the unexpected.

The supporters were entitled to know when I was unhappy with a performance. But not an individual.

With young people you have to try to impart a sense of responsibility. If they can add greater awareness to their energy and their talents they can be rewarded with great careers. One

No matter how hard we worked to blood youngsters, Barcelona is still able to do this better than any club. The way they develop boys into some of the best players in the world is breathtaking.

people who feel like outsiders do one of two things: they either feel rejected, carry a chip on their shoulder and complain that life is unfair, or they use that sense of isolation to push themselves and work like Trojans.

I placed discipline above all else and it might have cost us several titles. If I had to repeat things, I’d do precisely the same, because once you bid farewell to discipline you say goodbye to success and set the stage for anarchy.

It was to set very high standards. It was to help everyone else believe they could do things that they didn't think they were capable of. It was to chart a course that had not been pursued before. It was to make everyone understand that the impossible was possible. That's the difference between leadership and management.

There are a number of subjective and objective criteria that I use as a way to rank players. The subjective ones include their ability with both feet; their sense of balance; the disciplined fashion in which they take care of their fitness; their attitude towards training; the consistency between games and over multiple seasons; their demonstrated mastery in several different positions; and the way they add flair to any team for which they play. The objective ones that are impossible to dispute are: the number of goals they have scored; the games they have played for several of the best club teams in the world; the number of League championship and cup medals they have won, and their appearances in World Cups. When you employ this sort of measurement approach, it becomes far easier to define the very highest levels of performance. The people who are least confused about this are other players.

There are plenty of attributes that separate the great leader from the good manager. Both may put their work before family and friends, survive on little sleep, endure a lifetime of red-eye flights. Look more closely and you will find that the great leader possesses an unusual, and essential, characteristic – he will think and operate like an owner, or a person who owns a substantial stake of the business, even if, in a financial or legal sense, he is neither.

What we did at all times, in success and adversity, was make sure the training ground was sacrosanct. The work there, the concentration, and the standards we maintained never dropped. Eventually that consistency of effort will show itself on a Saturday. That way, when a United player has a couple of bad results, he will hate it. It becomes intolerable to him. Even the best players sometimes lose confidence. Even Cantona had bouts of self-doubt. But if the culture around the training ground was right, the players knew they could fall back on the group and the expertise of our staff.

Endless praise sounds false. They see through it. A central component of the manager-player relationship is that you have to make them take responsibility for their own actions, their own mistakes, their performance level, and finally the result. We were all in the results industry. Sometimes a scabby win would mean more to us than a 6-0 victory with a goal featuring 25 passes. The bottom line was always that Manchester United had to be victorious. That winning culture could be maintained only if I told a player what I thought about his performance in a climate of honesty. And yes, sometimes I would be forceful and aggressive. I would tell a player what the club demanded of them.

There were also plenty of times when I saw a player out of the corner of my eye who came as a complete, but pleasant, surprise. In 2003 I had gone to watch a young Petr Čech play in France. Didier Drogba, whom I had not heard of, was playing in the same game. He was a dynamo – a strong, explosive striker with a true instinct for goal – though he ultimately slipped through our fingers. That didn’t happen with Ji-sung Park. I had gone to get the measure of Lyon’s Michael Essien in the Champions League in 2005 during their quarter-final ties with PSV Eindhoven, and saw this ceaseless bundle of energy buzz about the field like a cocker spaniel. It was Ji-sung Park. The following week I sent my brother, Martin, who was a scout for United, to watch him, to see what his eyes told him. They told him the same thing and we signed him. Ji-sung was one of those rare players who could always create space for himself.

1. Linus Malthus "Winning is just the snow that came down yesterday"   Founder of total football. Tactical revolutionary who created the foundation of modern football  저희는 7가지 철칙을 바탕으로 거래를 합니다. 고객들과 지키지못할약속은 하지않습니다 1.정품보장 2.총알배송 3.투명한 가격 4.편한 상담 5.끝내주는 서비스 6.고객님 정보 보호 7.깔끔한 거래 [경영항목] 엑스터시,신의눈물,lsd,아이스,캔디,대마초,떨,마리화나,프로포폴,에토미데이트,해피벌륜등많은제품판매하고있습니다 믿고 주문해주세요~저희는 제품판매를 고객님들과 신용과신뢰의 거래로 하고있습니다. 제품효과 못보실 그럴일은 없지만 만의하나 효과못보시면 저희가 1차재발송과 2차 환불까지 약속합니다 텔레【KC98K】카톡【ACD5】라인【SPR331】 The only winner in the international major tournament, Holland, the best soccer line of football 2. Sir Alex Ferguson Mr.Man Utd   The Red Boss The best director in soccer history (most of the past soccer coach rankings are the top picks) It is the most obvious that shows how important the director is in football.   Manchester United's 27-year-old championship, the spiritual stake of all United players and fans, Manchester United itself 3. Theme Mourinho "I do not pretend to be arrogant, because I'm all true, I am a European champion, I am not one of the cunning bosses around, I think I am Special One." The Special One The cost of counterattack after a player Charming world with charisma and poetry The director who has the most violent career of soccer directors 4. Pep Guardiola A man who achieved the world's first and only six treasures beyond treble. Make a team with a page of football history 5. Ottmar Hitzfeld Borussia Dortmund and Bayern are the best directors in Munich history. Legendary former football manager of Germany Sir Alex Ferguson's rival

El juez supremo del rendimiento es el Padre Tiempo.

The thing every good leader should have is an instinct.

Faced with the need to confront a player who had performed below our expectation, I might have said: That was rubbish, that.' But then I would follow it up with, 'For a player of your ability. That was for picking them back up from the initial blow. Criticise but balance it out with encouragement. 'Why are you doing that? You're better than that.

when you're managing change, you have to accept the quieter spells and acknowledge that transformations take longer than a year.

The one thing I could never allow was loss of control, because control was my only saviour.

I couldn't take sides against mu players. I had to find solutions other than castigating them in public. Sometimes I had to fine or punish them, of course, but I could never let it out of the dressing room. I would have felt I had betrayed the one constant principle of my time as a manager: to defend. No, not to defend, but to protect them from outside judgments.

Origins should never be a barrier to success. A modest start in life can be a help more than a hindrance. If you're examining successful people, look at their mother and father, study what they did, for clues about energy and motivation.

The Only time to give up is when you are dead.

In a company, people who have worked together for a long time will know how others will react in certain situations, and may even be able to anticipate what their colleagues might say.

Many people cannot stop long enough to listen - especially when they become successful and all the people around them are being obsequious and pretending to hang on their every word.

there are two forms of observation: the first is on the detail and the second is on the big picture.

I always wanted to watch with my own eyes without having my judgement swayed by the filters of others.

I certainly found more virtue in patiently working towards the right decision as I got older. In my early days as a manager I could be impetuous - always in a hurry to get things done and stamp my authority on a situation. It takes courage to say, 'Let me think about it. When you're young you want to fly to the moon and you want to get there quickly. I think it's usually enthusiasm that causes this. As you get older you temper your enthusiasm with experience.

I realise that were shaped by lots of other forces beyond just watching, listening and reading. We're all accidental victims of our parents' DNA; we are shaped by the luck of the draw, the circumstances in which we grew up and the education we received. But we all have two sets of very powerful tools that we completely control: our eyes and our ears. Watching others, listening to their advice and reading about people are three of the best things I ever did.

the very best footballers were competing against themselves to become as good as they could be.

if I had to choose between someone who had great talent but was short on grit and desire, and another player who was good but had great determination and drive, I would always prefer the latter. The former might work well for a brief period, but they never have the staying power that gives a great club stability and consistency.

One player's drive can have an enormous effect on a team - a winning drive is like a magical potion that can spread from one person to another.

The minute you start intruding too far, you take the drive out of the man.

If you overemphasise opponents strengths, you just plant seeds of doubt in your players.

part of a leader's job is to eliminate as many risks as possible.

Great teamwork comes from deep familiarity and developing close bonds with others. In a company, people who have worked together for a long time will know how others will react in certain situations, and may even be able to anti cipate what their colleagues might say.

I never allowed my personal feelings about a particular player to cloud my judgement about what was best for the team.

I just think a leader has to keep reminding himself to be clinical about these sorts of judgements. You don't have to love your players or your management team, but you do need to respect their abilities.

One aspect of team-building that often gets overlooked is the need for old-timers to have the necessary patience with newcomers.

When I selected the captain I was looking for four principal virtues. The first was a desire to lead on the field. The second attribute I wanted was someone I could trust to convey my desires, and the third was a person whom the other players would respect as a leader and whose instructions they would follow. I also wanted captains capable of adapting to changing circumstances.

I never had a particular quota that I expected any player to fulfil, but they all knew I expected nothing but the best from them.

As a leader, you don't need to be loved, though it is useful, on occasion, to be feared. But, most of all, you need to be respected.

you cannot get too attached to people who work for you. The one time you must have that attachment is when they are in trouble - when they need your advice.

I never expected the players to love me, but neither did I want them to hate me, because that would have made it impossible to extract the most from them. All I wanted was for them to respect me and follow my instructions.

Another crucial ingredient of motivation is consistency. As a leader you can't run from one side of the ship to the other. People need to feel that you have unshakeable confidence in a particular approach. If you can't show this, you'll lose the team very quickly.

If you hope to motivate people, you need to know when to prey on their insecurities and when to bolster their self-confidence. People perform best when they know they have earned the trust of their leader.

Disciplined perseverance pays far more dividends than impetuous attempts at individual heroism.

I always felt that the trick was to celebrate our triumphs without for a moment losing the edge and depth of desire that had taken us there. I just wanted to be on my guard that victories weren't seen as auto matic guarantees of future success, and that celebrations did not sow the seeds of complacency.

While I took great pleasure and satisfaction in seeing what we had done for others, I cannot say that I felt as happy. I always felt I had to be in the vanguard of tomorrow. I'd immediately start to think about ways in which we could improve, and players who were coming to the end of their best days.

When I interview someone, I want to know how ambitious they are or whether they are just thinking about a job as a stepping-stone to something else. Apart from their qualities and qualifications, I want to measure the level of their commitment. I always look for enthusiasm, for a positive attitude, for eye contact and for personal courage.

I often of someone by listening to the questions they pose. It shows how they think; offers a sense of their level of experience and degree of maturity.

I always watch to see whether people can maintain eye contact because it is a good measure of their confidence.

The only real test of character comes with the passing of the years and watching them perform - particularly when they are going through a bad spell or recovering from a setback. The ultimate judge of performance is Father Time.

Decisions are simpler when you are dealing with people you know well. It is far casier to gauge their opinions and weigh their judgements than the observations of strangers.

A network takes time to develop. Part comes through the passage of time, part from the way you treat others and part from reciprocity.

If the people within your organisation feel they are part of a community that has their interests at heart, they will develop great loyalty. And it often starts with what seem like small issues.

It's easy to forget about someone who has left an organisation and assume that because they've retired, or because their most fruitful years are behind them, they are no longer of any use. Quite the contrary. If the organisation has done right by them they will usually have fond memories of it, harbour considerable affection for it and be very happy to help.

If you have decided you are going to get rid of someone, nothing beats honesty.

There's some merit in getting defeated even though I'd never want it to be a habit. Team members who are hungry for victory and take great pride in their performance will be eager to avenge defeat.

Whenever someone new assumes a role, there will always be doubts about his capabilities until he has proved himself.

The best protection against attacks from others comes from a few people whose opinions you really care about. The yells of a horde of abusive banshees always fade away when you have the support of a few people that you respect.

For me it's been more important to plan what I want to say, have a mental road map for the points I want to emphasise, and then try to maintain my train of thought.

a display of temper is more effective if used sparingly. I just don't believe that you can get the most out of people if they are perpetually afraid of you.

I was the puppet master, not the control freak.

Nobody had ever explained to me that working with, and through, others is by far the most effective way to do things - assuming, of course, that they understand what you want and are keen to follow. I gradually began to understand that this is the difference between management and leadership.

Effective delegation depends on the ability of others to make decisions. Some people can make decisions, others cannot. It just doesn't work if you are congenitally hesitant and allow things to linger in a state of suspension.

you have to make decisions with the information at your disposal, rather than what you wish you might have. I never had a problem reaching a decision based on imperfect information. That's just the way the world works.

There is also the question of when you should make a decision. There are probably only two times to do so - too early and too late. If I was going to err on making one of those mistakes, I far preferred to make the decision earlier rather than later. That's much easier to say than to do.

Anyone who aspires to be a great leader needs to excel at selling his ideas and aspira tions to others. Sometimes you have to persuade people to do things they don't want to do, or to sell them on the idea that they can achieve something they had not dreamed about.

It doesn't matter if the compensation scheme is denominated in hundreds of thousands of pounds per week or in bags of potato crisps. It's all a matter of relative worth, because a lot of people either feel, or want to feel that they are more valuable than anyone else.

Whenever you show up in a new role, it will not be long before you have to face trouble and a clash over something. There is nothing to be gained by stirring it up yourself. Trouble will find you quick enough.

After anyone retires from a position of responsibility and remains associated with the same organisation, it is unfair to your successor to try and retain the authority you once possessed. You have to let go and let the new man and the new regime do what they think is best.

Los mejores jefes también se enorgullecen de que los empleados que hayan trabajado bien y quieran irse, lo hagan a puestos mejores y más importantes.

To win the FA Cup at Wembley made the good times roll. But on the morning after our victory, one newspaper declared: ‘OK, you’ve proved you can win the FA Cup, now go back to Scotland.’ I never forgot that.

Hay que disponer a todo el mundo para el éxito, lo que requiere una profunda reflexión. Resulta muy fácil crear expectativas poco realistas, es algo que aprendí muy pronto en mi carrera.

Give me Zidane and 10 planks of wood and I’ll win you the Champions League.

por muy valioso que fuera, nadie está por encima de la ley.

Todo eso implica que los equipos de alto nivel están en continuo estado de evolución, y pobre del mánager que crea que algunos jugadores pueden durar para siempre. Mi

Urmson and his colleagues learned that as their technology improved, the humans using it would become less reliable. “We realized that this was going to be much much harder to do than we had thought,” said engineer Dave Ferguson. “It just became clear that, look, if we can’t rely on the driver to pay attention, or to hand over control to, then basically we just have to solve the whole problem. We need to have this vehicle not need the driver.

I realise that we’re shaped by lots of other forces beyond just watching, listening and reading. We’re all accidental victims of our parents’ DNA; we are shaped by the luck of the draw, the circumstances in which we grew up and the education we received. But we all have two sets of very powerful tools that we completely control: our eyes and our ears. Watching others, listening to their advice and reading about people are three of the best things I ever did.

These are exceptional examples. On the whole it is better to explain to the people around you that you care about little details, but that it’s their job to attend to them.

Effective delegation depends on the ability of others to make decisions. Some people can make decisions, others cannot. It

Chapter 12 Numbers ‘I asked whether the number 28 shirt, which I wore at Sporting Lisbon, was available. Alex Ferguson said to me, “No no, yours is the number 7.” “Ok boss!” I replied. I wasn’t going to say to him, “No no, mine is the number 28.”’ Cristiano Ronaldo describes how he came to wear the famous number 7 at Manchester United, worn by all the great Red Devils players before him: George Best, Steve Coppel, Bryan Robson, Eric Cantona and David Beckham. But how did such a young new signing get to don such an important shirt number in the club’s history? Here’s how Sir Alex explains the motives behind his decision to the press: ‘We have given Ronaldo this shirt

The minute a Manchester United player thought he was bigger than the manager, he had to go. I used to say, ‘The moment the manager loses his authority, you don’t have a club. The players will be running it, and then you’re in trouble.’ David thought he was bigger than Alex Ferguson. There is no doubt about that in my mind. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Alex Ferguson or Pete the Plumber. The name of the manager is irrelevant. The authority is what counts. You cannot have a player taking over the dressing room. Many tried. The focus of authority at Manchester United is the manager’s office. That was the death knell for him.

I want to apologise for my behaviour in my last year at United.

For me drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat. At

Di Stéfano was one of the greatest footballers ever. He had such great balance.

Some people, when they have a holiday, just want to go to salt coats, twenty-five miles along the coast from Glasgow. Some people don't even want to that. They are happy to stay at home or watch the birds and the ducks float by in the park. And some want to go to the moon. It's all about people's AMBITIONS.

The most important aspect of our system was training. Whatever happens on a Saturday afternoon has already occurred on the training ground.

A housefly has a longer life expectancy than the manager of a Premier League team.

Jamie Carragher trained with United as a youngster. When he was with us he was a midfielder and a mundane, run-of-the-mill player.

You would have thought that I had left 11 corpses on the steps of a funeral home.

the best leaders tend to be missionaries rather than mercenaries.

These days the television coverage is drenched with possession percentages, assists, shots on goal – and what your dog had for lunch on Easter Sunday ten years ago.

Perhaps it is just very difficult to have more than a few close friends because these sorts of relationships build over a long time and lots of shared experiences. As my father always said, you only need six people to carry your coffin and, as I have got older, I have become ever more appreciative of that remark.

For my last 15 years at United I had a rolling one-year contract and an agreement that if I was sacked I would be entitled to two years’ salary, even if I turned up and started managing Manchester City the day after I was fired. That was more than enough for me.

But there have been other press conferences that last less time than it takes to boil an egg. No doubt you will have heard about the famous ‘Hairdryer’, the shouting, his ferocity when the bee in his bonnet starts to buzz out of control. It’s all true. He’s every bit as frightening as is made out. One prick of his temper glands and he will be up, leaning forward, jutting out his forehead, indiscriminately machine-gunning swearwords at someone who has asked or written something he doesn’t like. It’s the eyes. Those rheumy, pale-green eyes. They stare you down. Your palms begin to sweat. You mouth feels dry, as if you have just swallowed a tablespoon of sawdust. You start to feel pathetically weak. The outburst might last only a few seconds but it always feels so much longer. And you realise you are half-bowing, staring at your feet. It’s a degrading experience.

One particular game sticks in my mind: in March 2007 we went to Middlesbrough during a three-month period when we had the Swedish striker, Henrik Larsson, on loan from Helsingborgs. I could not have asked more from him when, under real pressure, he abandoned his attacking position and fell back into midfield just to help dig out the result. When Henrik appeared in the dressing room at the end of the game, all the players and staff stood up and spontaneously broke into applause for the immense effort he had made in his unaccustomed role. At the end of the season we requested an extra Premier League winners’ medal for Henrik, even though he had not played the ten games that at the time were required to obtain the award.

Don’t lie, don’t steal and always be early.

José doesn’t do regrets so will have dealt with them and moved on. Sir Alex Ferguson was very similar in this sense. In many other ways, too, the two men are alike. Both have fiery temperaments and firm opinions, which they are not afraid to voice loudly and defiantly. Neither of them suffer fools, be it rival managers, opponents, referees, pundits or journalists. Neither man would shy away from confrontation or welcome any interference in their work, planning or transfer dealings.

in my new office;

My greatest challenge is not what's happening at the moment, my greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their fucking perch. And you can print that.

British

Un líder no es uno de los chicos.

Crerand recalls, it gave them an injection of confidence. ‘After winning the Cup, we realised that we could then win anything,’ he says. ‘It was the start of our good run in the 1960s, much like Alex Ferguson’s success in 1990 was the start of what has become the greatest era in United’s history.

Saber lo que es posible, establecer unas expectativas realistas y comunicarlas con la suficiente claridad para que tu equipo te siga, en especial en un entorno en el que todo el mundo quiere resultados inmediatos, es una de las aptitudes para el liderazgo más difíciles de conseguir.

Ferguson, testified about coronavirus to a committee of the British Parliament. Ferguson calls himself an epidemiologist, though he is not a physician and his doctorate is in theoretical physics.

Failure, it will happen. Disappointment, it will happen. It’s part of your life and you can’t let it go without confronting it. Confront failure because this is how you find yourself. This is where you understand who you are.

Todo el que aspire a ser un gran líder ha de lucirse a la hora de vender sus ideas y aspiraciones

No matter what tribe you are in - you've got to hand it to the architects of the Brexit Referendum. Taking an incredibly complex decision and reducing it to a Yay or Nay vote is the perfect divide-and-conquer strategy. At a time when the 99% need to rise up against the 1% we are split right down the middle. An absolute guarantee of little change, ever.

The great leader knows that most success comes from making a few large decisions correctly rather than trying to be involved in making lots of small choices.

When he eventually retires, his organisation will be little different from the one he inherited. It will definitely not have achieved anything remarkable.

a vast gulf separates a great leader from a very good manager. Accomplished and skilful managers can be hired by the truckload. Leaders are the rarest of commodities. So, here is what I learned about the character of one leader–the man who used to wear a jacket bearing the initials ‘AF’.

a vast gulf separates a great leader from a very good manager.

Si dirigiera un negocio, me encantaría conocer las ideas de sus trabajadores más jóvenes, pues son los que tienen un mayor contacto con la realidad y las perspectivas de futuro.

Observar a otras personas, prestar atención a sus consejos y leer sobre otros seres humanos son tres de las mejores cosas que he hecho en mi vida.

En el momento en el que la autocomplacencia se instala, las cosas empiezan a ir mal y casi siempre conduce a la perdición.

There is nothing wrong with requiring time to consider a question or an argument and you can gain it without appearing to be a dithering idiot. I might say, ‘I’ve never considered that angle – can I give it some thought?’ By praising the other person’s ability to make me think, I increased his willingness to wait for an answer.

Opponents come to Old Trafford expecting an onslaught. ‘Why disappoint them?’ I say to my players.

When winning becomes a way of life, true winners are relentless.

تخصیص کار و تخصص کنترل دو روی یک سکه‌اند من در دوران جوانی و کم‌تجربگی، ترجیح میدادم خودم همه چیز را کنترل کنم. احتمالا فکر میکردم اگر خودم کاری را انجام دهم، کار سریع تر و بهتر از زمانی انجام می‌شود که آن را به کس دیگری بسپارم.

Tuve la suerte de que mi mujer y mis hijos no me hicieron sentir culpable por haber pasado tan poco tiempo con ellos y me permitieron ser egoísta.

«No hemos perdido, simplemente se ha acabado el tiempo».

La autoridad y el control se basan en ganarse la confianza de las personas a las que se va a dirigir.

I have yet to encounter anyone who has achieved massive success without closing themselves off from the demands of others or forgoing pastimes. I’m not suggesting that being completely obsessed with a pursuit leads to a healthy lifestyle or eternal happiness, but I just cannot imagine how, if you aspire to be better than everyone else, you can have balance in your life.

I wasn’t afraid of crossing into what some of the players might have considered their private territory–hairstyles and jewellery. I never understood why players would want to have long hair when they spend so much effort trying to be as fit and quick as possible. Anything, even a few extra locks of hair, just didn’t seem sensible. I had my first issue with a player on this topic when Karel Poborský came to Manchester from Slavia Prague in 1996, looking as though he was going to play for Led Zeppelin rather than United. I did manage to persuade him to trim his locks but, even so, they were always too long for my taste. There were other players who would be wearing necklaces carrying crosses that seemed heavier than those the pilgrims carry up the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. I banned all those. However, there wasn’t much I could do about tattoos since it was hard–even for me–to argue that they added any weight. Eric Cantona started that particular craze when he arrived one morning with the head of an American Indian chief stencilled on to his left breast. Since Eric was venerated by his team-mates, several other players followed suit. I was always struck by the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo never chose to deface his body. It said a lot about his self-discipline.

The relentless perseverance of these men was matched by some players on the pitch. Three for whom I developed great admiration were Tony Adams of Arsenal, Gianfranco Zola when he played for Chelsea and Jamie Carragher of Liverpool. I always thought Adams was a United player in the wrong shirt. Alcohol has ruined the careers and lives of many footballers, and at United the sad legacy of George Best will always loom large in our collective memories, so Tony’s brave confrontation with his demons at the end of the 1990s was, in itself, extraordinary.

A leader who arrives in a new setting, or inherits a big role, needs to curb the impulse to display his manhood.

The way to win battles, wars and games is by attacking and overrunning the opposing side.

If you are a boy who has just had his tenth birthday, your next one seems an eternity away. That’s because the single year that stretches ahead amounts to 10 per cent of the time you have been on earth. It’s a different sensation when you turn 50, because the distance to your 51st birthday amounts to just 2 per cent of the time you have been alive. As you get older and more experienced, you start to think about how you allocate time.

11

Sir Alex Ferguson explained to me the importance of coaching: We take coaching very seriously at this club. Players do not choose what to do in training. At other clubs, left to their own choice, the players would choose to have a kick around. They can play six-a-side at Liverpool. Not at our place. We coach them, drill them and they practise … We start skills coaching as early as six years old. Character coaching becomes critical between sixteen and eighteen. Players have to learn about failure. We cannot guarantee every Academy player makes the first team. Ninety-two current players in the league came out of our Academy. But remember, they can get injured; they can hit a run of bad form; they may never make it. For those who don’t, at least we trained them in character.

Mike Phelan, Sir Alex Ferguson’s last assistant manager, said that one of his greatest contributions to the Ferguson leadership was to make his boss laugh. In my interviews, the same comedic quality was attributed to another of Ferguson’s coaches, Steve McClaren, to both John Prescott and Alastair Campbell for Tony Blair, and Nicki Chapman for her many artistes. Funny Cs can break down the structure of A opinion, and put it back together somehow modified, all in a pleasurable whirl.

Якби у мене був вибір між надзвичайно талановитим футболістом без бажання розвиватись і непоганим гравцем з надзвичайною самовіддачею, я обрав би останнього.

If you're examining successful people, look at their mother and father, study what they did, for clues about energy and motivation.

In those moments of defeat and acceptance, there would be a dawning, for me, of where we needed to go. My feeling was always: 'I don't like this, but we'll have to meet the challenge. We'll have to step up a mark.' It wouldn't have been me, or the club, to submit to apocalyptic thoughts about that being the end, the finish of all our work. We could never allow that. Every time those moments poked us in the eye, we accepted the invitation to regroup and advance again. Those were motivating passages. They forced me on. I'll go further: I can't be sure that without those provocations I would have Enjoy the job so much.

There is a psychological dimension also to handling indiavidual players. With errant behaviour it helps to look for a moment through their eyes. You were young once, so put yourself in their position. You do something wrong, you're waiting to be punished. What's he going to say?' you think. Or, What's my dad going to say?' The aim is to make the biggest possible impact. What would have made the deepest imprint on me at that stage of life?

I don't like admitting, we were beaten by a great team, because we never wanted to say those words. The biggest concession we ever wanted to make was: two great teams contested this final, but we just missed out. Our aim was to attain that level where people said we were always on a par with Europe's best.

Success is often cyclical, with doldrums.

One obvious aspect of management is identifying people who can help you get where you are trying to go. Talent-identification sounds like a straightforward business. If it were, every team would be successful.

When I won the League for the first time in 1993, I didn't want my team to slacken off. The thought appalled me. I was determined to keep advancing, to strengthen our hold on power. I told that 1993 side: 'Some people, when the have a holiday, just want to go to Saltcoats, twenty-five miles along the coast from Glasgow. Some people don't even want to do that. They're happy to stay at home or watch the birds and the ducks float by in the park. And some want to go to the moon.' 'It's about people's ambitions.

Alex Ferguson, once said to me that the true friend is the one who walks through the door as the fair-weather friends are putting on their coats to leave the room.

If you want my summary of what it was to be Manchester United manager I would direct you to the last 15 minutes.

Hard work will always overcome natural talent when natural talent does not work hard enough.

Мабуть, складно мати багато справжніх друзів, адже треба чимало часу, щоб виникли такі стосунки. Як казав мій батько, вам треба лише шестеро людей, щоб нести вашу труну. З часом я зрозумів, що він мав на увазі.