A Management Success Story: Sir Alex Fergusson

A lot of us think that football is just a sport that has to do with luck, but in reality, at a professional level, sport and more particularly football has nothing to do with luck or another issue. Nowadays to succeed in a particular sport, money becomes very important. Generally great investment is followed by great results. Chelsea was an average team until 2004 when a rich Russian investor bought the club and decided to buy the best players in Premier league. Chelsea football club has won everything since 2004, England premier league, national cups, and finally the most prestigious trophy in Europe, the champion’s league. Others clubs followed the same strategy, PSG was bought by a rich Qatari business man, and the success was imminent, the club won their second and third league title in a row! Manchester city football club also succeeded after a long period of investment on new players and coaches. However, there is something more powerful than money to succeed in football. In fact, a team like Manchester United has marked the English football history by their wins in the national, European, and international level, but this time the key of success was not money, but the genius of a man, Sir Alex Ferguson.

A stand of Manchester Stadium tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson

Born in1941, Sir Alex Ferguson began his career as footballer in Scotland, and England. His talent as leading a team was innate since he was coach player at many times. After his football career he decided to become a manager, and the first great team he managed was Aberdeen in Scotland. The young manager with a great leadership skill became the first manager to win a European trophy with Aberdeen defeating great teams such as Bayern Munich, and Real Madrid. This was the beginning of a long list of success for him. Rapidly, Manchester United recruiters approached him, and he signed his first contract with the glorious team in 1986. The success was not imminent, and he had to face difficult moment in order to create his winning team. He was rude and imposed discipline codes to all of his players, and finally the first success came in season 1990-91 with the first league title. Sir Alex Ferguson continues to manage Manchester united until 2013, during his long career (the longest one for a coach in a team) he was able to win all the major trophies with Manchester, but also he was able to discover the most talented players of the world like Ryan Gigs, Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo.  The most important moment in his career was his first champion’s league title in 1999, the first one since 1968 for the club.

Finally, Leadership and good management is the key success in football, and great club are aware that money, and just investing on good players isn’t sufficient to bring success and make history.