Edge: Leadership Secrets from Footballs’s Top Thinkers. Ben Lyttleton
a banner with ‘RACHEL’ written on either side of giant white hearts. The head of the supporters’ group, the Falcons, also wrote a thank-you letter to Rachel. It included the lines: ‘I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I just want to say thank you. I’m not sure if you realise how much you, indirectly, affect me (and many others) every single day. You need to know how much joy you’ve given us. And still do. Everyone in Östersunds is talking football nowadays. Everyone is proud of ÖFK … That wasn’t the case in 2011 but much has changed since you and your husband first arrived five years ago.’
‘I wanted the people of Östersunds to be proud of its football club,’ says Kindberg. ‘This city is warm, welcoming, safe and secure.20 The fans are also part of our team and they recognise these values that we have. We want to take a stand against society and use our role for good. That’s another product of the environment we have built. If it connects with the core values in the club, then fine. I believe that can give us an edge and help us win games.’
The project is not over yet. Kindberg told Potter when they first met that Europe was the target, and he was not just talking about going to Tenerife on a pre-season training camp. ‘We still see this as the start of our journey.’
Key to the journey is Potter, who was voted Swedish Manager of the Year after the team finished eighth in its debut top-flight campaign in 2016. ‘Graham is extra-extra-extra-extraordinary,’ says Kindberg. ‘He is one of most promising managers in Europe. I can stand up every day and argue that. He is open-minded, has values and fantastic leadership skills.’ And emotional intelligence? ‘Of course!’
Is Kindberg prepared for the day when Potter moves to another club? What will happen to ÖFK’s edge then? ‘I will be the proudest chairman on earth when a top-five club in the Premier League comes in for him, but they would have to pay a very big compensation. I will only talk to another club [about him] if it’s Barcelona who want him!’ Kindberg is smart and has already considered a succession plan – which sets him apart from most club chairmen I have encountered. He is convinced that ÖFK will one day win the Swedish title and compete in the Champions League. ‘We will be winners in a totally different way. We refuse to compete in any other way. That’s our belief.’
He enjoys taking advantage of football’s conservatism, and derives great pleasure from signing unpolished diamonds like David Accam (now playing for Chicago Fire in the MLS) and Modou Barrow (now at Swansea). ‘We look to recruit players that don’t follow the others. They might seem strange, or different, but they have a brain that others don’t recognise. The conventional football environment kills geniuses. That’s where we can find players.’ He is particularly excited about an English midfielder, Curtis Edwards, rejected from Middlesbrough’s academy, but with a huge potential for development.
HOW TO GET AN EDGE – by DANIEL KINDBERG
1 Create the environment where everybody promotes creativity, initiative and courage.
2 Delegate decision-making.
3 End the blame culture.
Potter is preparing for the new season ahead. I wonder if it might be his last in Sweden, before an offer comes in that Kindberg cannot refuse. He has already rejected approaches from other teams in Sweden. In six years, Potter has turned around a club in a negative spiral to an upwardly mobile, community-bonding, booty-shaking success story.
The ÖFK identity has come a long way in a short time. ‘We embrace diversity as part of our identity and are open-minded around how we explore different parts of ourselves as a team to develop the individual,’ Potter says. ‘We play an exciting, interesting and attacking brand of football with players from all over the world. We are a team that people are proud of, that’s grown a lot and that has made a difference to a small part of the world.’
I can’t let him leave without one final question. What is the meaning of art? ‘It’s about expression,’ he smiles, with no hesitation. ‘It’s a way of expressing yourself. In some ways, football is similar. In its simplest form, kids and everyone else who plays the game express their emotions through it. It’s just like art.’
Potter has not followed the traditional path for English coaches, and that sets him apart from most of his peers (other exceptions are Paul Clement, former assistant coach to Carlo Ancelotti at Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, and Michael Beale, who left Liverpool’s youth academy to join Brazilian club São Paulo for a seven-month spell as assistant coach).
If there is a bias towards appointing foreign coaches in the Premier League, might it be because the English coaches lack experience outside of England? Potter has shown remarkable adaptability to cope with the serious challenges that ÖFK presented. We will look at the importance of adaptability, and how to develop it, in more detail in Chapter 2. It starts with a moment of stunning skill in Dortmund, in the presence of another culturally engaged coach who sees football as a true art form.
HOW TO GET AN EDGE – by GRAHAM POTTER
1 Make sure people feel they can improve in a learning environment.
2 Find out the unique advantage that separates you from the competition in the market-place.
3 Hire managers who understand people and relationships, even if others may have more seniority and experience.
THOMAS TUCHEL
Be a rule-breaker
Dembélé and adaptability / The Rulebreaker Society / Forget success / Power of small rituals / Talent, aesthetics, and Nietzsche / Segmenting motivation / Mistakes don’t exist / The Lemon Tart and curiosity
Ousmane Dembélé’s first touch was outstanding. He trapped the ball brilliantly, lifting his left leg above waist height and killing it dead. He was on the halfway line, and his next move was to knock it down the touchline and run past his marker to pick it up again. He was approaching the corner of the penalty area, at speed, when he did it again. He played the ball to the defender’s left, and ran around the other side – known in France as a grand pont, a big bridge – to leave his poor marker flustered and floundering. But would there be an end product? Dembélé had just run 50 yards at speed and beaten two men. He looked up and fizzed in the most enticing cross imaginable: at perfect velocity and height, eight yards from goal, a little too far for the goalkeeper to reach.
His team-mate Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang only needed a small jump to power his header into the goal. The move had taken only eight seconds. In that time, you could see just how devastating Dembélé could be. This was February 2017, and Aubameyang had just scored the winning goal in Borussia Dortmund’s win over RB Leipzig.
Dembélé: you may remember his name. He was the player I selected for the Guardian’s ‘Next Generation’ feature back in 2014. At that time, he had yet to make an appearance for his club, Rennes. I was told that this 17-year-old boy, as he was then, had a natural gift for dribbling; that he did so with grace, agility, lightness, fluidity and ease. In some ways, that run-and-cross against RB Leipzig could not have been more appropriate. His unpredictable way of playing is the antithesis of modern football.
I wanted to speak to Dembélé, but Borussia Dortmund was keen to protect its talent. Instead, my colleagues at French TV station BeIN Sports sat down with him for an interview in February 2017 and, on my behalf, asked how he felt when he was named in the Guardian’s ‘Next Generation’. ‘I don’t pay too much attention to it,’ he told them. ‘It’s not an extra pressure for me, it’s just what I do. I’m on the road I have to follow and I don’t think about anything else. I train to get into the team and I’m enjoying my football here in Dortmund.’
As well he