OVER THE YEARS, AND 40 EDITIONS LATER, A NUMBER
OF HIGH-PROFILE TECHNICIANS HAVE BEEN INTERVIEWED,  OFFERING WORDS OF WISDOM TO THEIR COACHING COLLEAGUES.
TO CELEBRATE THE 12TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PUBLICATION  AND TO GIVE A FLAVOUR OF THE CONTENT, 12 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ARE REPRINTED WITH THE NOSTALGIC ENTHUSIASM
THAT PROMPTS A POP GROUP TO PRODUCE A COMPILATION CD  OF ITS PREVIOUS HITS. OUR THANKS TO ALL WHO HAVE  CONTRIBUTED, INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING: ”12 T0P  TECHNICIANS”

MARCELLO LIPPI N°35 • January 2007
Technician: From a coach’s
perspective, what does it take to
win either the UEFA Champions
League or the World Cup?
“The most important thing is to have
the ability to involve top-level players.
There is very little a coach can do if
he can’t count on top players – you
need quality players to produce results.
So it is about recruitment, selection
and the ability to gel those players into
an effective team. The more stars you
have in the team, the more you need to
work hard to bring the group together,
to make the team compact and in
total harmony. You have to make each
player feel equally useful, but not in-
dispensable. Every time I start working
with a team, the first thing I emphasise
is that a team is made up of people
who respect each other and who place
themselves at each other’s service.
If nobody acts like a prima donna, then
the group is destined to achieve great
results. By contrast, if all the players
cater to their own self interest, it is
going to be rather difficult; you will have
some spectacular moments of foot-
ball, but in the end the teams which
have a ‘we’ mentality will prevail.”

SIR ALEX FERGUSON
N°34 • October 2006
Technician: What are the main
qualities required by a coach
at the top level?
“I have thought about that a lot, and
there are a number of things. As I pro-
gressed as a coach, I learned that ob-
servation was vital. To coach and watch
at the same time is difficult. If you are
involved too much in the coaching, you
miss many things. I started to delegate
more things to my assistant and to
stand back sometimes. Observation is
definitely an important issue in order to
make sure that the quality is high and
that you get out of a training session
what you want. Next, I think you need
perseverance because coaching
at the top today is not an easy job.
If you come in on a Monday morn-
ing after a defeat and you lack this
quality of perseverance, then it will
show and that will affect the players.
So on Monday morning, you have
the ‘fire in the belly’, you are ready.
The passion has to come out. I also
think that a top coach needs an
imagination. When people ask you
what was your best ever goal as a
coach, you want to identify a perfect
goal that you influenced. It is about
your imagination, inculcated into a
training session, and which the play-
ers take on board. They then do it by
habit. I remember as a young coach
teaching take-overs in important ar-
eas of the pitch which was unusual
at the time. So you put this imagina-
tion into a player’s mind, and he can
then take it to another level, because
he realises that you both want to try
things. You create a chain reaction
which produces thinking players, and
this is a wonderful thing to develop.
It is also important to have simple
communication. You see those training
sessions where the coach is talking
all the time and the message is lost –
the words get lost in the wind. Keep it
simple, be brief, but be decisive. Make
it perfectly clear what you are after in
a session. Remember when we were
players – we were standing there
and we wanted to get on with it and
the coach was rambling on. Talking
too much is a big danger for a coach.”

OTTMAR HITZFELD
N°16 • December 2001
Technician: How has football
changed since you started
coaching in 1983?
“The game has definitely become
faster, and this has put great demands
on the players, both physically and
technically. The players today must
accept a professional lifestyle and work
hard at all aspects of their game. Even
defenders have had to improve their
technical skills because it is imperative
that they take part in the build-up play.
Everything has improved, including the
medical treatment. Pressure has also
increased, and sponsors/commercial
people want results. The players are
stars and all of them must handle the
media – every day we are confronted
by five TV stations. To add to all of this,
I need to be a psychologist, dealing
with millionaire players who all have
their own demands and pressures.
The Bosman Ruling has changed the
attitude of the players – money has
become their priority and agents make
them crazy. Another aspect of the
Bosman situation has been the move-
ment of players across borders, but
we at Bayern have the ambition to
have as many German players in the
team as possible. The youth pro-
gramme has therefore become even
more important to us.”

ARSÈNE WENGER
N°26 • November 2004
Technician: You have a great
‘eye’ for a player – what do you
like to see in a young player?
“Motivation and intelligence are the
two main elements, because I be-
lieve you need minimal intelligence
(do you know why you make a mis-
take?), and a desire to become bet-
ter. The talent aspect is not enough,
because what makes a career de-
pends on how much you want to be
somebody, and are you intelligent
enough to understand what you
can do with the talent you have?
If you look around you, you will see
that most top players are intelligent
– they have to be because it is not
easy to manage a career. Ideally
you want to have a player who has
everything. Our game at Arsenal is
based on technique and movement
– that means I look at the pace of
the player and his technical level.
These elements don’t always go with
power or physical commitment, but
we want our game to be very mo-
bile and very fast, therefore we need
a good technique and to be able
to move quickly. Of course, you want
power and physical presence, but
the priorities for me are pace and
technique.”

FABIO CAPELLO
N°14 • January 2001
Technician: How would you
describe your style of coaching?
“I think I am a mixture between a
coach and a manager; I like entering
the managerial/administrative part
of the club, and I don’t want to be
isolated by only taking care of the
technical side. I like to be involved in
everything that happens at the club.
A little bit like the English. I believe
wholeheartedly in hard work, group
spirit and discipline. I always say that
if a player has discipline, respects his
colleagues and works in a serious
way, good results will be achieved.
Otherwise, positive results may still
be achieved but only in the short
term. It’s the system and the way
you work which allows you to win
on a continuous basis. You win by
remaining concentrated, determined
and disciplined. It’s not necessarily
a rigid sort of discipline. I am talking
about disciplined respect; respect
for the coach, respect for colleagues,
and respect for the people who pay
us. Regarding playing methods, it
depends a lot on the type of players
I have. If, for example, I can work
with fast, strong-minded players,
I can adopt a very different ap-
proach – while still implementing
my personal style.”

RAFAEL BENITEZ
N°30 • October 2005
Technician: You had a difficult
start as a head coach.
What advice would you give to
those who are starting out?
Put simply: you need passion and
hours. You need passion and to spend
endless hours at developing yourself
as a coach. You also have to have
faith in your ability. When I was sacked
from my first two jobs, one of them
after only nine games of the season,
I looked for a new job and continued
my education. I had a physical educa-
tion degree, including four years of
specialisation in football, and all my life
I had been in sport, so it was my busi-
ness. I remember my second agent
telling me that it would be difficult to
get a new job after two sackings. With-
out hesitation I told him I would be in
the first division. My wife was also very
supportive during those difficult days.
When I went on my study tour to Italy,
England and Brazil, I asked a lot of
questions to the coaches I met, like
Fabio Capello. If you don’t know some-
thing, you must look for the answers.
You must do the right things in order
to win and this means knowing what
works – it is not just about theory, but
about being practical and flexible. In
my parents’ house alone, I had 1,500
videos, with three matches on each,
and I used to analyse the details of
the games. That was ten years ago.
Now I use the computer and I have all
the DVDs at our training ground. I sup-
pose you could say, all things consid-
ered, that I am a student of the game.

JÜRGEN KLINSMANN
N°32 • April 2006
Technician: Who have been
the biggest influences
on you as a player and as
a coach?
I was very lucky. For almost 18 years
as a professional player, I worked
with people like Franz Beckenbauer
and Berti Vogts, both World Cup win-
ners and successful coaches. I also
worked with Otto Rehhagel, Giovanni
Trapattoni, Ossie Ardiles, César Luís
Menotti, Arsène Wenger – an amaz-
ing number of high-profile coaches.

ROY HODGSON
N°36 • June 2007
Technician: In your opinion,
what are the significant trends
in top-level European football,
from both a tactical and mana-
gerial perspective?
From a managerial perspective, the
trend is for a coach to be judged
more quickly and more harshly than
in the past. Because of that, there
is little scope for a coach to develop
his philosophy or his management
style because he might not get the
results quickly enough to give him
the time. What it has meant, at the
highest level, is that the ability to
spend money and buy the right
players, and to get them to fit in, has
become more important than it was
in the past when more time was
given to the manager to develop the
players at his disposal. Today he is
being judged more on the quality
of his buys than on the standard of
work being carried out on a day-to-
day basis. From a tactical viewpoint,
we could talk about a lot of things
but I’ll content myself with three.
Number one is the importance of
the counter-attack and the ability to
profit from the turnovers. Secondly,
the improvement of athleticism and
pace throughout the team. There
is no doubt the game is faster and
the selection of players reflects this.
And thirdly, there is less high-inten-
sity pressing from the front and in
advanced areas. This is partly be-
cause concern over the interpreta-
tion of the offside law has led teams
to play deeper. Sides are still com-
pact, but this is mainly in their own
And I picked up something from
them all. I learned a lot from Arie
Haan during my time in Stuttgart,
and with Arsène Wenger at Monaco,
such as the way to handle people
and to be respectful because the
person comes first. I am very thank-
ful for the opportunities I have had.
Each coach had his own style and
I learned from them that it is much
more than just thinking about the
result at the end of the week. If I
think back to my time in the national
team, I was impressed by Franz
Beckenbauer’s easy way of handling
things and how he was always posi-
tive. Above all, he was incredibly
charismatic. Berti Vogts was such a
well prepared for every training ses- sion.
Arie Haan was very influential in my early years,
but all the others gave me something. The way Arsène
Wenger developed players was very
impressive – at the time in Monaco,
I often wondered why he did certain
things but then later I would see
the positive results of his work with
particular players.

CARLOS PARREIRA
N°18 • August 2002
Technician: What is your view
of today’s stars?
“We have a very romantic view of
this: football is still, and will always be,
a game of technique and skills. It is
a game of talents. It is not everybody
who can be a singer. It is not every-
body who can be a painter (inciden-
tally, I am a painter myself). So this is
football: a game of talent, of technique,
of skills, of art. However, we cannot live
outside the modern game – it is not
enough to have technique and skills.
We need organisation, we must know
how to defend and attack, we must
be fit. But I believe that to reach the
highest level you must have stars –
without stars you are nothing. The stars
make the difference in the game –
one solo effort, one free-kick, etc. When
we talk about stars, I don’t like those
who just make smoke, I like those
who make fire, the ones who perform.
It is a problem for the coach to deal
with those who play for themselves –
a lot of smoke, but no fire. The stars
who do create the fire are those who
make the difference for the team,
they are the real stars.”

JOSÉ MOURINHO
N°27 • January 2005
Technician: How would you
describe your style as a coach?
“I think it has been an evolution –
I am different today than I was five
years ago. When it comes to games,
I am much more analytical during the
first half because at half-time I need
to help my team. It is difficult to com-
municate with the players during a top
match so I don’t shout too much but
I do take notes, but only in the first
half. The second half I can analyse at
home. During the half-time team talk,
I try to control my emotions and to be
what the team needs me to be – this
means that I can be very cool or I can
be very emotional because the team
needs a certain response from me.
There is always a certain emotional
component as well as a tactical contri-
bution. There is always something
to tell the team at half-time, but after
the match not one word, because the
players are not ready to be analytical
at that moment. Overall, I would say
that I have a flexible management
style, although I am very demanding
during training. I have always been
lucky to have more than one pitch at
my training centre, and I therefore
prepare my sessions in such a way
that I can jump from one situation to
another with effective working time
high and resting time very low. We go
for quality and high intensity during
short periods. Players want to work,
whether it is in Portugal, England or
Spain, as long as the training is well
organised and serious, and they know
the purpose of the exercise.”

LUIZ FELIPE SCOLARI
N°21• June 2003
Technician: What do you see
as the main differences between
South American and European
football?
“Football in Europe has an emphasis
on physical strength, marking, collec-
tive play while in South America there
is a greater freedom of expression,
more individuality, and this is often
what made the difference in the
World Cup, especially for Brazil. With
Brazil, we matched the Europeans
for teamwork and strength, but the
individual quality of the Brazilian play-
ers was decisive. Think of Ronaldo’s
‘toe-poke’ against Turkey in the semi-
final. This was solo play at its best.”

GIOVANNI TRAPATTONI
N°23 • January 2004
Technician: When your coaching
career does come to an end
(many years from now), how
wouldyou like to be remembered?
“Firstly, I would like to be remembered
as someone with the human touch.
Secondly, as a coach who always kept
up-to-date with the trends in football.
As I become older, I always try to re-
main young, professionally speaking.
I worked with many great players;
Platini was one of the best, and tried
to use their abilities to produce a foot-
ball that was physical, positive and
highly technical. However, I have al-
ways been a realist. Sometimes I had
to make changes in order to produce
a result – this does not necessarily
mean that I was defensive, just that
I was adaptable and very pragmatic.”