The complicated art of Sports management

The same thing happened in 2004 when the German Otto Rehhagel led the unfancied Greek team to success in Euro 2004. What are the qualities that a coach needs to get a group of disparate players and make them work well as a team? And why is it that the Swede Sven-Göran Eriksson could achieve much as a club manager with Benfica and Lazio, but fail so miserably as the coach of the English national side?

Sir Clive Woodward, who led England to victory in the last Rugby World Cup, put most of his emphasis on preparation. He believed that it was important that all the "hygiene factors" that surround sports events (especially tours and the big tournaments) were sorted out. His team stayed in the best hotels, eased their huge frames into Business class seats on aircraft and got the best possible fitness and diet training and advice.

They also bonded well as a group and under Woodward's leadership gelled as an effective and motivated unit on and off the field. Eriksson would not, or could not, do the same with the prima donna footballers in his squad. Not only that but where the great coaches are genuinely inspirational, Eriksson seemed dour and disinterested at times. His teams usually performed less well in the second half of matches after his half-time team talk!

Of course it does (or should) help a coach if he has outstanding players at his command. That was the case in the recent Ryder Cup events when three successful (but very different) European team managers (Sam Torrance, Bernhard Langer and Ian Woosnam) inspired their team to success. Indeed the Ryder Cup is a pretty good model for any aspiring coach in any sport. Pick the right players; bring them together as a unit; inspire them on the day and revel with them in their success.

Shane Warne that wonderful, fallible, ego-driven eccentric, who is the greatest spin bowler the world of cricket has ever seen, doesn't have much time for coaches. "John Buchanan sometimes over-complicates issues and he has lacked common sense. He has been our coach during a successful era but that begs a question - does the coach make the team or does the team make the coach?" he said recently about Buchanan, the Australian team coach. Well the answer to Warne's question is "a bit of both".

There is little point in having a coach who doesn't make a team more effective than they would be without him. But equally if the team like, respect and work for their coach there will be a virtuous circle and a good coach will become even better as a result.

England's disaster with Eriksson shows that even if you throw millions of dollars at a manager it won't make any difference if he doesn't have the innate leadership qualities that make one plus one equal three. It is much less about technical ability than it is about inspiration.

Ian Woosnam didn't tell his golfers how to play last week in Ireland - but he sure made them stand ten feet tall - and from a man who is barely half that height himself that was quite an achievement!