No Dickheads: Cantona, Jordan, All Blacks, and Kenny Miller

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Below is an interesting piece from today's Times.

It may have added relevance, due to the current debate over 'model pro', 'top man', and 'guide, pillar, and example', K Miller.

 

Where the article falls short, perhaps, is in not discussing the situation when the top player is on the wane, and/or where he is no longer able to justify selection, and the impact of that on other players, and team solidarity, the overall team ethic, and so on.

 

Cantona, who is the main focus of the story, of course, left of his own volition, while at the top, before the manager had to make a decision about his place in the team.

 

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/the-game/why-top-players-have-greater-influence-on-team-mates-than-you-might-think-gk3cqg7jb

 

 

Why top players have greater influence on team-mates than you might think

 

matthew syed

 

Soon after Eric Cantona retired from Manchester United, he received a letter from Sir Alex Ferguson. “Some months have passed since we last spoke and I felt that I should write to you as a mark of respect and esteem in which I hold you,” Ferguson wrote. “When we re-started training, I kept waiting for you to turn up as normal . . . [This letter] is to remind you how good a player you were for Manchester United and how grateful I am for the service you gave me.

 

“I will never forget that and I hope you won’t either . . . You are always welcome here and if you just pop in unexpectedly for a cup of tea, no fanfare, just for a chat as friends, that would mean more to me than anything. Eric, you know where I am if you need me and now that you are no longer one of my players, I hope you know you have a friend. Good luck and God bless, Alex.”

 

The contents of the letter, revealed by Ferguson in his book, Leading, surprised some observers. The words denote not only respect, but something closer to love. Those who played at United alongside Cantona, however, were not at all surprised. For they understood that the cultural transformation masterminded by Ferguson would not have happened without the influence of his most enigmatic player.

 

Cantona arrived at Old Trafford in 1992, a time of booze and amateurism. Read the accounts of United (or any other club) in the 1970s and 1980s and you see a culture of drink, fast cars, late nights and poor diets. This was so deep in the mindset of players that, at first, Ferguson struggled to combat it through force of personality alone. Sanctions ran the risk of mutiny from top players.

 

Cantona changed all that. He arrived at training in a small hatchback. He lived in a modest apartment (purchased for £87,000) in Boothstown. His example could not have offered a more eloquent riposte to the material ostentation in the game. But, even more significant was his work ethic. He arrived at training early, left late, practised his free kicks, his first touch, his repertoire of skills. He was a living, breathing exemplar of the very attributes that Ferguson extolled in his team talks. Peter Schmeichel, the goalkeeper, put it simply: “Cantona changed the mentality, and changed everything.” It is true that Cantona could sometimes be unpredictable, once wearing the wrong clothes to a team function, and famously launching a kung fu kick on a fan that led to a long suspension. Behind the scenes, however, he was a totem of sustained professionalism. David Beckham told me: “Cantona was incredible. His pride, his work ethic, his passion. We already worked hard as youngsters, but he took it to a different level.”

 

The idea that a top player with good habits can exert a disproportionate influence on team culture is intuitive, but the Cantona example suggests that it might be fundamental. You glimpse a similar story with Michael Jordan at the Chicago Bulls, another club who created dynastic success via the behavioural contagion of their finest player.

 

Jordan’s work ethic is a staple of American sports literature, but he also transformed his team-mates. He didn’t just turn up to practice early, but would practise at home beforehand. After a while, Scottie Pippen started to join him. Then most of the rest of the team came, too, a group united in attitude. As one observer put it: “They traded up their habits to Jordan’s level.” Between 1991 and 1998, the Bulls won six NBA titles.

 

The influence of role models can also be seen in a mesmerising statistical analysis described by Chris Anderson and David Sally in their superb book The Numbers Game. They relate how teams with a wide variation of ability — where the best player is a lot better than the worst player — perform better than teams with a narrower distribution of ability over the course of a season, even when the average ability is the same. The fundamental reason is that the top player impacts upon the weaker players, dynamically influencing them to improve performance.

 

This is sometimes called the Köhler effect, after the German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler. He found that weaker members of the Berlin rowing team improved their times fastest when paired with a more capable partner. This is partly about social comparison, raising aspirations by setting a higher benchmark, but is also about habits. As Anderson told me: “The weak link tends to work harder to keep up. But he also begins to absorb the attitudes of the top performer, who is often strong precisely because he is the first to the training ground.”

 

I was thinking of all this in the context of a spate of recent scandals in sport. For psychology suggests that if a top player has bad habits, it will not just negatively affect his own performance, but could create a “reverse Köhler effect”. Young players will start to adopt destructive practices rather than benign ones. Their professionalism will be diluted. The culture will start to fray, if not instantly, then covertly and cumulatively. This is a huge danger to any coach, any team.

 

One thinks of Allen Iverson, the talented NBA player who scorned practice, and was a source of huge vexation to his managers. One thinks of Wayne Rooney getting drunk within weeks of rejoining Everton. One thinks, too, of Ben Stokes, who has many admirable habits when it comes to practice, but whose excesses were a source of deep frustration to Andrew Strauss even before the latest drink-fuelled fracas. As one insider told me: “When the most revered player thinks it is OK to be out at 2.35am in the middle of a series, it has an impact on everyone.”

 

The All Blacks’ famous motto, “no dickheads”, can be seen as a logical extension of the Köhler effect. The world’s top rugby team recognises that while you can win in the short-term with players who have bad habits, it is treacherously difficult to win in the long term. This is because sustained success is not just about talent, but a deeper set of customs, rituals and behaviours. That is why they are prepared to veto players, even if supremely gifted, if they might imperil the culture.

 

Management is said to be about setting an example. Given that players naturally take a lead from the top performer within their ranks, however, it is perhaps even more important to select a positive role model, or to shape one. This is perhaps the key lesson from Ferguson, and the most intriguing. For he spent a huge amount of time getting to know his star player, guiding his thinking, nudging his key influencer further in the direction of professionalism. As Gary Neville told me: “He interacted with Cantona in a different way to anyone else in the club.”

 

And that is why Cantona was not just a fine player, but a symbol for a renewed understanding of high-performing teams. That letter from Ferguson expresses the gratitude of a manager, but also captures the story of how two men, different in background but similar in mindset, transformed the fabric of a football club. It was the Köhler effect with turned-up collars and a French accent. It is a lesson not just to other clubs, but to all teams, everywhere.

[beverlysanchez 0]

Yes, Cantona is a real legend

Edited October 18, 2017 by beverlysanchez

[JFK-1 1,693]

Cantona was always a strange one right to the very end. Retiring at 30 while still at the height of his powers and with no injury concerns was just another unexpected twist in an eventful career.