In these days there is a lot of talk about the different conception of soccer that Simeone and Guardiola have, and there is even talk of a comparison between a prehistoric soccer and a new soccer. The strategy and tactics are one of the main centers of interest of a coach and for decades we continue to talk about it when we remember the total Dutch soccer, the English one of the past “long ball and pedal” and the Italian “catenaccio”. Everyone has their own idea, but to understand the choices of a coach towards a particular type of game it is helpful to know what is meant by strategy and in this regard I report the thought of Henry Mintzberg (1989) one of the leading scholars of business science.
“The elaboration of a strategy is a fascinating operation, which is not limited to fixing the simple coordinates of what is normally called programming. …I formed a working team on the subject in ’71 …at the time when our research was about to be concluded my wife was modeling ceramic objects in the basement of her house and it was during one of her presentations at a retrospective exhibition of her production that I realized that everything she said corresponded to what had already been stated by experts in business strategy. So I decided to create the metaphor by analogy and to indicate the difficulties encountered in developing the strategy of a dynamic enterprise:
- Leading managers are often forced to act in an atmosphere of calculated chaos to devise their strategies, a complex and necessarily collective operation.
- Strategies are both plans for the future and operational models drawn from the past.
- Strategies are not always the result of calculation. Sometimes they are – to varying degrees – spontaneous.
- Successful strategies follow incredibly strange paths.
- Managing a strategy means elaborating theory and practice, knowing the art of controlling and learning, knowing how to reconcile stability and change.
In the popular legends of the Middle East it is told about a man called Nasrudin who, one day, was looking for something on the ground. A friend passed by and asked him: “Have you lost something, Nasrudin?” “The key” answered Nasrudin. So his friend knelt down next to him and helped him in his search. After a few minutes he asked him: “Where exactly did you drop the key? “In the house,” Nasrudin replied. “But then, why are you looking for it here?” “Because there is more light here than inside the house.” … Breed leader managers are undoubtedly those in whose minds the positive properties of the right cerebral hemisphere (impression, intuition and synthesis) are harmoniously combined with those of the left cerebral hemisphere (lucidity, logic, analysis). But the science of business leadership will make little headway if managers and researchers continue, like Nasrudin, to search for the key to success in the light of systematic analysis. Too many questions will remain unanswered in the darkness of intuition.”
