Why Brendan Rodgers is a Champions League manager

The Liverpool manager's tactical knowledge, man-management style and fierce ambition have led the Reds back into the Champions League for the first time in five years.
Brendan Rodgers will take charge of Liverpool’s first Champions League match in five years tonight in the knowledge that he has been given just the return he wanted on an investment made many years ago.

As a remarkably ambitious young coach in his twenties, Rodgers spent almost every spare penny on his own education, shunning the security of savings and the indulgence of expensive meals or popular consumer products.

Everything he had went on travelling to Europe to watch and learn from those he considered the best in the coaching business, where he could observe how the philosophy of leading clubs connected their youth teams and first team.

Already a devotee of the technical, possession-based game espoused particularly by the Dutch and the Spanish, that was where he naturally looked for inspiration.

Spain was his most regular destination, where he spent most of his time watching Barcelona’s academy teams and soaking in everything he could about the models of Johan Cruyff and Louis Van Gaal.

He would also visit Valencia and Sevilla on his trips to the Mediterranean and while in Holland he was a regular at Ajax and FC Twente.

At the same time he spent seven years learning Spanish, his three lessons a week eventually leaving him able to converse fluently with the likes of his new Liverpool left-back Alberto Moreno.

It reflects a drive and commitment to himself that Rodgers has shown ever since a genetic knee condition forced the end of a professional playing career that had not even even started at the age of 20.

Sources at Liverpool say that Rodgers arrives at their Melwood training base at 7.30am and rarely leaves before 7pm as he consults with staff and players, analyses training, watches videos, prepares for the next opposition, researches potential transfer targets, watches academy sides and plans training sessions.

Rodgers may not have 100 caps for his country or won any titles as a player - but there is no doubt now about his understanding of the game.

Tuesday night’s Champions League opener against Bulgarian side Ludogrets Razgrad would have felt a long way off when, after he was sacked by Reading in 2009, Rodgers was unable to even secure an interview for a vacancy at one League One club.



Yet those who have spent a lot of time with Rodgers - Jose Mourinho, for one - have long had him marked down as potentially one of the best manager’s in the business.

Indeed, it was Mourinho who gave Rodgers his break into the big time when he appointed the then 31-year-old as Chelsea’s head youth coach in 2004.

One of the major lessons Rodgers learned from Mourinho was how to build not just a team spirit but a club ethos; the importance of everyone at all levels of the club feeling part of the project.

On his first day as Liverpool manager, Rodgers called a meeting in which he addressed every member of staff at Melwood and told everyone that they were all part of the team, from Steven Gerrard to the man on the security gates. The ground staff told him it was the first time they had ever been in a meeting in years working for the club.

Rodgers’ approach to his players is one of open communication. His door will always be open for his players, whether they want to discuss something football related or their personal life, and he will always tell them frankly what he feels.
 

“He knows we have different characters in the dressing room and his one-on-one management is the best I have known. He makes you go out on to the pitch feeling a million dollars"   - Steven Gerrard

People who know him speak of an almost spiritual belief in the inherent goodness of people, and perhaps that is one of the reasons that Liverpool gambled on a £16m deal for Mario Balotelli this summer. His new manager thinks he can handle the Italian and unleash his full potential.

His three tenets are: communication, quality and ambition.

When he first arrived at the club, Rodgers was told stories about Raheem Sterling’s poor attitude and encountered a couple of situations early on, very publicly reprimanding the teenager on the behind-the-scenes show Being Liverpool. Now, Sterling is one of the most focused and professional players in the squad, and the results are showing on the pitch.

Rodgers also uses the expertise of his employees. If someone is more knowledgable than him on an issue, he wants to use them. The medical staff and performance analysts are always involved in decisions, and that is also why he brought in sports psychologist Dr Steve Peters to work on the players’ mental state to such success last season.

The place where Rodgers himself is the expert is on the training pitch.

His computer hard drive and his manual folders are a sea of colour representing planned training drills, tactical ideas and set-piece set-ups. Rodgers backs himself to improve individual players and build a team that is more than the sum of its parts.

Anyone who has worked with Rodgers has heard him use the stat - whether it’s true or not - that the team with the most possession win 79 per cent of football matches. His philosophy is to control the game and keep the ball both as a form of attack and defence. It will win you eight out of every 10 matches.

Everything in training is built towards his philosophy, even warm-ups involve a ball at players’ feet. There are no longs runs around the field or endless sprint work without the ball - the sessions are geared towards match situations.

Rodgers is innovative, constantly making small tweaks to his tactics and formation, but the principles remain the same: to play out from the back, to move the ball quickly and to be patient in the final third.

It requires courage from the players and an ability to learn from Rodgers’ instructions, as he is always adapting to the situation.

The three central midfielders - whether in a diamond, a 4-3-3 or another variant - are regarded as the fulcrum of his team. Arguably one of his biggest decisions at Liverpool was to drop Gerrard’s fading legs into a sitting role to dictate matches, with the two men alongside him required to play with energy to carry the team forward with their running.
He feels it allows Liverpool to play on the front foot, always looking forward, rather than the side-to-side passing that often comes in the flatter and less fluid 4-2-3-1 set-up currently favoured by most Premier League teams.

Off the ball, Rodgers has implemented a ‘six second rule’ requiring his players to press high and win the ball back within six seconds of losing possession. It is a principle unashamedly pinched from those trips to Barcelona - and it worked with breathtaking results as the Reds played at an unstoppable tempo for much of last season.

When Rodgers was interviewed for the Liverpool job, he warned owners Fenway Sports Group that there would be a ‘pain period’ while the squad adapted to his methods. He pointed to the fact that it took him four months to get the balance right in transforming Swansea from a defensive side to an exciting attacking team playing in his image. In his previous job at Reading, Rodgers had been sacked after just six months as results failed to match the attractive football.

It took until January of his first season before there was a click in Liverpool’s style of play but it was still not enough for the Reds to finish any higher than a disappointing seventh in the Premier League. A year later, with his ideas fully incorporated, Liverpool finished second in the table just two points behind champions Manchester City.

Tottenham also wanted Rodgers as their new manager in 2012 but the Northern Irishman felt Liverpool was the better fit. Not only were they one of the great clubs in Europe and with 18 domestic titles to their name, but he knew he would be given time and allowed to operate from a position of security. It was a decision taken with considerable thought but Rodgers long knew he would manage a top club - he just didn’t think the opportunity would come so soon in his career.

Still, Rodgers sensed a real instability around Liverpool when he first arrived at the club but dived straight into work, making his instructions clear in training while undergoing major surgery on the squad to bring in players who suited his system, like Joe Allen, while ditching those who had no part to play such as Andy Carroll.

He still considers it a work in progress, but on his intiial appointment on a three-year contract, Rodgers’ target was to finish in the top four and bring Champions League football back to Anfield.

He has done that and been rewarded with a new four-year deal and the chance to lead the five-time European champions in the continent's elite compeition. Ludogorets await on Tuesday, with Basel and Real Madrid to come in Group B.

For Rodgers, this is just the start of his latest challenge.