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Roberto Mancini Interview: I came to Manchester City to win - not for the weather!EXCLUSIVE By MARTIN SAMUEL Chief Sports Writer
Roberto Mancini sat in his office at Manchester City’s training ground in a quiet fury. Displeased with an element of the match preparation, he had called a meeting with his staff. It seemed a small detail, but Mancini is all about the small details.
He looked out of the window at the fag-end of the English summer. Rain was bouncing off the pavements, audible on the sills.
'What do you think I am in Manchester for, the weather?' he asked, scornfully, before answering his own question. 'I am here to win; only to win; always to win.'
In it to win it: Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini will not settle for anything less than success at Eastlands
Join the club, one might counter, what manager isn't? The difference being that Mancini does not have to be anywhere to win, let alone a highly pressurised work in progress such as Manchester City, let alone West Bromwich Albion in the Carling Cup on Wednesday night.
There is his villa at the Pevero golf club in Porto Cervo, Sardinia — where he retreats in the summer — and his royal status within the world of Italian football to keep him warm in winter (he is so highly regarded that he was allowed to take charge of Fiorentina without having completed his coaching badges, a dispensation almost unheard of in Italian football).
Having scratched his managerial itch in Florence and then with Lazio and Inter Milan, winning three league titles and four Italian cups, many with his wealth would have settled into comfortable retirement. Mancini came instead to Manchester’s second club, without a trophy of significance since 1976.
He was still living at home with his parents when Manchester City won the League Cup with an overhead kick by Dennis Tueart. He left a year later for Bologna’s academy at the age of 13 and never looked back.
Mr Motivator: Mancini is said to be 'fiendishly driven'
'I was very young and it was hard, the first year,’ recalled Mancini. ‘My sons are older now, 18 and 20, but if I think of them when they were 13, I could not imagine them leaving my home. But football was my priority and it changed me.
'I played for Bologna in Serie A when I was 16 and those experiences made me this person. Just as importantly, I never played for a big club. My teams were normal, ordinary, but through hard work we became successful. I played for Sampdoria and stayed there 15 years.
'Of course, I could have gone to Juventus, to AC Milan, to Inter Milan, many times, but I preferred to remain because Sampdoria were my family, from the owners to the players. I wanted to be a big player — but big with my team, not big because my new club was big.
'That is why I liked Manchester City. It is like Sampdoria: if we are successful, we change the history of this club and we change it for life. This is our moment. When people ask why do I come here, I tell them it is because Manchester City never win.
'For me, that is the best challenge. Inter Milan were a top team but they had not won the league for a long time; Lazio the same; Fiorentina the same; Sampdoria never win.
'These are good challenges because when you work for Real Madrid or Barcelona it is easy; all managers win at those clubs. But if you build a squad, work very hard for months and years at Manchester City and then you win, for me that would be more important. That would be fantastic.'
How significant was Mancini at Sampdoria? David Platt, now his assistant at Manchester City, recalls that, when they roomed together, Mancini appeared one day with a large drawing book and a set of colouring pens. He said he had to work on a project and needed advice.
'Last year I gave a little... this year we change'
Platt asked what they would be doing. Mancini replied he had been asked to design next year’s strip. It puts one in mind of Jose Mourinho's comment on his life at Porto.
'If I wanted to have an easy job I would have stayed,’ he said. ‘Beautiful blue chair, the Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me.'
It may also explain one of the rare unguarded remarks of Mancini’s career. On the Italian television show Le lene, guests are asked to describe themselves with one adjective. Mancini chose 'Genius'. There will be players at Manchester City who refuse to believe his answer was tongue-in-cheek.
From the beginning, Mancini’s afternoon training sessions and relentless drive to change the culture of a club that had become too used to second best did not meet with approval. The complexities of keeping a Champions League squad happy on Europa League challenges has led to clashes with disaffected players, including Shay Given and Emmanuel Adebayor.
Italian job: Mancini helps Italy Under 21s draw 1-1 with England in Swindon in 1986
'I knew I would have problems with the training sessions because when I spoke to my friends David Platt and Gianluca Vialli they said English players only want to work in the morning,' said Mancini .
'But if you spend the week playing at three o'clock and eight o’clock it is not right to work only in the morning. Your body is not ready for it. So we change.
'It's much easier when you work at Real or Barca'
'I knew it would be difficult, but I tell the players the job is football and with football you live very well. Not just you, but your family and sometimes everybody you know; so you must be 100 per cent ready and this is how you get 100 per cent ready. It should not be impossible for you to compromise. And last year, I gave a little; not this year. This year we change.
'There are players whose only target is their day off and that is a big problem. You must replace them with those whose target is the win against Chelsea, then against Arsenal, then against Manchester United, who will work every day for this. Yes, there is still the day off, but you must never lose your focus even then.
'Before, at this club, there were players whose targets were wrong, but that mentality is changing. Those whose targets were wrong are the ones who have left. I tell them there is no day off now. The top players will play Saturday in the Premier League, Tuesday in the Champions League, Saturday in the Premier League; it is impossible to rest. Yes, there is one day you can use to recover, to have a massage, but your head must always be on the pitch and on your job.
'That is what is different about football. When I played sometimes we would have one game in a week; now there are no free moments, no time, not even for family. I understand it is important to have one day when you can forget everything, but for us right now we cannot even have that, because we are working to change the mentality of the club. If we can get this right, I will trust the players to have two days off, not one.
Talking tactics: At Lazio, Mancini gets hot under the collar with his coach amd future England boss Sven Goran Eriksson in 1998
'I tell them hard work is not just running on the pitch, but in the head. We must think of opponents, who will we play, how we approach that game and we must make it a habit until it is normal, something that we do not have to think of doing.'
On August 23, City defeated Liverpool 3-0 with a confident performance that served notice of their intentions this season. The next League game was six days later away at Sunderland. Mancini told the players it would be harder.
He said that against Liverpool their mentality — his favourite word — had been right, because it was seen as a big game. He said that by their attitude he thought they were taking Sunderland less seriously and this would make it tougher.
Sunderland defeated City with a Darren Bent penalty in second-half injury time. Mancini did not throw tea cups or waste words after the match. He simply told the players that he had been right, that this was the lesson and that it must never happen again. After the defeat at The Hawthorns two days ago, watch this space.
City put a second string team out against West Brom and many will claim the result is insignificant.
Saturday brings the visit of champions Chelsea — also eliminated from the Carling Cup in surprising circumstances — but that will not be mitigation for Mancini. He won the Coppa Italia with every club he managed, taking the competition seriously, as the only prize within reach at Fiorentina and Lazio.
Double act: Mancini and England captain David Platt are Serie A team-mates with Sampdoria in 1993 - now Platt serves as his trusted coach
At City, he realises the priority is to reach the Champions League but is equally aware that what the club needs above all is a trophy, as evidence of a changed culture. Mancini agonised all week about how many first-team players to use on Wednesday, ultimately choosing just one, Adam Johnson, with James Milner a substitute after 71 minutes.
It was not enough. Mancini will blame himself for that but will also continue to question the mental strength of his squad players.
'At some clubs you do not have to change mentality,' explained Mancini.
'For Carlo Ancelotti at Chelsea it was already there. Chelsea have been at the top for so many years. They have the mentality that we need here, because when a club has been happy to play for the middle of the table, or just to survive, it is difficult.
'But I think of Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. He was probably frustrated every day for four or five years before it started improving.
'I am the same; but then when you win and you think of all you have done with your staff and your players, it must be a fantastic situation. I tell the players it is important we stay near the top of the table because anything can happen the year after the World Cup.
Getting shirty: Mancini is welcomed for his brief spell at Leicester City by Peter Taylor in 2001
'At the moment, Chelsea are the best team, but they must play Champions League every week and it could be difficult come February; it depends on us to be there when that happens. From the time when I came here we have improved: a lot. In five months we now play more like a team but we are maybe 50 per cent or 75 per cent there, not 100 per cent yet.
'You win with strong players, but you cannot win with angels'
'We have six England players at Manchester City. Some of them are still young and can change their mentality to improve. Adam Johnson can become a stronger player in the future by doing this. Right now, some players, they come, warm up, play the match and then gone.
'They need to learn from those who treat even the training days like it is a match; they are here one hour early, they are thinking of the job all the time and when they finish they stay for massage to be ready for the next day and then just go home, relax and start thinking again. That is what I want to be normal for my players, but it may take one or two years.'
So what was Mancini like as a player? Platt remembers him as a regular guy through the week, who became fiendishly driven and unrecognisable on match days.
'I'd wonder what I had done to upset him,' he said. 'He was just in another place. And brutal at half-time if things were not going right — the most vocal member of the dressing-room.' It would appear little has changed.
My way: Mancini wants to ride Manchester City of players who are not prepared to put the extra hours in, confident that the new breed in Mario Balotelli and co can deliver him success
'During a game, there is not a single moment that goes against us, not one mistake, that he does not think could have been eradicated,' added Platt.
Perhaps this explains one of the contradictions in Mancini's regime: the obsession with the concept of strong mentality, married to the knowledge that the necessary extremes of drive and talent produce characters who are not easy to control.
It means that while espousing the utmost professionalism, Mancini still finds room for some of the biggest flakes in football: Marco Balotelli, Adebayor, even his captain Carlos Tevez has been known to have the odd tantrum,
Manchester United fans will recall. The roster at Inter was little better and, inescapably, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was the leading light.
'You can win with strong players, but you cannot win with angels,' added Mancini.
'Balotelli I have known since I gave him his debut at 17. He may have changed as a person in the last three years but he is a fantastic player and he works 100 per cent. Outside the pitch, he does things and it might be better he did not — but he is 20. I do not know too many perfect 20-year-olds. I was never perfect when I played, either. Good players are not perfect.
'In Italy, some managers want distance from the players, the Fabio Capello style, but that is not my way. I am more like Carlo Ancelotti. There are aspects of the players behaviour I do not understand, but I want them to respect our situation. If they do that, I have a lot of respect for them, too, and I will do everything to help them.
Work hard, play hard: Mancini has told City's fed-up stars like Adebayor to make him pick them by impressing him on the pitch
'With Adebayor we now have five fantastic strikers, but I can only choose two. So those who want to play must work, play well, score goals and help their team-mates. It is true we argue and I know he is not happy, but if he was happy he would be crazy, because he is not playing.
'Adebayor must work hard to make me think I made a mistake leaving him out, because I will change my opinion if I made a mistake.
'I know Shay Given said I do not, but goalkeepers are a different situation. I will tell how football is: if a player is playing you are the best manager, if he is not playing, you are the f****** bastard manager.
'I was at Leicester City 10 years ago and English football is different now. It has improved. I could not have been a manager in England then because the cultural change would have been too great. Now all of us are closer.'
He prepares to go outside once more into the Manchester rain. The f******* bastard manager with his perfectionist vision; and he truly wouldn't rather be anywhere else.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... z10OxqqvEs
by brite blu sky » Thu Sep 23, 2010 11:34 pm 
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