Managing a football team isn’t always about tactical knowledge, timing or man management – with a deep level of mind games and bluffing sometimes helping less skilled players to overcome better teams.
A bit of mystery, unnerving and ultimately control are tactics used by many football managers to help their teams go into games with an extra level of confidence, or at least help to make the opposing manager’s decisions difficult. We’ll be taking a look at a few Football League managers, past and present, who use poker tactics and mind games to ensure a win over their opposite number.
Gary Megson
Although now plying his trade at West Brom as Assistant Head Coach, Megson spent plenty of years of his career at the likes of Bolton, Sheffield Wednesday, Stockport County and Nottingham Forest when they were all Football League clubs. Megson absolutely loves a public forum and has spoken out more than once about how great he is. His finest moment was probably declaring that he was better than most Premier League managers, just hours after departing from then club Sheffield Wednesday. This type of poker face is known as ‘the bluffer’. The player’s hand is awful, but he doesn’t waste any time telling the rest of the world how good it is!
Uwe Rosler
Fleetwood Town’s manager is a proponent of ‘heavy metal football’ – whatever that means. Drawing (self-made) comparisons to fellow German Jurgen Klopp, Rossler isn’t afraid to tell it how it is and has a kind of broody darkness to him during press conferences and media conversations. The whole image of mystery has allowed him to notch up a couple of giant killings in the FA cup, such as knocking Manchester City out of the quarters with Wigan, but his calm, collected killer persona is now getting weekly outings in the third tier of English football up in the North West.
Chris Wilder
Being bullied in any sport is something that certain people are very good at, but it takes even more mettle to counteract someone who is trying to get one over on you. Chris Wilder is a very good football manager, with a win ratio on par with some Premier League managers. He has had successful tenures at Northampton Town and Oxford United and he’s got the Blades flying high. In a recent BBC interview he kept his cards very close to his chest indeed, remaining candid about everything from team selection details to the location of the blades tattoo he got as youngster. If he doesn’t tell journalists this sort of stuff, imagine what he’s like on transfer deadline day.
Ian Holloway
Holloway has done it all, from Premier League highs with Blackpool to League Two lows with QPR, the South Gloucestershire native certainly has plenty of experience under his belt. What he certainly has bucketloads of however are jibes, comments and unexplained statements that have left pundits and journalists completely baffled over the years. This is a classic poker strategy, the good old ‘I act like I don’t know what I’m doing, but I secretly do’ suckering plenty of opponents into thinking Holloway’s sides will be a pushover. Apart from that, his poker face is very poor indeed, being one of the most jubilant goal-celebrators in the technical area.
