Recently in an interview, Pullela Gopichand, India’s most successful Badminton coach and one of the most decorated players of his time said that he never travels with his top players for their matches, cause that he could never give India another Saina or Sindhu if he does that. While many would see that this shows the lack of good coaches in our country, and I would agree with them, but it also shows some facets in the personality of Mr. Gopichand – Determination and Discipline.
Padma Shree Awardee Gopichand often accredited with his unique style of coaching is a hard taskmaster. He is dedicated, disciplined and laborious, and expects the same from all his students. This attitude was instrumental in giving India their most decorated Badminton Players like Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu. He is no different from Sir Alex Ferguson, who is recognized as “Football’s Most Successful Manager of all times ”.
When Sir Alex joined Manchester United as their Manager, United was just a big name and had still not recovered from the Munich Air tragedy, wherein the complete first team lost their life. He was left with a bunch of players who were lost in their own stardom, most of them unfit to qualify as athletes, and some even addicted to alcohol or gambling.
But he had a turnaround plan, and discipline was at the core of this strategy. He bashed the arrogance out of some, fired a couple, and made every other effort to infuse the core principles of discipline in them. The results were slow but substantial. United won their first League title in 1992 almost 6 years after he took over, but, the rest is history. He went on to win 12 more League titles in next 20 Years; an extraordinary achievement for a competition of a Stature of English League.
Just like Gopichand, Sir Alex made World Class players like Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Paul Pogba (to name a few) what they are today. He was a no-nonsense man when he joined in 1986 and left the same person in 2013, working for 26 Years, day -in and day-out, and taking less than 5 leave of absence in this entire duration.
Both these managers believed in making their own rules and made sure that their team followed it. Its what made them different, what made them successful!