When making a choice on managerial appointments at a football club, it is easy from the outside to identify the criteria for selection, or rather, the sole criterion. “The new manager should be able to win trophies for the club” would generally be the answer by any stakeholder connected to the club.
These trophies elevate the social identity of the fans who follow their team with full devotion, while simultaneously helping determine the worth of a football club in financial markets and otherwise. It is these trophies that matter — the winning of which a football clubs compete for, while spending high amount of money every year to do so.
The choice then must have seemed straightforward for FC Barcelona too, the giants of European and world football, prior to the start of their new season in 2008, when they were looking for a new manager. This was a club that was one of the most successful in the world at the time, and just two seasons prior, they had achieved the continental double for only the second time in their more than hundred-year history by winning the UEFA Champions League, the most coveted prize in which the best of clubs across Europe battle each other, and the La Liga, where it came up against fellow global powerhouses such as Real Madrid. Yet, merely two seasons later, the winning manager, Frank Rijkaard, was sacked, at the close of the 2007-08 season.
The club chairman was the mercurial Joan Laporta, who also occupies the same position today, albeit in a different spell. The Board of Directors, including Laporta, had arrived at a shortlist of two names and had to pick one: Jose Mourinho and Josep ‘Pep’ Guardiola. Mourinho had been called the ‘Special One’, an identity coined for his ability to transform clubs and win trophies wherever he went. He had managed to win the UEFA Champions League at FC Porto, who were hardly considered contenders, and at Chelsea FC, his next club, he catapulted them to their first league title in 50 years. By the time he concluded his three-season spell in 2007, he had helped them win five trophies, establishing them as a formidable force in English football. Guardiola, on the other hand, had been a player at FC Barcelona for a long time and, after his retirement in 2006, was now coaching Barcelona Atlètic, Barcelona’s ‘B’ team, for less than a year.
Mourinho appeared to be the straightforward choice, but Laporta was known to make unusual choices. Rijkaard had also been a Laporta pick and had been a risky appointment, as he had no managerial achievements to speak of — his previous employment was with Sparta Rotterdam, a lowly Dutch club, who had been relegated from the top tier of football.
As he had done with Rijkaard’s appointment, Laporta decided to consult Johan Cruyff this time too —the club legend who had shaped FC Barcelona’s identity based on the total football philosophy, focused on youth development and attacking, possession-based football.
"It was a long process because there were board members who wanted Jose [Mourinho]," recalled Laporta, "They argued that we needed a manager who would get results quickly." Ultimately, though, the inexperienced, 37-year-old Guardiola was chosen to be the next manager of FC Barcelona. While he lost his first game as manager, by the time he departed, the team had won 14 trophies in four seasons, becoming one of the best and most successful teams not just in the club’s history but in world football.
Incidentally, Guardiola—who joined Manchester City from Bayern Munich in 2016—marked his 1,000th game as a manager on Sunday, 9 November 2025, chalking up his 716th win. His achievement is testimony to how clarity of philosophy and adherence to core ideology can sustain excellence.
The question remains in hindsight: why would the FC Barcelona board choose Guardiola when the odds of failure for someone who had never managed a senior team were far higher than appointing Mourinho, who had a proven track record? “We wanted to stay faithful to Cruyff’s philosophy," was Laporta’s answer. In other words, the chairman wanted to adhere to FC Barcelona’s core ideology — a shrewd but strong call that could have gone terribly wrong at the time, but instead elevated the club’s global standing immensely.
The core ideology of a club is not easy to explain. Laporta and Cruyff knew it intuitively, which certainly helped, but it may not be apparent given its intangible nature. Yet many routinely attribute a club’s success or failure to it. For instance, football pundits often cite Manchester United’s loss of ‘DNA’ as the prime cause of consistent decline ever since Sir Alex Ferguson, its most successful manager ever, left in 2013, though precisely what this DNA or core ideology constitutes remains unclear.
This is where Collins and Porras’ (1996) article ‘Building Your Company’s Vision’ becomes a reference point. The core ideology of an organisation, they argue, has two key components: core values (what the organisation is) and core purpose (what the organisation intends to achieve). For FC Barcelona, the core values are an emphasis on youth development and the Catalan identity, while the core purpose is to play beautiful, possession-based football, as envisioned by Cruyff. These are ingrained at FC Barcelona. Likewise, for any successful club, over the years a unique cultural fabric develops, enabling its dominance and success. For a manager, adhering to this core ideology becomes an important determinant of success.
The Manchester United has won 18 league titles and three European cups since 1912. Interestingly, out of the 25 managers who have held the position, this entire trophy haul was delivered by just two — Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson. Both faced enormous challenges. Busby’s team, the Busby Babes, were tragically killed in an air crash while flying to Munich for a match in 1958. Undeterred, he rebuilt a team of young men who went on to play trailblazing football and dominate locally and in Europe. Ferguson arrived when United had been struggling for years; he carved an identity out of the youth system, famously promoting the Class of ’92 to the first team, and developed a quick-paced, eye-catching style. More so, Ferguson’s United, like Busby’s, never seemed to give up — always staging comebacks, such as the extraordinary UEFA Champions League Final against Bayern Munich in 1999, winning with two goals scored in the dying minutes.
This resilience and focus on youth are inbuilt into Manchester United’s culture as its core values, with an emphasis on fast, attacking play as its core purpose. Ferguson was smart enough to realise and go with the ideology, achieving unprecedented success. After his departure, as the players quickly exited and a slew of managers came in, the club lost its core ideology. Despite a succession of nine managers and £1.4 billion spent, the club has struggled to win trophies consistently.
The erosion of core values and purpose can have devastating effects at football clubs, just as it can in business organisations (see Boeing or 3M’s decline).
Farsighted boards and owners understand that sporting success depends on the club’s core ideology, appointing managers aligned with it, such as Guardiola at Barcelona. Managers then identify players who fit that ideology—on and off the pitch—like Guardiola did with Xavi Hernández and Ferguson did with Roy Keane from Nottingham Forest—decisions that proved pivotal for the club’s success.
Core ideology is the cultural foundation of success, which implies that less successful managers or clubs may not have this defined fabric. A new manager can shape a club’s ideology according to their own vision if given sufficient time and resources. Conversely, for an established, historically successful club, the need might be for the manager to understand and adapt to the club’s core ideology. For instance, Arsenal, a rival of Manchester United, has had two legendary managers who shaped its identity — Herbert Chapman and Arsene Wenger. A key element connecting them was their desire to do things in a classy way: Chapman insisted on high standards at the stadium, reportedly spending his own money to paint the halls, while Wenger emphasised elegance and respect, overseeing the new stadium’s construction with opulence and class.
Core ideology may need adaptation over time, but abandoning it altogether risks identity loss, which develops over a period of time. Footballing success, like organisational success, depends on identifying the core ideology first and then intelligently adapting it for the present times.
Kapil Khandeparkar is an Associate Professor of Marketing at S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR), and Rohit Prabhudesai is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Consulting at Goa Institute of Management.
Views are personal.
First Published: Jan 13, 2026, 15:54
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