Phil Neville's biggest learning was LEAVING Man Utd | The High Performance Podcast

this is going to be interesting today because i think our guest has got a lot to say and it's a man who has seen his world his football world through a kind of myriad of different roles and different positions yeah i think often jake um when we speak to our guest we asked assam from one particular perspective wherever as our guest today has seen it from um from the ground floor level right the way through to ownership level as well as head coach along the way so i think we're going to get a variety of different perspectives okay well let's do it then and dive into a conversation about living a high performance life with someone who well basically they come from a sporting dynasty his dad was a professional cricketer his sister a previous guest on the pod delivered one of our nation's most iconic sporting triumphs and alongside his brother he enjoyed a professional career that delivered a stunning amount of silverware international caps and then eventually the honor of managing his country welcome to high performance phil neville hi how you doing very well nice to have you with us nice big shoes to follow with my sister yeah i know she was great actually she i mean i'm sure you've listened to it it talks a lot don't you and we're going to talk about life with the family actually as as the pod goes on but look you've you've played you've coached you've managed you're a part owner as well of salford city you've seen football from almost every single angle so in that world in that football world and in your world what do you believe high performances high performance for me is is doing the right thing every single minute of every single day people talk about mental toughness and and and mental strength mental toughness mental strength high performance is actually doing everything perfect all the time and i know you're gonna have days when you don't feel your best but i think the best athletes the best trainers the best performers that i've worked with and played with and coached are the ones that do everything perfect every single day from the minute that they get up to the breakfast that they take to the to the water that they take in their car on the way to training to get their hydration right to the stretching the pre-op that then they go into the trading ground never late they wear the lot with the right clothes it's that consistency every single day of doing the right thing and for me that that's high performance uh you can be born with unbelievable ability you can be born with not much ability but i think the the real standout are those that do it every single day and there'll be people listening to this that think yes i'd love to hear that i'm going to live a high performance life when i've finished listening to phil on the podcast but maybe the issue for them is trying to work out what doing what doing the right thing or doing the perfect thing is i think that's the stumbling block we all want to be perfect but how do we work out what it is so for you what do you believe doing the right thing is and being perfect in every aspect of your life is did you know i go back to the values that the parent my parents settles and then obviously followed on at [Music] manchester united and i never even thought about this until i became a coach and people as soon as soon as i finished my career i used to do interviews podcasts or seminars and you say what was alex ferguson like and i spent probably about six months thinking about what was he like what were my parents like and i'd say that the biggest thing i learned was the simplicity of actually everything that they did the simplicity of working hard being polite saying please and thank yous i listened to something that sean dyche said about manners the way you dressed alex ferguson was an absolute stickler no jeans on the way to train look the minute you walk into the training ground look at behave like a manchester united footballer and and jeans was a big one for him you know because in that probably generation jeans were seen as scruffy everyone wore a shirt and tie that's why manchester united wear blazers because it was that it was that attention to the simple things in life and you know hard work enjoyment big thing last thing he ever said to us before we went on to a football pitch the last thing my mum and dad said to us before we played for the under 11's in berry just go out there enjoy yourself if you're not enjoying yourself you're not going to play well if you're not going to play well because you're not enjoying yourself please go and play something else so it's the simple things and and the values that i have with my team now are hard work humility uh enjoyment uh and and they're just simple things simple things that i think are the the cornerstone the foundation for success and there is no recipe there's no recipe i don't think i i actually sometimes think you're not actually born with a certain amount of uh sort of talent you you actually you develop your talent you enhance your talent and then you train your talent to be the best and when i talked about high performance before it's it's okay doing it for one day two days three days i actually want to see it for the whole of your life and that was sir alex sir alex was the best my my dad was was an absolute the most laid-back hardest man ever in terms of if you didn't say please and thank you if you didn't take your plate away you didn't thank your mum for your tea on your table if you if my if my grand granddad picked us up from from the football practice and we didn't give him a hug to say thank you and make him feel appreciated that was when he would come down as like a ton of bricks he knew we'd have bad games he knew we would probably get out for a duck at cricket or or score an own goal which which i did but it was that attitude to always giving you best isn't it amazing how often this podcast comes back to parenting so much of it the biggest role model fascinating yeah yeah so so what was it that you saw your dad do because i know tracy spoke about he set the example in terms of his five o'clock start get out of bed early yeah yeah get out of bed early you know it was almost like i'm going to get out of bed early when everyone's sleeping i'm going to work harder than everybody else and that was his mentality there was a there was a i think it was floyd mayweather as i was saying that i train when everyone else is sleeping it was almost a little bit like that is that you know when he had to drop some he worked for a haulage company that had to drop uh suitcases to london he did five or six uh drops in london at debenhams john lewis whatever and he had monday to friday to do it and he used to always do it on a monday he used to do it all in one day get up at three o'clock in the morning and attack the week and uh and and he and we said why don't you just take your time i've ever stay in london because he got all the expenses and he just said why wait around to do a job when you can do it in one day do it well get back and then he would work probably wednesday thursday friday doing something else earning more money to to put food on the table and it was that type of mentality that he he told us we we used to come on from training at 16 and and the youth coach used to always say to us if you want to you can come back and train with the under 16s tonight because we was obviously 16 to 18. and he was he would dangle a carrot and we'd come home and we were shattered you know and uh let's get back to training ground train and and that was the mentality of getting back and doing more and doing extra and uh it was no secret secret sort of like uh recipe it was just too there's a nice story you told there that that remind me of a story i've heard you tell before phil about when a nutritionist at united had suggested that he needed to eat at four o'clock in the morning and have weetabix yeah the so it could digest in your system on a game day i remember saying that you and your brother used to set your alarm to get up at four to eight weeks of picks yeah to do that the funniest story was when we we suddenly started to go on the train down to london and uh we'd eat at one o'clock in the afternoon after training and then it was always like five six meals a day little enough and get you know get your carbs and your protein inside you and on the train they didn't have bowls or cereals and we was told at the time that cereals were the one that would give you the most carbohydrates as a snack so we we used to get onto the train and people were playing cars and then at what 4 30 every train on the way down to london member brother used to steal a ball from the cliff trading ground get the ball out box of corn flakes and we got hammered hammered every single day you can imagine on a bus when we're stealing a bowl from the canteen we'd have some milk off the train for the for the tea and that that was sort of like well we was told at 4 30 we had to eat and carbohydrates was the best we've seen so that's what we was going to do you know and that was the mentality fascinates me because i remember hearing alex ferguson talk about seeing um once in the cliff training ground seeing players gathered against the wall and it was you and your brother doing extra running on your own and you can't call in you and he remembers being taken by your mental fortitude that you that you would do that regardless of the mickey taking the abuse that you get how did you learn to override that that idea of just fitting in with the pack and doing your own thing because i suppose when when we was uh 14 15 16 and we were at school we we we made great sacrifices then and like say you see your friends going out with girlfriends and going out drinking or disco in and and we we suffered an awful lot of probably mica taking uh because we weren't that person we were always different we were always ready to make the sacrifice to be successful and uh that stood us in good stead that the biggest the biggest sort of like challenge i had was when i went to everton because i i went to everton to a team that had a brilliant manager but didn't have the mentality probably at that time of of the players at manchester united in terms of doing extra so i used to go in the gym at 9 15 and nobody was in the gym i used to go out onto the training pitch half an hour before everybody else nobody was out there and for a year yeah i was called teacher's pet moises little boy doing it for show and i was like actually this this is what i've done for the last 10 years and and it it it there was a moment when you saw like should i just go into the park but i never wanted to be in the park my mum and dad never wanted us to be just alongside everybody else and they wanted us to say look if you're going to make it you're going to have to make that many sacrifices and and go through a little bit of pain to get to where you wanted to do so ultimately it became part of my motivation as i i'm working harder than you and i'm preparing harder than you that are sat upstairs having tolstoy going out to a disco so that was part of my motivation and and my my players at the moment uh you talk about women's football that there's there's a change in professionalism from from how it used to be to now where where there is a lot of there's a lot of things on offer for them uh physical training nutrition and it's pushing them beyond the boundaries of of the sir alex person quarters if you only do what your coach tells you that is not enough so you come into training coach puts on a session i have done everything now the experts have told them what to actually it's the 10 20 you do away from that that i think sets the ronaldo was the ronaldo's apart you know so if there was a a young person listening to this that whether it's they want to do better at their studies or yeah or they wanted to pursue a different career and they've got the temptations of going out with the friends or all the other sort of distractions what advice would you give them to help them forge their own path rather than just go with the herd and follow what everybody else is doing well i would say the first thing you knew the first thing you need is a direction of what you want to go in you need to what you need you know if you want to be a designer or a lawyer or a top surgeon if you really want it then you've got to sort of like have that tunnel vision and put everything to one side and and i think it's that that sets people apart of of if what you know where do you want to go on your holidays you want to go to blackpool or joining us to the moon and if you want to be a surgeon then then then you've got to dedicate dedicate your life to becoming a surgeon and putting all the hours in the practice and and and that takes a lot of mental strength and when we go back to mental strength before mental strength is actually doing the right things all the time not just not just monday to friday it's saturday sunday two and and i think if i was a young person now and we've got children you know i'd say that the parents always used to say to us if you've got a dream go for it but commit 100 to it don't go half-heartedly don't cut corners and and become that person that does 12 14 reps and just 10 you know and it's the extra four four to six reps that you do that are actually going to make the difference of of you becoming what you want to be or just being part of the pack wow is there a slight challenge for you though that you were growing up um and you were seeing your dad grafting and driving to london yet you've made an awful lot of money your brother's made an awful lot of money your family are very well off you've had great careers so how do you instill in your children that fight and that spirit well it's it's the biggest challenge that we've had as a parent uh we give them everything but actually i thought i had everything even though my parents we lived in a terraced house in berry i actually thought we were rich i thought because we used to always get new trainers new claw a new new cricket bat but the thing is is when when i wanted a new kookaburra bat when i was 13 i was playing for england in about six weeks time and i said i think i saw ricky ponting or mark taylor in australia with a cook up about and i said dad i want one of them cookable brats he said you got to earn it go out there score runs and i'll never forget i scored 100 then a 50 the day after he came on with a bat for me i had to learn everything that i i i had and that's what i say to to my son and daughter now i mean they can have anything they want but they've got to learn it and they they have to work as hard as they possibly can i mean during this lockdown we've never allowed them to lie in past eight o'clock and that might seem that might seem cruel but we we want them to we want them to get out of bed in the morning with with a thirst with a with a hunger to to go and do their zoom classes to go to my son go to the training pitch and does it do his extra work and yes he's he's in a bit of off time but he's probably only took three or four days off because because ultimately i wanted him to drive it himself and i wanted my daughter to get up out of bed in the morning we we as a family trained before breakfast that's our mentality that's our that's what we've done since they were probably the whole family in the gym five but since we were five we've always tried to get them up before breakfast to train love that and and i'm like man we struggle to get out of the house we're always late for the school right now my daughter my daughter's got cerebral palsy she's she's disabled and at five years of age to get who struggled to watch at a k frame to get her into the gym to do her core exercises to do her leg strength was it was hard it made you cry some mornings but ultimately now when she gets out of bed and goes and does 5k i'm like it was worth the pain back then when was five or six and we used to do call sessions and we used to on a sunday morning was out was the one morning i used to say to him everybody else is lying in today sunday morning is is our time where where we would go do unrelenting the pool or do something that would get him into the frame of mind of actually we've got to do this to succeed the hard work the determination and and now my son goes out training on his own and never very rarely unless unless he wants something or less we i want something like a game of football i want them to be i want them to be motivated themselves not because i'm taking him to a football pitch and that's the most important thing so phil i i'm interested in that idea of when you went to everton then yeah that you're going in and you're setting your own standards and like how did you eventually persuade others to come along with you i think a couple of things really you either people people see you and think um i'll have a bit of that and i'll never forget tim kale lee castle uh michael arteta uh the you know something oh i like it with that so they come and play football with you come out do some passing with you and then all of a sudden there's a bit of a pied piper effect and then you either bring them along with you or you change the players or the people within your organization and what what david moyes did and everton finished in the top four so i'm saying there was a great team but he wanted to change the culture uh he brought in andy johnson jolly and lescott phil jagelka layton baines tim howard hungry young players that all of a sudden was was was in this culture that he wanted to create hunger determination hard work so so i think i think when you're when you're in a a team environment you you assess the hunger and the drive of your of your workers or your team and then if it's not doesn't fit the culture that you want and they won't change with it you've got to change the people that are in that culture and and that's what david moyes did he changed the whole culture and what happened was he changed the team younger fresher team and we also moved training grounds from bellfield that was that was really part of everton's history and they did some things a certain way to then finch farm that was state of the art gyms pools massa and all of a sudden the culture just flipped but when we went there you had to have a team of people going there that could embrace that new culture and i think that was important and yet to have a manager that had the vision to do that and that's really important is that he knew he had to change the culture of getting into training go upstairs having a piece of toast reading newspaper waiting till 29 minutes past 10 going out to the training field he wanted he wanted to change the whole culture of the club right which is good how how aware were you that what you've described there sounds an awful lot about like the impact that eric cantona had when he came into united no no you were still in the youth team at that time but how aware were you that there was a similarity in what you like you were the canton i think yeah yeah never heard that one one out no i think i think what happened was at united was that sir alex did want to change the culture and he did like the academy had changed that that work ethic was there but obviously we were young players but he had to have he had to change the culture in his first team and and cantonal was was almost like here this is what this is what the top players do and we united we had the best players you know in scheme were there but this is what the best players do and people talk to me about canter now what did he used to do used to get a ball get a wall and just kick a ball against the wall left foot right foot control it with the outside of his foot drag it to his right uh play it with his left it was just like like simple drills that made him so good on a saturday but somebody would cross a ball into the box and he would hit volley after volley but it was just simple do you remember the goal that skulls had scored against bradford oh yeah beckham drive scrolls volley now that that was that was as simple as after every training session somebody on the left wing just pinging a ball into an area where the d was and him just just lashing the ball 10 15 20 times it wasn't it wasn't like you think individual bits of brilliant coaching training no it was just it was just repetition of simplicity and that's what that's what cantona was he trained every single day as if it was a world cup final every single pass mattered every single touch mattered and and and then afterwards he did his 12 to 14 reps extra that that made that made him the uh one of the most influential uh players at manchester united see there's a sort of theme repeating itself here because when we first said you know what do you think high performance is you said it's about doing the little things right again and again and again and then we watch an incredible goal scored by paul scholes and think wow there's some genius behind that we talked we sit here and talk to you 15 20 years later and you're like no it was exactly what i described at the beginning yeah the focus on the tiny details and i think sometimes in life we want to get somewhere and we see the destination and we think well that's out of reach is impossible because we can't see the tiny steps and if we just made those little tiny steps we'll we'll get them in the end you know someone said to you 20 years ago you'll be managing the national team yeah you'd go well that that feels right up there right up high in the sky tiny steps going to everton being a leader going to valencia alongside your brother seeing that it can be difficult the time you spent at salford is you know running things there all of them tiny steps taking you to a grand destination that's life you know it's it's the the destination is where you want to get to but you actually don't focus on the destination we always focus on the process the process to get there the pro and the pro process to get there is actually really simple it it's just when you miss stages out on the way to your destination where people because what people want to do they want to they want it at the start line they just want to jump to the destination and miss out the process in between and i say to my players all the time because when when we was at united ronaldo was the biggest example of someone that from the outside you think god-given talent doesn't need to work hard just turns up on a football pitch looks a million dollars and just goes out there well there was one day i mapped out a day in the life of ronaldo put it on the put it on this on the flip chart for the girls at the start of my reign i said right who's this footballer straight away they went messy ronald and ronaldo yes now that's ronaldo's day and in the day of ronaldo there was only an hour in the day where he was coached the rest of it was himself driven getting to training early doing his weights doing his doing his abdominals doing his massage going home employing a chef to look after his nutrition going to bed for three hours in an afternoon the the day after this we we i said right everyone sleep in the afternoon and was playing australia at fulham two days before the game said right sleep sleep's really important train in the morning high intensity i wanted everyone to sleep because i slept for two hours every day of my career so right everyone's asleep well i went i went to my office uh in the hotel we had a meeting came out hotel silent i thought cracked it went past the medical room 23 players in the medical room door locked they couldn't sleep they couldn't sleep you know it was like this is foreign to them they wanted to be having a coffee or or having a laugh so i bashed in there and they all looked at me it was a funny moment but you know like and that's when i started to learn about differences between men male and female athletes and stuff like that but ultimately the the day in the life of ronaldo for me is a perfect example of when you see him doing the step-overs after every training session training session finished extra training then he would take a ball around the whole circumference of carrington training ground doing his step-offs jogging pace walking pace drag back step-backs cries for every and that was like 3k round of training ground day before the game he would do it and people say oh god given talent no that lad used to watch youtube clips of a skilly light and then he would go and practice it then he would take it out on the training ground and that lad got absolutely booted every single day off scholes my brother kean used to get up never more than one bit the most mentally tough player i've ever played with so from all the things that that you've seen and ronaldo is a great example do you believe anyone can live a high performance life if it is as simple as breaking your life down into tiny tiny bits and doing the process right absolutely absolutely in any in any job that you go to but like my dad was a long distance lorry driver and i would say that he lived a high performance life as a long distance lorry driver because you know there are certain disciplines that you need sleep when you're getting up at three in the morning obviously the the ability to drive five six hours a day like it was back then the ability to to go to to to deliver and and he did everything right because what he wanted to do he wanted to be the best at his job so what are you like then with excuse makers who say well i could do that but this has happened they don't get picked they don't they don't play a part in the team and and you give them a chance and you try and educate them because i think education is really important because sometimes people don't know like you said at the start they don't know what best practices they don't know what what actually elite looks like so you teach them you educate them on what elite looks like and if they don't jump on board and they cut corners then then you you you quickly move on to the next play that you think um she he or she has got it and that's that's the ruthlessness of elite sport i think i think it's a good message for people though isn't it that you can just break it down and to hear someone like phil say that anyone can live a high performance life hopefully people will will listen to that and take it on board well definitely i think it's i i think what's really jumped out of what phil said there is that you can have an outcome of where you want to get to but the process has to be right along the journey because otherwise the outcome is flawed yeah what about when you start the journey and you start the process and things are difficult well there's a great saying that you should always be fixed on your outcome but be flexible in the route that you take to get there yeah so you have to change you have to adapt and you have to expect failure along the way i think failures uh needed in a way along the journey and i think i think it's very rarely that in a lifetime that you don't suffer some kind of failure i think it's the failures you learn more for and i think the adaptability on the role the road isn't always straight and the adaptability on the road uh is is crucial when i got to 23 i played a game and and shearer just absolutely bullied me every time a ball came into the box elbow bully dumb and i remember going home saying i've got to i've i can't just get through on my ability now i i've got to do something different and then sat down with the snc coach we had a we had a 12-week program of building me up becoming more robust uh and and and it changed my whole i'd never touched a weight until i was 24 never done snc and try alex just didn't really believe in it he wanted you to be the best footballer out there and all of a sudden you had to adapt to another way of training another way and then then when i went to everton there was another adaptation period there of thinking i was going to spend the rest of my life at one club then going to another club with who had different expectation levels and i had to soften my approach to people probably because again you go back to the education about their standards against your standards which made me an even better person i've got to say a better person more adaptable in my thinking and and warmer in the way that united was just ruthless cut throat not up to it out you go if you're not good enough for this bus you're getting off the bus where everton you had to you had to help people get onto the bus you had to give them a handsome you struggle with that at first uh yes i did but i actually loved the part of actually trying to help people because there was players at united like steve bruce or robo or or even keno to extend they were that person at united that helped drag them along i was dragged the longer times at united by better players than me and they did it in certain ways with with some players you have to be tough on them with others you have to do it in a different way and that's where i started to learn about the man management the connection with someone understanding the person rather than just the guy that played bad on the saturday and that was my biggest learning really at everton was that there was there was players of different levels ages uh family situations were different they live they live further away united we all lived within three miles we were family everton we were traveling from an hour and a half away with different types of problems so i became more flexible in my thinking when i left united so what were you like when you left united and then how would you describe yourself by the time you left everton then what would you say was the i think i had a close mindset at united we were cocooned in an environment of just pure winning pure winning and nothing else mattered in life ruthlessness ruthlessness win uh defeat felt like the end of the world defeat felt like there was a death in the family where everton there was a more open more i developed a more openness to my thinking with people uh united we hated everyone everyone outside the outside our bubble they were the enemy they wanted to they wanted to do us so so i mean this throws up an interesting question that my wife has often challenged me about this when we're doing the podcast of how well-rounded do you think or how important do you think being well-rounded is to being a high performer you know as a person being tolerant of differences and well i think you've got to relate to different people i think that that's that's uh that's that's a necessity because when 20 20 years ago it was all english players all uk-based players all probably had the same type of upbringing middle class upbringing now you've got people from different environments religion gender or whatever and you've got to relate to all those different people and i think that's where the best cultures now are those that can relate to different types of people uh even more than the tactics and the systems that they do on a saturday i think the connection with the person is actually more more vital than actually anything else and to do that you need to have a great understanding of people emotional intelligence and uh so that is a skill too then phil for you now as a coach how much would you weigh as a coach the credibility of speaking about tactics and game plans versus the ability to engage and to be able to speak to different people from different backgrounds what would you weigh the percentage yeah heavily the tactics is a small part of i think tactics in the system is a small part of of the percentage pie chart that you would want as a as a manager manager of people uh you've got to start there you've got to manage 800 people you've got to connect with 800 people plus 800 million people around the world so when you're speaking to the media it doesn't matter what system tactical genius you could be you've got to inspire everybody in your football club you've got an owner that probably lives in singapore in usa that is watching this uh interview that you've got to he's got to say i'm putting all my money and i trust that guy in front of the microphone speaking that's not systems and tactics that's that's connecting and being able to manage people organizations and when you talk about premier league you've got to organize institutions and and that that is more than just a system or a tactic and i think when you look at jurgen klopp uh porch and pochettino and pep the best managers of those that when you watch when you turn on the television you might have never met jurgen klopp and i'm thinking i'd like to play for that guy and i would run through that window for that guy because of his persona his ability to inspire his body language the way that you know at the end of the football game when he walks on that field every single player smiles when he when he's approaching they don't just turn a deaf ear to him and that's what i think management's become a little bit but i think and this isn't um blowing smoke with your backside on this i i think you had a moment like that after that cameroon game where you came out and would and it was the most passionate i'd seen you talking about that the behavior the cameroon players yeah had fallen some way short of what you expected do you know you know the actual the game before was my best moment as a manager was when uh two of my players mothers had died in the same year one one had died it was a birthday on that day and there was another that had died and it was the first ever game she'd played in a major tournament and she'd been to four major tournaments and and in the huddle after the game we didn't speak football we spoke about the pride in in in the mother watching from from above and i'd say that beyond football and stuff that's the connection that i'd say as as my best bit of management is that i knew that them i knew what they were going through carly my goalkeeper had her mum's initials and stuff on her wrist she was a goalkeeper she taped a wrist and put a little message from her mum frank kirby has suffered a lot from the death of the mother years and years ago and that was her mum's birthday that day i actually was thinking of rest enough all that game and then thought no it's a mum's birthday there's gonna be something special happen tonight and that girl has to be on that field and that that was probably against my plan three months before when i said second game of the major tournament poorest team was playing or rest have one of our best players but actually that was a moment where you think um that's a special night for that girl and that that girl has to be on that pitch and she has to go through the emotion of doing something really special for her mother who had been looking down and that for me was was probably my best bit of management in the two years i've been with the with the lionesses because i think it was like that that was they felt special you know because it was more than football yeah and it's an example isn't it of of how much the game has changed you know thinking of two previous guests that we've had on the podcast rio ferdinand who said that when ronaldo's dad passed away here at manchester united rio was just thinking just get back here start training we've got a game of football to win that kind of as you've said a single-minded ruthless desire to win and nothing outside football and man united matters now compare that and rio's reaction admitted on the pod you know i i wasn't emotional enough i was kind of almost robotic in my design football matches compare that with what you're talking about now and the conversations that we had on this podcast with maurizio pochettino who as you know believes in universal energy and when we were with him we all you know he sort of touches you and he holds on to you for a long period of time and you almost uncomfortably so and you're thinking what's this about and then he explains i'm i'm i'm reading you as a person i'm feeding off you i'm understanding you i'm i can work out whether you slept well by by your your demeanor how different is this conversation to the sort of conversations we would have had around the world of football 20 years ago it's fascinating do you know what you know the you you're dead right my my father died he went to australia i've watched my sister i flew out turned the machine off flew straight back went to work the next day because that was that was like that was what was told to do not show your emotions not suff not not have a period of acceptance and i'd say that still to this day i've probably never really had that that ability to actually grieve uh but what sir alex was 20 years ago he was ahead of his time he was he was pochettino 20 years ago we i i went down to used to go down to the cliff training ground and he would come down 14 years of age school of excellence at night he would come in he would know every single parent's name first name first name every single parent's name you call to my dad say how was your qriket at the weekend and and like and when and when you've got every club in the country chasing you your dad's just gone you've got a sign for this guy because he knows that i would play cricket at the weekend and he knows that your mum's called jill and he knows that your ground and grandma i work on the car park at berry football club and i'm like that that goes beyond that goes beyond systems and tactics that that's somebody that's got the most great emotional intelligence that connects with the family and and you know the stories he used to tell us about if you had a problem with a player or if you wanted to sign a player meet the mum first convince the mum that you were going to look after her son and i i used to think at the time it seems like a waste of time that damn just go straight to the player but you see that when you go home and your mum sits you down and you listen to your mum or you listen to your dad you listen to the influence of the family and he had that unbelievable ability of uh you know getting your first my first signing on fee wow you've got to give it to your mum dad no no i want a good bike you've got to give it to your mum and dad you would not be here today if you did if you didn't have your mum and dad straight home it was it was funny because me and my brother my mom they got two signing on fees but the uh that's what we said to can we split ours when we did all right the lamborghini was outside the week after that like i've i know chris casper worked yeah you know at salford and i've heard chris speak about this idea that he said the hairdryer that people attribute to sir alex often wasn't used it was just the sensor he just didn't want to let him down and how he i never got the air dryer no never so how much of it was just that i had that idea that you just didn't want there's an aura there was definitely an aura uh still to this day we we we went out at christmas we we went out for a meal with him and literally uh it was it was after he'd recovered from his uh operation and stuff and uh and we we took him home i took him home in the car and and the lads the lads are in the back seats uh gary and scalzi and gigsy and butter and he was sat in the front seat and literally i was perspiring i was persuaded i was sat next to me in the front seat i'm 43 years of age i'm england women's manager and i literally i'm not stiff i can't turn left or right and he's going turn left turn right turn left don't go this way son literally gets out the car and and we're all just wow thank god for that we got him we got him almost in in safe piece but he just had a great aura about him and i don't think people think of him as being an emotional character they think of him as being a hard guy that got the best out of you but i think from what you're saying he plugged into the emotions of the players and the players families probably long before a lot of other managers do and i think now it almost feels like the norm that you connect on an emotional level yeah with your players he did he he loved he loved the background of a player of where where they came from what's their what's their upbringing was like because i think it told him a lot about the character of what the player was going to be and i suppose it does if you're from a working class background and you've got to fight really hard and you've you know you've played street soccer it tells you that you've got somebody that's not going to give up it sounds like you do the same though the way you were talking about your players you have to and and and it's like to get the best out of your players it's it's so easy just to get a bunch of players into a training ground and say oh just do this do that to actually inspire them when i walked onto a training pitch i wanted to be inspired and and we we say we say now to the coaches that every single time that you are involved or or touch a player a meeting a bloody video analysis or a conversation we call it every session's got to be a masterpiece because that's that's how you inspire the this generation they want to be inspired they see so much they want to be excited and to to inspire someone you've got to be in touch with actually what inspires them uh and that takes a lot of work and you've you've got to do a lot of emotional intelligent work and you've got to understand the player i'm interested to talk about your son because i think that you're in a really interesting position here where your son plays for manchester united at youth level so you are primarily his dad but also you can see his career through the eyes of someone who's done exactly what your son wants to do yeah and as someone who manages young footballers as well it's the balance is amazing how do you manage to inspire your son without making him feel overruled without applying too much pressure for him to achieve what his dad and his uncle did which is play for united i think i think the pressure bit is is that i very rarely go and watch him i very rarely go and watch him i i'll always sit down with him on a sunday and he always likes to show me his clip so i'll go through the game because it's on mutv that is really important to him that i sit down with him on a sunday but in terms of sort of like going to a saturday morning game very rarely go and watch him play is that his decision or yours mine mine because uh when he goes out onto the pitch i want people to be looking at him not me in the stand or or to be singled out so and if you asked him whether he that works for him i think he wants me to go and watch him i really do because his mum goes absolutely everywhere with him he she's she's absolutely obsessed with being there on the sideline when he suffers or when he does well someone to look over to because that's what we had but ultimately uh when he was 11 he was he was a united like satellite and city asked him to go to their satellite i said no straight away over my dead body are you going into that football club and he said i'm going and my dad said the same you can't play for man city and then my brother said phil you've got to let him create his own pathway he just said a little flipping comment so i went home and i said what do you want to do said i want to go to manchester you go and i actually had more fun going watching him play for man city because he wasn't playing for the club that his uncle and his dad played for then i didn't do now actually watching him play for manchester united because every time i see him play i feel the pressure yeah i feel the pressure of what he's thinking and does he i mean i imagine when he goes into carrington or wherever there are pictures of you around the place and pictures of he never talks about i've got to say he never talks about it uh he he never discusses it it was his decision to sign for manchester united uh and and and i do take a step back and and sometimes he'll say watch my clips what do you think and and and i've just been brutally honest with him and and it's the honesty that uh hopefully he'll stand him in good stead i guess in some ways the fact that he has to phil's son has to deal with this challenge at an early age is no bad thing is it it's kind of equipping him for actually what life is like under the spotlight yeah very much i think i think it sounds like he's in a fascinating position because he's got a frame of reference that he knows it's possible to get there he sees the evidence every day but then he he has to learn his own way of that's hard as well though isn't it because his dad and his uncle did it so if he doesn't do it it's funny because when when you obviously in the academy system you get reviews and some of the things that they tell me that he's done surprised me because he comes home he doesn't give much away he goes up to his room and he he's literally just forging his own career but ultimately when when he's he's overcome obstacles he was in spain for three years playing in a totally different type of culture uh tippy-tappy football different way of different way of coaching they come to to england it took him six months and and uh he kept sticking with it he kept sticking with it and he's come come out the other side now a lot tougher mentally you know he's he's he had three years in spain where for the first 12 months he didn't speak the language and he was thrown in at the deep end and that was a real great learning experience for him and uh you know there's many of uh there's many of football that's not going to make it but what what i always say to him is that you know go back to the old elite performance that if you if you keep these values you'll be successful whether that's at manchester united or mk dawn's or as a as a fitness coach whatever you want to be you will be successful if you just keep these values and uh that that's that's the only thing i hold him to you know the you know the the sleep the nutrition the living the life right uh the behavior it's the only thing i can affect him on and it's the only thing that i really sort of like batterymon really is is those types of characteristics because because effort effort is a given so can i see them phil because when jake mentioned in his introduction you've got a fascinating perspective from a range of different cultures and different teams so how universal are some of these values whether it's from your experience in spain or now coaching women's football how how universal are these these values you're describing the the universal thing is is that the the values work in every facet of everything that i've been involved in and even in business even at salford city now you know we're talking about even this hotel you're talking about the the main the main feedback we get at this hotel is that people say hello how are you they know the name of the customer that was the first thing we said know the name of every customer that comes into this building if you've booked a room when they come in you've got to know their name and where they've come from it's a basic thing but it's a big thing and that stood us in good stead studies in good stead throughout our throughout our lives really and uh you know i think i think the go back to what i said at the start it's quite simple sometimes we over complicate things sometimes we look too deep into things when actually high performance is really simple you know you look at the best and biggest athletes the best and biggest companies they keep it really simple they have real strong cultural values and they stick to those values and they measure themselves against those values so when when we we drew up a new set of values at the start of the this season it's the only thing i hold the team accountable for anything outside of that is my fault yeah but the values that and they wrote themselves not me that i wanted them to write them and so so we said at the start because difficult conversations need to be had at times right let's let's do some values you do them they did an unbelievable bit of work took about a month to do they presented them so right so anyone steps out online now we'll just we'll put them up on the wall and we'll hold you accountable to those values everyone on board easy and that makes coaching easy as well because you don't have to get them into line say well you forget didn't tell me that you get the charter out you get the values out and and you hold yourself accountable for the values that you that you want to instill and how how is your relationship with failure how hard are you on yourself do you actively seek failure because it means that you know you're at the at the point of learning the uh the the one thing that i've always uh is a bit i'm not saying it's sad but the when before you go into a game or you go into a coaching game or you'll be going to a big moment my mind thinks about the failure because that's that's the thing that kicks me on to not failing in a way and i always go through a process of thinking if this goes drastically wrong today what the consequences and then you think about like how are you going to handle that but actually i use that as a sort of like motivational tool so i've always i've always sort of like at home we always just say just get up and get on with it that was my dad's attitude get up and get on with it stop moaning stop moping we weren't allowed to mope if we lost the game you would say right i allow you to mope tonight tomorrow morning if you wake up moping you're out the door so we always had to get up and get out some type attitude and then sir alex the minute you came into a dress room after a game you moved on to the next one so you you didn't allow any time for moping and we drew a game with the lionesses nil nil against wales third game in and 25 000 at southampton got back to the hotel and we had two hours at the ground with families and everybody got to the hotel i got them together said right let's move on buzzing in three days time no the girls are no bus no bus this is going to take a long time to get no no new rule really tomorrow morning we wake up anyone moping around i'll get your car home no boss 48 hours i say hours nikita post because it doesn't work like that boss doesn't work like i said you know in our environment does now because tomorrow when you wake up you're wasting time in your life moping everybody's wasting energy wasted energy wasting time we're training in the morning i want to be world class in the morning because in the morning we can't do anything about the whales game ah boss you've got a lot to get you got a lot to learn in women's football so then so then we we we we try to educate them but i love that because you're describing the concept that there's a there's a psychologist called gary klein that talks about this idea of pre-mortems where if you work out what can kill you before you the event you can then work out how you're going to handle the moment when it happens yeah which it sounds very much what you were doing of you were working out what are the consequences of failure here can i live with it and then that way when it is it's almost like i think about the worst thing that can happen or or defeat and think right so i work that hard now it's never going to happen so so it's almost use it as a motivation never to go there yeah never to go there because you know i'm not going to like that feeling at all so you know i'm going to work my damn dad is today to make sure i don't have that feeling and uh have you ever taken your foot off the gas to the point where you go into a situation and you fear you haven't worked hard enough you haven't prepared well enough once once at manchester united we we played a pre champions league qualifier and uh i played all pre-season and uh we went we're playing out in hungary and uh he named the team in the morning's relics and uh i wasn't in it we played wes brown played west brown and i was devastated the only time i've ever been affected by selection and and the only time i've ever not really had that just get on with it phil just get on with it and i remember going back to my room i didn't have my normal pre-match meal i ate more than probably what i i normally would do and then went back to my room i was on the phone all afternoon when i'd normally have a two two and a half hour three hours sleep i watched television came down to pre-match didn't have my normal pretty much meal i've got to say i didn't wear my lucky boxer shorts i i'd gone and away two minutes since the game was brown breaks his ankle i go on to the pitch play the game last minute the game ball comes over missed the ball they scored we lose one nil and i never forget reiki running down the run running down the tunnel just having a go at me and i'll remember just not hearing a word just thinking i deserve it you know what i mean and nobody else really knew about it but i i knew myself and and that was the biggest kick up the backside i've ever run out and a brilliant bit of learning for you as well how old were you at the time i was i was 24-25 43. so that's 20 years ago yeah and you haven't done it since you talk about learning from your mistakes never i meant the ball i never forget the ball coming over and whether i had the third bread roll in my pre-match i couldn't get off my feet but i just skimmed my head guy went through squad and we won the replay we run the second leg but that that was like i never forget wes brown going down i was on the bench i was a bit of a salt con he went down broken ankle and i went oh no i'm in trouble here do i mean because i needed to prepare right mentally i needed to prepare right for me to play well and i knew i hadn't i'd like to just go through a few um periods in your career just to find your biggest bit of learning from those very simple the biggest sort of bit of learning you took away from your time at manchester united i think the biggest thing was is that there is actually life away from manchester united that was the biggest learning because uh it was and still is the biggest part of sort of like our family we're reds we're we're where they lose we lose uh and when i left driving down the the east lance road i was like i thought was it that was in the world and then i realized actually there is another world out there and actually it made me a better person and it made me more rounded and it made me grow up more and more mature because dear me these sir alex just just put a blanket around you and just protected you uh and i think if i enter left united i wouldn't have gone to uh valencia if i hadn't gone eventually united i want to talk to the women's job because i think it just it just it was like if i grew going to everton yeah oh dear me the biggest bit of learning almost at united was when you left left yeah wow definitely and then when you went in when you went into everton what was the biggest learning there i was on the phone with john ruddy the wolves keeper this year and he said i love that you've got phil on i'd love to know when he decided to get into management because when he was at everton with us it was like he was already a manager first in last out he'll be perfect for your podcast so obviously you did impact those players he still remembers your dedication the biggest influence of david moyes david moyes was like here this is your dressing room that this this is what i want you to do and third game in uh he made me captain and i remember please don't make me captain like david ware was there alan stubbs had just qualified for the champions league and he made me captain i was i went back no it's too early just let me have 12 months like you're captain straight away and the dressing room was like teacher's pet moyes little boy oh he's coming here he's in his little grass and all this business and and he was firm i've come in here and i'm gonna change something and you're gonna be the one that polices that dress room and drives that dressing room and his belief in me was incredible from the minute i walked in or i say the minute that actually he asked my father for me to sign then from even to this day his belief in me is has been unbreakable from the time he took me to united as a coach uh first day there i literally thought i was just going to be bibs and concert you take you take the you take the walmart you take the possession the trusty giving me was was probably that like no other culture has given me and i think i think the that that was massive for me i think biggest learning from the time at valencia i think the biggest learning was was was how to treat people i worked for four different managers that year how to treat people that wasn't part of your inner circle how to make them feel how to make them part of your group uh and actually to be honest with people that's the biggest learning from valencia be honest with people even if it's bad news they'll have more respect for you than than just to just stringing them along uh and that was my biggest learning because it was the best probably learning period of my career uh in terms of salt like the management side because it was it was a time when i was assistants at united assistant at valencia then i took valencia for two games and then my whole life changed because i thought i could never be assistant ever again i've i've i've been in a dressing room when they all looked at me and i loved it and i wanted to be on that touchline being the man and i actually thought that is where i want to be not behind the man so so that was my biggest thing but actually the honesty in the conversations uh and how to integrate a group of staff that probably aren't your culture aren't your language and aren't part of uranus sanctum is probably the biggest thing that i learned and finally with the lionesses lionesses the the and and i was speaking to uh somebody last night about the black lives movement at this moment in time is that until you've lived in the shoes you never know how they're going to feel and i went into the women's job and bet and my sister my sister used to say all this and that the other and used to say get on with it you'll be all right oh you're on the telly last week you'd be all right yeah and then when you're actually living in the shoes of a female athlete you think this is not right the the prejudice the the homophobia the the sexism the the the lack of equality every single day is a fight every single day you think you're winning then you take us two steps back every single day you you fight you fight like you possibly can to make things better for a group of girls that are the most unbelievable group of people i've ever i've ever been involved in all my life and some days you win some days you lose and it it's it's until you hear the obstacles the and like say when i was a footballer my sister used to come home from these camps and she used to go to training on a sunday morning in east grinstead three hours there three hours back oh well done how are you doing good session but actually you look back now thinking how ignorant ignorant was me and my brother to like actually what she was going through why didn't we put a driver on for you know why do we put a dry run for why why don't we why don't we why don't we fund fund something a little bit better back then that they're now getting now but because you're not in the shoes of that person because you're not in the shoes of a female you just never know you just never know and and i can actually sort of like relate now to people saying oh we've made great strides oh we're doing okay well actually there's still still my girls are fighting every single day now we were winning for two years we were beginning to break down barriers i think we've took a massive step back now and people have forgot female sport no netball no hockey no female sport played for the last three to four months not even on the agenda of any boardroom in any sport in any industry correct and i'm like to change that you're gonna have to change at the top you have to change at the top you have to get people you have to get females you have to uh black people on the boards before it starts infiltrating down so i'm going on it from a point of doing that it's been the biggest learning experience ever when it went in my first camp normally when you you get a new new player and you sing a song and everyone films it they stand up there and they speak about their career their life their obstacles and literally there was one girl abby mcmanus i never forget she stood up there she told the journey i had tears in my eyes tears in my eyes about the journeys the the fact that she was like she was a kit lady then she got changed and went out onto the pitch then came back in and washed everyone's kit and i was like that didn't happen i mean but we were ignorant to all that because i actually probably didn't care because our lives were okay so so now when obviously i'm coming to the end of my time with the lioness i'm thinking i'm not finished with promoting female sports uh women's athletes and and uh because ultimately until you've lived in the arena uh with with the most amazing set of girls who who all they want to do is do the best thing they possibly can for the coach for the organization uh it's been like a breath of fresh air and people say now oh you're gonna jump back into the men's game no no actually that's not a foregone conclusion because if you've coached that type of player by lord it's actually it's probably better than coaching a male player at times because you know they listen they learn they want to get better and their attitudes are phenomenal phenomenal attitudes and and that for me is more rewarding than than the money that you get at the end of the month for for your paycheck it's the reward of actually having effect on people's lives i think's been really special and uh it's been good love that what a nice answer yeah right damien sophie we normally do a quick fire round at the end so what the three non-negotiable behaviors that you and the people around you must buy into non-negotia hard work uh enjoyment uh and please and thank yous the little things that make the big differences what advice would you give to a teenage phil just starting out enjoying it a bit enjoy it a bit more just relax a bit have you learned that now yeah enjoy it a bit more uh that there is more to life than just obviously uh playing football for managed united or being a professional footballer say to my son now go get a dual career my my players with england don't play for england unless they've got a dual career it's it's that's one of the non-negotiables in women's football and i think it's fantastic to have something else alongside the thing you're doing i think that's what i would say at the start and brian robson came up to me when i was really young and and he said he said you need to go out a little bit more you need to relax and enjoy yourself a bit more and and i took it totally the wrong way as if to say i thought he was calling me boring i thought he was saying that i need to go out there and drink but actually what he was saying is that i was i was too much and i needed something else to take my mind off it to help me relax to to help me play better and probably the one bit of advice from my hero that i probably never adhered to till i was about 28. lovely are you happy yeah i was happy how important is legacy to you uh i think it's important i think it's important whenever you leave a job you want to you want to leave something behind that will make people think you know what he improved us he was a good coach or not necessarily a good coach but he was a good person don't if you've watched the test at this moment in time the test the cricket one with justin lang we talked about being good people first and and you can relate to that when when i've played or been managed by by great cultures the first thing i think of moyes what a guy alex ferguson damn he he fought me when my dad died he was there when my grandma you know he came to my wedding the other stuff is secondary being a good person is the most important thing and what's your one golden rule for people to live a high performance life fill one golden rule i think you've got to commit then you've got to commit to to to doing the absolute best you can every single minute of every day i think that that for me is is the one thing is that you you've got to do everything that you do every single minute of every single day to the best of your ability and and if you do that and i think you're not going to go wrong listen thank you so much for being on the back we've really enjoyed it have you seen hamilton in the west end yet brilliant brilliant west end play and there's a great song about children called you'll blow us all away yeah and it's about like hoping that your kids do well and i think the standout one of the standout things for me is that it's so interesting you came from a family where both you and your brother and tracy all ended up living and competing in a high performance life and whatever it was that your mum and your dad did which we've spoken about um it absolutely worked and i think there'll be a lot of people listening to this who will um have their kids in the gym at 5 30 in the morning absolutely but thank you so much for taking the time to join us on high performance good good thank you

Channel: The High Performance Podcast

Views: 63,143

Rating: 4.872951 out of 5

Keywords: Football, Podcast, The High Performance Podcast, Jake Humphrey, Damian Hughes, Liquid thinker, Phil Neville, Gary Neville, Man Utd, Manchester United, Red Devils, Old Trafford, Everton, Ronaldo, Catona, Premier League, Eric Cantona

Id: M5tdtmFBmVY

Length: 62min 9sec (3729 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 25 2020