One part of Gilbert Enoka’s “no dickheads” policy fundamental to bringing success to the All Blacks was the fact it was policed by the players themselves.
It is all well and good a mental coach coming up with innovative ideas, but those best-laid plans can easily go awry if that team’s players are not on board.
When Ineos took the reins at Manchester United, a huge part of its manifesto centred around changing the club’s culture to one focused on harmonising the collective.
A vibe revolution
Last season, the collective morale hit rock bottom. The objective, however, remained the same. Just a few months later, the mood is shifting.
“Character is really important,” Leny Yoro told The i Paper in an interview at United’s Carrington training base.
“The club is doing well with this, to take only people who can bring good things. We don’t want any bad things. It’s really important to be focused on the team.
“We don’t do any drama. Just speak with everyone, have a good relationship. This is the best for the team. We cannot build something with bad energy or bad atmosphere, or bad characters.”
Forget the past
It is a message everyone at the club is really trying to double down on.
Director of football Jason Wilcox this week insisted he and Ruben Amorim are working hard to identify selfless, hard-working transfer targets rather than trying to put “the Harlem Globetrotters” together.
At each opportunity, even when pushed and probed into a headline-grabbing soundbite in response to Cristiano Ronaldo’s recent criticisms, Amorim, calmly and astutely, simply rebutted: “we must forget the past”.
Gone are those players who brought the drama, namely Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford.
In their place have come young, hungry players willing to fit into this new team ethos.
Matheus Cunha has become surprisingly close to Luke Shaw already, Benjamin Sesko to Diogo Dalot.
Yoro has his own bestie. And just like the others, it doesn’t rely on nationality, language or previous club connections commonplace at top clubs – this is the new United way.
“I stay more with Kobbie [Mainoo], also Amad [Diallo], [Bryan] Mbeumo, Patrick Dorgu, Ayden [Heaven], the young guys,” Yoro says.
“I have a really good relationship with Cunha, Shaw, Bruno [Fernandes], everyone. The good thing is that there is no group of friends in the team. This is just one group. This is best for the team not to have any drama.
“Kobbie sometimes shows me places in Manchester. He’s a top guy. We go on holiday together. It’s important to have this type of relationship.”
Feel-good inc
A recent revival on the pitch has only added to the feel-good factor.
Yoro admits last season’s year to forget – finishing 15th is not what the £50m defender signed up for – became all too “emotional” for everyone.
A fresh start, with like-minded hungry new arrivals ready to bring lasting change, as a unit, was needed.
Those closest to the project could see what Ineos was trying to do and retained faith that the misery etched on Yoro and his team-mates in Bilbao last May would, as Amorim would put it, quickly become a thing of the past.
Beating Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday in a re-run of that Europa League final would go a long way to writing more wrongs, while continuing to change the minds of United’s dwindling number of naysayers.
“I never felt regret,” Yoro adds when asked about signing for United. “I knew the project before I came.
“We know we can do better than the last game, but we’re still in good momentum. We’re the same team [who lost to Tottenham] but with a different spirit.”
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