<https://s.mj.run/ic8mjw5os7U> <https://s.mj.run/paGKJehpz3Y> <https://s.mj.run/HxOdkE5rq0w> <https://s.mj.run/8ewP-og3Nwo> In this reading, the era of the all-powerful manager – the patriarchal visionary who oversaw everything from tactics to contract negotiations to the temperature of the away showers – was gone, if it ever really existed. Football’s centre of gravity had shifted away from the manager’s office towards the sporting director, the medical department, the boardroom and the fund markets. And so the game’s enduring fixation on managers – talking about them, listening to them, hiring and sacking them – was an outdated affectation, a fundamental misunderstanding of how the game itself functioned. Austere and exhaustive academic articles were commissioned on the subject. Long, boring data-heavy books were written and occasionally even purchased. --chaos 45 --style raw --stylize 0 --iw 2