What led to Leicester City FC’s Premier League 2016 success? Was it the coach? The star players? The investment made on the team? The owners’ foresight to greatness? In soccer, every year teams go through either an adjourning process or a reforming process, it all depends on the success rate, the age of players or finances, ultimately retirement, buying or selling players and change of coach/manager. According to Tuckman’s Model “Fight Right” (1965,1977), this process happens after the forming, storming, norming and performing stages, in other words, the season’s goals, roles and norms are already defined. Leicester City FC was promoted (2014) to the Premier League two years before the monumental achievement in 2016. The recently promoted team achieved the safety objective (goal) of maintenance in the highest UK soccer division the following year (2015). For the 2016 season, the goal defined was again, the maintenance in the league. Their goal was simple, to not be demoted to the Championship (second UK division). Roles were defined, all staff, players, captains, starters and benched players. Norms were applied trough training sessions. It was clear, they knew what they had to do to perform with success and reach their maintenance goal in the division. What changed? The goal was clear, players coach and staff understood it. This team had no star players, the whole team was worth 32 million, which in this era one player is sold for three times that amount, yes, one player. Nothing special about this team until the season started, the goal quickly elevated, early in the season the safety of maintenance in the league was achieved and they were in first place.
What happened? Sometimes in history, a group of individuals becomes a real team. Claudio Ranieri, the coach had found the formula to success, the results were amazing as they were driven by a solid structure that was able to solve problems as injuries happened by emphasizing trust to the bench players that had to step up to the game. I cannot take the credit from the coach, he was able to take the best from his players through motivations such as pizza for a clean sheet (not allowing any goal) in the games throughout the season and other psychological factors at an individual and a team level. He was able to take advantage and use every single player’s ability resulting in the unification of a group of individuals and making them a dream team.
Competent team players arouse and become team leaders in all sectors of the field, stars were born in the midst of the collaborative climate due to the mutual help amongst players in the field and the dynamic communication between players and fans. Standards of excellence in performance were higher as the opponents’ qualities were stronger. External support and recognition increased, fans were filling up stadiums and believed more and more in the title that was nothing but a dream, a mirage, a thought in the subconscious mind at the beginning of the season. Money started flowing, players contracts, bonuses, individuals and team achievements increased as well as the interest from shark clubs. Big clubs were now scouting these newly found stars, the team leaders that modeled this work ethic and support throughout the season (Hackman, 2012, Larson & LaFasto, 1989).
Leicester City FC won the 2016 Premier League title, against all odds and bet, against the financial power of bigger clubs and against all belief, they won. AMAZING!!! Resulting in team value and popularity blowing out the roof, players were sold, new signings were made to the club and great motivation and expectation for next season. Team reforming process started again. Goals are higher now because they are the standing champions, but they did not win the following year and the coach was fired. What a huge upset, totally unexpected, team and leadership efficiency was almost perfect. Did Ranieri lose the formula for success? Was the few players that were sold the true leaders and motivators of this team? Greatness was born, or not? What led to the Leicester City FC Premier League 2016 success? Tell me. I still can’t figure it out.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Chapter 14, Team Leadership, p.363-396.
Pennsylvania State University. (2018). Lesson 9: Team Leadership, Psych 485.
https://believeperform.com/news/the-success-of-leicester-city-fc/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36028733
Hi Paulo,
I really enjoyed reading your post, it turned out to be a surprise for me as I am not very informed about soccer, as a matter of fact I had never heard of this team before.
As I was reading of how they were surprisingly able to get to the top, I was very excited and I was expecting a greater outcome. Then you mentioned that they sold some of their important players, I assume because they became more valuable due to their performance and how they contributed for the team to achieve the victory. Selling these players were probably the number one mistake that they have made, and probably was the reason why they ended up loosing so bad that even the coach was fired. In my country there is a popular saying “don’t make any changes If the team is winning”.
According to our lesson after a performance is achieved and the team changes there is a need for reforming. In this case we can clearly see that some variables makes a huge difference, but like you said after so many important changes it is very hard to figure it out what was the main cause of that drastic change. It is possible that maybe by changing just one key player they would have come down to the same results, or maybe the new team would have win if they were trained by a new coach.
The Situational approach would have been of a great value in this case. After changing some of the team members the coach would have a beneficial outcome, by sorting out the nature of the teams new situation, asking questions such as: Are the new members of the team sufficiently skilled to accomplish the goal? Are they motivated enough to win the next championship? Questions like that would have helped the coach to understand at what level the new team was and also make it possible for him to develop a plan according to the teams level. Well there are so many factors that could have implicated the downfall of a rising team, but at this moment I hope that they will find their way back to success with their new coach, then try to stick together as a team at least until they develop a solid experience playing against the soccer giants.
Best regards,
Lillian Rego.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Chapter 14, Team Leadership, p.363-396.
Pennsylvania State University. (2018). Lesson 9: Team Leadership, Psych 485.